Thursday 24 February 2022

28 MORAL FABLES FROM SANSKRIT LITERATURE-TALE 24

 


The story of the Musical Donkey

In a certain town there lived a donkey by name Uddhatha.   After having carried laundry packages always in day time, and wandered anywhere in the night as per its wish.  Being afraid of caught by others, it returned to his master’s (a washerman’s) home at the early morning.  Then the washerman tied it.  Once upon a time, during the night session, when the donkey Uddhatha roamed in a certain field, accidentally got the friendship with a jackal.  Both of them entered in to hedge of cucumber-beds they ate as per their wishes and while eating the cucumber, they broke the hedge of the cucumber-beds.  At once, the donkey asked the jackal thus: Oh! My dear friend! This is very nice night-time.  I wish to sing a song.  Tell me what tune is to be applied.  Immediately, the jackal told thus: Don’t, please don’t do. It will make a trouble, because thieves are here.  Maintain silence, because, the sleepy and sneezer should not be a thief, the diseased should not eat much if they want to live for long time.  Moreover, your voice is like a blast on a conch-shell bereft of sweetness.  If you continue, the farmers and the securities of the field will wake up and imprison or kill both of us.  Be quite and eat.  On hearing this, the donkey told thus:  You don’t know about the music because you are living in the forest.  Then the jackal refused the donkey thus: of course, I don’t know the music but anyway you voice is horrible.  Then the angry donkey started to sing.

At this juncture, the farmers who slept, on hearing the intolerable cry of the donkey, immediately woke up, rushed towards the place from where the noise was produced.  On seeing the donkey there, thy beat it with clubs and sticks.  Then the jackal told the donkey thus: Oh! Dear friend! Though already I warned, without considering me and my words, now you are experiencing the misery.

Moral of the story:

“Yasya naasthi svayam prajnaa mithroktham na karothi yah l

  Sa eva nidhanam yaathi yathaa uddhatha raasabhah ll

He who neither has his own presence of mind nor fails to respond the words of friends, certainly attains his own end just like the donkey fails to response the caution of his friend jackal. 

(This story is taken from the titled ApareekshithaKaarakam- the 5th volume of the book PanchaThanthram which has five volumes viz., MitraBedhah, MitraLaabhah, Kaakolookeeyam, Labdhapranaasam and AparikshitaKaarakam written by Vishnu Sarma was an Indian scholar.  The exact period of the composition of the Panchatantra is uncertain, and estimates vary from 1200 BCE to 300 CE.

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