First Indian Epics Blog

The Three Fishes: Three Fish Swimming in the Sea,  Wikipedia This is the tragic story of Very-Thoughtful, Thoughtful, and Thoughtless, three fish living in a river in a remote corner of the world. The names and dates have been changed out of respect for the dead. One day, three sibling fish were swimming and thriving in a remote part of the river that they had called home for the past two fish decades (which is actually 7 months in human years). Very-Thoughtful, the leader of the trio, suggested that they swim down river to see if the algae was greener farther down river, for he had heard tales told by the great birds of the river that down river was very prosperous. So, they packed up all of their belongings and began the journey down river. This journey took a full fish year (20 minutes) to complete, but they made it safe and sound. Shortly after settling in, they realized that this area was actually very dangerous. Not only were there many predatory birds in the ar...

The Monkey and the Crocodile The Crocodile and the Monkey In the forests of India, there was a long and winding river that was the home of many crocodiles. On the banks of this river were several great trees, and in these trees lived dozens and dozens of monkeys. On the opposite side of the river from the monkeys there were many exotic fruit trees, and the greedy monkeys gathered together to try and figure out a way to get across the river so that they could get this foreign fruit. One of the hatched a brilliant scheme. "I'll trick one of those crocodiles to the rivers edge," he said, "and I will convince him to give me a ride across the river on his back, and then we will get the fruit!" This seemed like a good plan to the other monkeys, so they began to try and coax a crocodile to the rivers edge. The monkeys knew that crocodiles often had a taste for monkey, so they thought they came up with the perfect plan to trick the crocodiles to the ...

Why the Owl is not King of the Birds The story begins by comparing owls and crows Crows torment the owls during the daytime, while owls try and kill the crows at night In the beginning, each species chose a king for themselves, and all of the birds gathered together to elect a king. They decided to elect the owl as the king of the birds. All of the birds decided on the owl except for one old crow, who said that the owl looks to cross and angry to be king. Ever since, the crows and owls have been enemies. The Turtle Dove was later chosen to be king of the birds. U.S. Department of the Interior Source:  Babbitt, Jataka Tales

The Monkey and the Crocodile A elder crocodile asks a younger crocodile to get the heart of a young monkey for him to eat, so now the crocodile has to figure out how to trick one of the crafty monkeys. He decides to offer one of the monkeys a ride on his back to the other side of the river, where there is a lot of ripe fruit. The story mentions that the crocodile is stupid, but the greed of the monkey also plays a key factor in this story. Once the monkey is on the crocodiles back and they are about halfway across the river the crocodile announces, very stupidly, that he is going to drown the monkey so that his mother can eat his heart. But the crafty monkey then tells the crocodile that he does not have his heart with him, so that even if the crocodile does drown him, he will not get the heart. So now, the crocodile thinks that they must go back to the shore so that the monkey can get his heart. The monkey flees, but the crocodile finds him farther down the river. The two have ...