At that time there was living, in a pond in the Himālaya mountains, a tortoise. Two young haŋsas (i.e. wild ducks[1]) who came to feed there, made friends with him. And one day, when they had become very intimate with him, they said to the tortoise —
"Friend tortoise! the place where we live, at the Golden Cave on Mount Beautiful in the Himālaya country, is a delightful spot. Will you come there with us?"
"But how can I get there?"
"We can take you, if you can only hold your tongue, and will say nothing to anybody."[2]
"O! that I can do. Take me with you."
"That's right," said they. And making the tortoise bite hold of a stick, they themselves took the two ends in their teeth, and flew up into the air.[3]
Seeing him thus carried by the haŋsas, some villagers called out, "Two wild ducks are carrying a tortoise along on a stick!" Whereupon the tortoise wanted to say, "If my friends choose to carry me, what is that to you, you wretched slaves!" So just as the swift flight of the wild ducks had brought him over the king's palace in the city of Benāres, he let go of the stick he was biting, and falling in the open courtyard, split in two! And there arose a universal cry, "A tortoise has fallen in the open courtyard, and has split in two!"
- ↑ Pronounced hangsa, often rendered swan, a favourite bird in Indian tales, and constantly represented in Buddhist carvings. It is the original Golden Goose. See below, p. 294, and Jātaka No. 136.
- ↑ There is an old story of a Fellow of Magdalen College, Oxford, who inherited a family living. He went in great trouble to Dr. Routh, the Head of his College, saying that he doubted whether he could hold, at the same time, the Living and the Fellowship. "You can hold anything," was the reply, "if you can only hold your tongue." And he held all three.
- ↑ In the Vinīla Jātaka (No. 160) they similarly carry a crow to the Himālaya mountains.
