Animal Stories Used for Teaching

Surprisingly one of India’s most influential contributions to world literature, is the Panchatantra which is contains five animal fables that were written between the third and fifth centuries. Although the original compiler or author is unknown, an Arabic translation from about 750 AD gives the credit to a Hindu man named Bidpai. The three stories that will be looked at are “The Foolish Friend”, “the Gold-Giving Snake,” and “The Brahman’s Wife and the Mongoose.”

The first story, “The Foolish Friend” is about a king and a monkey. Finding a monkey, the king keeps him for a pet, feeds him, and always keeps him by his side. Pleasantly strolling through his garden, the king tells the monkey to let nothing disturb him, and then the king takes a nap. While he is sleeping, a bee tries to sting him and the monkey strikes it with a sword, but accidently kills the king! The moral of the story is to not choose a fool for a friend, for it is better to have a clever enemy than a foolish friend.

“The Gold-Giving Snake” is about a farmer who feeds a snake every day and every day the snake gives him a gold coin. Telling his son to feed the snake while he travels into town, the farmer leaves, and his son tries to kill the snake, so he can steal the gold, but the snake bites him and he dies. Quickly burying his son, the farmer exclaims that justice has been done and goes out to feed the snake, but the snake says that she will no longer give him gold because he is greedy. In this fable the main moral is greed leads to loss because the farmer was so greedy he didn’t even grieve for his son, and his son was greedy because he struck the snake and lost his life, trying to find more gold.

The last story is “The Brahman’s Wife and the Mongoose.” Giving birth to a son, the wife also gave birth to a mongoose. One morning the wife told her husband that she was going fetch water, and that she needed him to watch their sons because she did not trust the mongoose. After she left, the husband ignored her and left to collect alms leaving the house empty. Inside the house a snake crawled out of a hole and was sneaking up on the baby when the mongoose killed it. Quickly running to find his mother and tell her how he saved his brother, the mongoose went outside. The mother, seeing the blood splattered mongoose, feared he had killed her child, and she hit him with her bucket, killing him. Rushing into the house the wife realized their baby was safe and the mongoose had saved him. While the wife was crying over the mongoose, the husband returned and the wife said, “See here you greedy one, because you let greed rule you instead of doing what I told you to, you now must taste the fruit of your own son’s death.” The themes in this fable include greed and trust.

Interestingly these fables were used to educate sons of royalty. Some of the main points stressed in these stories are do not be greedy, along with do not be foolish, which are very good instructions for princes learning to be wise rulers. In all the fables animals are characters, which is an entertaining way to present morals and stories used for teaching.