Panchatantra: The Jackal Who Killed no Elephants

From The Panchatantra of Vishnu Sharma, translated by Arthur W. Ryder (1925).

The Jackal Who Killed no Elephants

[inside The Potter Militant.]

In a part of a forest lived a lion and his wife. One day the lioness gave birth to twins. And the lion killed deer and things every day, and gave them to the lioness.

But one day as he ranged the forest, he had met nothing when the blessèd sun sank to his setting. As he trotted home, he found a baby jackal on the trail. And he pitied it because it was a baby. So he held it between his teeth and carefully carried it home, giving it to the lioness alive.

Then the lioness said: "Have you brought any food, sweetheart?" And he answered: *My dear, I didn't find a thing today except this jackal cub. Even him I did not kill, for I thought: 'He is a creature much like us, and a baby at that.' You know the proverb:

Never strike a hermit mild,

Woman, clergyman, or child:

Give your life, if needs you must -

Do not falsify their trust.

"Now suppose you eat him, and feel better. In the morning I will bring something else."

"Sweetheart," said she, "you did not kill him because you thought: 'He is a baby.' So how can I destroy him for my belly's sake? You know the verse of Scripture:

No man may plead the death-god's might

For doing wrong, or shirking right.

So he shall be my third son."

After this reply, she gave him her own milk and made him very fat. So the three cubs spent their babyhood in the same business and amusements, not recognizing any difference in parentage.

Now one day a wild elephant came wandering into that forest. The two lion-cubs, when they saw him, wrathfully started for him, eager to kill. But the jackal-cub said: "Brothers, that is an elephant, an enemy of your race. Don't go near him." With this he ran home. And the other two, seeing their elder brother routed, felt their pluck ooze away. The well-known proverb is right:

One bold and plucky fighter

Will give an army pluck:

One broken, routed blighter

Diffuses evil luck.

And, indeed,

This is the very reason why

Kings look for sturdy fighters,

Heroic, dauntless, stone-wall men,

And shun the cowardly blighters.

Later the twin brothers went home, and humorously told their parents how their elder brother had behaved. "Why, you know," said they, "the minute he saw him, he couldn't get far enough quick enough."

When the jackal heard this, wrath entered his spirit. His blossom-lip quivered, his eyes grew red, and a frown made two deep wrinkles on his brow. And he spoke harshly, scolding the twins.

Then the lioness took him aside and admonished him: "You must never, never speak so, my dear. They are your brothers."

But her patient pleading filled him with greater anger, and he burst upon her, too: "Do you think me their inferior in courage or beauty or science or application or skill? What right have they to ridicule me? I am certainly going to kill them." 

When she heard this outburst, the lioness laughed quietly - for she did not wish him to die - and said:

"Handsome you are, and valorous;

You have a scholar's brain:

But in your family, my boy,

No elephants are slain.

Now listen carefully, my dear. Your mother was a jackal, and I fattened you with my own milk because I pitied you. Now while my twins are babies and do not know you for a jackal, hurry away and join your own people. If not, they will fight you, and you will tread the path of death." When the jackal heard this, he was terror stricken, and softly stole away to join his own people.