Reading Notes: Babbitt's "Jataka Tales" (Part A)

For these last two weeks of the semester, I decided to keep with the theme of children's stories except this time from Jakata Tales! Again, I will choose two of my favorite stories that I could potentially use as the week's storytelling post. Here are this week's favorites:

How the Turtle Saved His Own Life

• A king loved his young princes so much that he made a lake from them to play in and later filled it with fishes so they can see it.
• A turtle was among the fishes, and since the princes have never seen a turtle before, they were fearful of it and thought it was a demon.
• The princes then went to their father for help, and the king sent out men to retrieve this "demon."
• In the court, the king commands the men to kill the demon. Then, all the men and princes talk among each other deciding on what horrible death the turtle will go through.
• One said to bake him to death. One said to pound him into dust. An old man said to throw him into a lake so he'll float into the rocks and be killed.
• At that last comment, the turtle used reverse psychology, saying "Friend, what have I done that you should do such a dreadful thing as that to me? The other plans were bad enough, but to throw me into the lake! Don't speak of such a cruel thing!"
• And so this is how the turtle saved his own life.

I kind of went a little deep in my analysis of this story. From a surface perspective, the lesson could be to never judge a book by it's cover since the men thought the turtle was a demon and later, did not realize he would do perfectly fine if he were thrown into a lake. From a deeper perspective, the lesson could be to not jump to conclusions about someone or something and immediately hate them because he/she/it was different.

The Turtle & His Conviction

The Ox Who Won the Forfeit

• There was a man bragged about having the strongest ox ever.
• One day, he decided to go into the village and bet 1000 silver pieces if there was a wagon his ox cannot move.
• When the ox was attached to the first wagon, the man whipped the ox and called him "wretch" and "rascal" to make him move.
• Offended and fairly passive aggressive, the ox decided not to move because his owner had never treated him like that before, and was disgusted by the behavior.
• So the man had to pay his forfeit to the people and became the laughingstock of the village.
• That night, the man asked the ox why he didn't move the carts when he'd seen him move 100s before! The ox, in turn, asked the man why he had treated him badly today when the man had never done so before.
• The man apologizes and says he'll never treat him that way again, and so the ox promises to move the carts for him.
• The next day, the man and ox go back into the village and bet 2000 silver pieces, and the village people laughed and took the bet based on yesterday's performance.
• Unfortunately for the village people, the ox moved each and every wagon.

I think the lesson learned in this story is to never treat people horribly and they will do what you want. Treat people with respect and you get respect back. It's better to gain authority by respect anyway rather than through brute force and fear.

The Man & His Ox

Bibliography: Ellen C. Babbitt's "Jataka Tales"