65
between the crows and the owls from time immemorial; who will go to them? This must be accomplished by policy; policy is said to be the very foundation of empires." When the king of the crows heard that, he said to Chirajívin,— " You are old; tell me if you know, what was originally the cause of the war between the crows and the owls. You shall state your policy afterwards." When Chirajívin heard this, he answered, " It is all due to an inconsiderate utterance. Have you never beard the story of the donkey?"
Story of the ass in the panther's skin.*[1]:— A certain washerman had a thiadonkey; so, in order to make it fat, he used to cover it with the skin of a panther and let it loose to feed in his neighbour's corn. While it was eating the corn, people were afraid to drive it away, thinking that it was a panther. One day a cultivator, who had a bow in his hand, saw it. He thought it was a panther, and through fear bending down, and making himself humpbacked, he proceeded to creep away, with his body covered with a rug. When the donkey saw him going away in this style, he thought he was another donkey, and being primed with corn, he uttered aloud his own asinine bray. Then the cultivator came to the conclusion that it was a donkey, and returning, killed with an arrow the foolish animal, which had made an enemy with its own voice. " In the same way our feud with the crows is due to an inconsiderate utterance."
How the crow dissuaded the birds from choosing the owl king.†[2] For once upon a time the birds were without a king. They all assembled together, and bringing an umbrella and a chowrie, were proceeding to anoint the owl king of the birds. In the meanwhile a crow, flying in
- ↑ * Benfey remarks that this fable was Known to Plato; Cratylus, 411, A, (but the passage might refer to some story of Bacchus personating Hercules, as in the Ranæ), and he concludes that the fable came from Greece to India. He compares Æsop, (Furia, 141, Coraes, 113,) Lucianus, Piscator, 32, Erasmus, "Asinus apud Cumanos," Robert, Fables Inéditos, I, 360. (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 463.) I cannot find the fable in Phædrus or Babrius. The skin is that of a tiger in Benfey's translation, and also in Johnson's translation of the Hitopadeśa, p. 74 in the original (Johnson's edition). See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 119. It is No. 189 in Fausböll's edition of the Játakas, and will be found translated in Rhys Davids' Introduction to his Buddhist Birth Stories, p. v.
- ↑ † Benfey compares Grimm's Märchen, Vol. III, 246, where parallels to story No. 171 are given; Thousand and one Nights (Weil, III, 923). In a fable of Æsop's the birds choose a peacock king. (Æsop, Furia, 183, Coraes, 53). (Benfey, Vol. I, p. 347.) See also Liebrecht, Zur Volkskunde, p. 110, Weckenstedt's Wendische Märchen, p. 424, De Gubernatis, Zoological Mythology, Vol. II, p. 206. See also p. 246 for an apologue in which the owl prevents the crow's being made king. See also Rhys Davids' Buddhist Birth Stories, p. 292.
