Note 4 — Tale II. (continued 2)

The Indian world of story abounds in tales in which the low notion of expecting some advantage to accrue in this life is proposed as the object and reward of good actions. Instances will doubtless occur to the reader. The Pantcha-Tantra Collection contains one in which an elephant is caught by a Khan out hunting, by being driven into a deep dyke. He asks advice of a Brahman who passes that way, as to how he is to extricate himself. “Now is the time,” answers the Brahman, “to recall if you have ever done good to any one, and if so to call him to your aid.” The elephant thereupon recalls that he once delivered a number of rats whom a Khan had hunted and caught and shut up in earthen jars by lifting the earthen jars with his trunk and gently breaking them. He accordingly invokes the aid of these rats, who come and gnaw away at the earth surrounding the dyke, till they have made so easy a slope of it that the elephant can walk out.