Reading Notes: The Jataka Tales of India, Part B

Image of a tusked Asian elephant in India. Source: Wikipedia

The Elephant Girly Face

• Girly face - name of an elephant; named after being so kind and gentle
• this elephant never hurt anyone
• robbers came to the area and sat on the ground where Girly Face was sleeping; they talked and woke up the elephant; they talked of breaking into a house; they would kill anyone who would wake up; they said a robber shouldn't be afraid to kill and they have to be cruel and have no pity. A robber can never be good.
• Girly face heard all of this and thought that these men are teaching her how to act
• the next day, the elephant killed the keeper who arrived to feed him by slamming him to the ground; another keeper came to see what was going on and he ended up killing him too
• for several days Girly face was like this an no one wanted to come near her. However, they still left food for her
• The King found out about the behavior of the elephant and sent one of his wise men to find out what is wrong with the elephant.
• he looked at the elephant thoroughly and found that there was nothing the matter
• he figured that the elephant must have heard someone talking bad things. He asked the keeper this and the keeper did say that the bad men (robbers) were there a few days ago
• The wise man said that sending good men to the elephant for him to hear the good talk would make the elephant think that he is good again
• the King sent good men to say good things like it is wrong to hurt people, it is wrong to kill, being gentle and kind is good.
• after hearing this, the elephant, thought the men are teaching him to be gentle and good. From this point onwards, the elephant was tame and a good elephant

The Crab and the Crane

• Pond low on water
• the crane takes one fish and shows it the other pond that it will take all of the fish to so that they don't die in the pond that is low on water
• the fish wants to tell all his friends that the new pond is real, and not a game that the crane is playing to trick them and eat the fish
• the fish tells his friends and one by one the crane takes them; however, he takes them into the woods, not the pond
• the crane eats all of the fish
• there is one crab and the crane offers to take it to the pond where all of the fish supposedly went; carrying it on its back
• the crane was hungry and ignored the fact that the crab would be holding onto him with his claw
• when they got there, there was no pond; he threatened that if the crab let go of his neck, he would be eaten
• the crab snapped off the neck of the crane and it laid there, to dry with the fish bones