The Lion and the Bull’s Trust in Him
Reading edition
A Jackal having seen that a Lion and a Bull are friendly, the Jackal went and asked the Bull, “Friend, how am I also to be friendly with you two?” Concerning it the Bull said, “You cannot.”
The Jackal being angry with the Bull because of it, thinking, “I must break the friendship of the Bull and the Lion,” went one day, and said to the Lion, “O Lord, Your Majesty, your friend the Bull said at my hand regarding you, ‘However much ability of that Lion there should be to do things, [after] taking and sifting out my share of it, should it be taken away the Lion will be destroyed.’ ”
After that, the Jackal, having gone again near the Bull, said, “Anē! Friend, the Lion says of you, ‘However much prowess and might of that one’s there should be, should I once make the Lion’s roar the other animals die, putting that one [out of consideration].’ ”
Thereupon the Bull having said, “When we have remained on good terms such a time, if he says that of me I also am willing to fight with him.”
Having come near the Lion he said, “We two remained on good terms such a time. Because of [what you have said], to-day we must die.”
After that, having said these false slanders and pushed the quarrel, the Jackal who had caused them to be killed having come after these two died, and having said, “He was unable through haughtiness to take me as his friend; how about it now?” ate the mouth from that one and the mouth from this one. While eating them, having summoned still [other] Jackals, and said, “I did such a clever deed; what did ye?” he laughed. “If ye also want, eat ye,” he said.
Central Province.
In the Jātaka story No. 349 (vol. iii, p. 100), a jackal in order to taste their flesh, set a friendly lion and bull at variance. “He said, ‘This is the way he speaks of you,’ and thus dividing them one from another, he soon brought about a quarrel and reduced them to a dying condition.” When a King came to see them, “the jackal highly delighted was eating, now the flesh of the lion, and now that of the bull.” This story, being included in the Bharaḥat carvings must be of earlier date than 250 B.C.
In the Hitōpadēśa, as the lion was afraid of the bellowing of a bull that was abandoned on a journey, two jackals persuaded the bull to appear before the lion, which became friendly with it. Afterwards the jackals, determining to get the bull destroyed as it induced the lion to curtail their supply of meat, informed both the lion and bull that the other intended to kill it. When the bull approached the lion they had a long fight in which the lion was victorious. The same story is given in the Kathā Sarit Sāgara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 27. In Le Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, p. 30, the story is nearly the same.
In Sagas from the Far East, p. 192, a lioness before dying advised her cub and a calf she had reared to live together in peace. A fox which became jealous of the calf told it and the young lion false tales of their mutual intentions, and when they met they killed each other.
In A. von Schiefner’s Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 325, the calumniator was a jackal. In the same work, p. 328, there is a variant in which the friendly animals were a lion and tiger which a jackal set at variance. When about to attack each other they spoke, ascertained that the whole quarrel was due to the jackal’s falsehoods, and the lion thereupon killed it. This story is given in Cinq Cents Contes et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, pp. 233 and 425; in the latter example a lion and bull killed each other.
In Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest (Skeat), p. 30, a mouse-deer in the same way induced two bulls to fight, and when one was killed the deer feasted on the flesh, after frightening away a tiger that wanted to share it with him.