Reading Notes: Babbitt Jataka Tales Part 1

The Crocodile’s mother wanted the monkeys heart
The Crocodile planned to catch the monkey by giving him a ride
The monkey rode the crocodile, and when the crocodile went to eat the monkey, the monkey said he left his heart in the tree and was able to escape
The crocodile found the monkey later and attempted to catch him on a rock that the monkey jumped on
The monkey saw the crocodile and got the crocodile to open his mouth so the monkey could jump on his head and escape

The King put fishes and a turtle into a pond for his sons
His sons were afraid of the turtle and so the turtle was brought in to be killed
The King decided the turtle would be killed by throwing it into the river after the turtle showed dismay to the idea
The turtle was thrown into the river and swam away safely

There were two merchants, one was greedy and one was fair
The merchants through the streets of towns selling brass and tin
In one town, there was a poor family with a golden bowl
The greedy merchant saw this bowl and did not take the bowl at first because he realized it was gold and wanted to swindle the poor family
The fair merchant came by later and gave the family all his goods for the bowl and eight pennies
The fair merchant then took the ferry away
The greedy merchant then came and found the bowl was already sold and the fair merchant was gone

A turtle befriended two geese
The geese were planning on flying away and wanted to take the turtle with
The geese picked up a stick with both of their mouths and the turtle held on in the middle
Kids saw the turtle flying and when the turtle tried to open his mouth, he fell to his death

A man had a strong Ox and bet that the Ox could pull 100 carts
When the Ox was unable to, the owner beat and berated him, and the owner lost his money
Later that night, the Ox was mad at the owner because he had never treated him that way before
The owner said he would never do it again, and so the Ox tried again to pull the carts and was successful
The owner got his money back

There was a merchant who was crossing a dessert with goods and his crew including a pilot and others to help with the Oxen
They only traveled at night because it was too hot during the day
On the last night, the water was thrown out and the pilot went to bed
They awoke in the morning in the same place because the Oxen were turned around
They got dehydrated, but grass was found
The ground was broken into and a rock was broken creating a well of water
The men were saved and made it to the city

There were quails with one as the leader
A Fowler caught the quails by mimicking the leader’s cries and throwing a net over them
The leader hatched a plan for the caught quails to stick their heads through the top of the net and fly to a thornbush
This worked for a couple of days until they began to quarrel while feeding
The Fowler saw this and caught the quarreling quails

There was an honest valuer who set fair prices on goods
The King did not like this, so he brought in a peasant to become a valuer
The new valuer set a measure of rice as the price for 500 horses from the horse dealer
The horse dealer than made the valuer say that a measure of rice was worth the whole kingdom
The valuer was then laughed at and sent away from the kingdom

A rabbit was asleep in a tree when a monkey dropped a coconut down and the rabbit thought the world was breaking up
He then got all the animals together and they began running
The lion stopped the animals with his roar and showed the animals that it was simply a coconut

Indian Epics: A Blog by Trace Youngman