The Panchatantra (Purnabhadra's Recension of 1199 CE)/Book 3/The Snake Who Paid Cash
THE SNAKE WHO PAID CASH
There was once a Brahman in a certain place. His time was wholly spent in unproductive farming.
Now one day, toward the end of summer, the heat was too much for him, and he dozed in the shade of a tree in the middle of his field. Not far away he saw, peering over an ant-hill, a terrifying snake that thrust forward a great, swelling hood. And he reflected: "Surely, this is the guardian deity of the field, and I never paid him honor. That is why my farm-work is unproductive. I will pay him honor."
Thereupon he begged milk from somebody, put it in a saucer, went to the ant-hill, and said: "O guardian of the field! All this long time I did not know that you were living here. Therefore I paid you no honor. From now on, please be gracious to me." With this he presented the milk and went home.
Now when he came back in the morning and looked about, he found a gold dinar in the saucer. So he went there every day alone, and offered milk, receiving a dinar each time. One day, however, the Brahman went to town, instructing his son to carry milk to the ant-hill. And the boy took the milk there, set it down, and went home again.
The next day he went there, found a single dinar, and thought: "Surely, this ant-hill is full of dinars. I will kill that fellow and get them all." With this purpose, while offering milk the next day, the Brahman's boy struck the snake on the head with a cudgel. Yet somehow—for fate willed it so—the snake did not die. Instead, he furiously struck the boy with his sharp fangs to such effect that the boy died at once. And the relatives cremated him on a woodpile near the field.
On the second day the father returned. And learning from his relatives the cause of his son's death, he found the facts as stated. And he said:
Be generous to all that lives;
Receive the needy guest:
If not, your own life fades away
Like swans from lotus nest.
"How was that?" asked the men. And the Brahman told the story of