151 Jataka Tales

Once, there was a goose with golden feathers. She lived in a pond. Near this pond lived a poor woman with her two daughters. The goose thought, ‘If I give them my golden feathers, they will live happily.’ The goose went there and told the poor woman about this. After this, the goose started shedding […]

Once, there was a rich man. But despite being rich he always believed that happiness could be obtained by leading a good life; money was not everything. He had a son. He wanted to teach his son the same thing. One day, his son, while playing, broke his toy. The son started crying. His father

A king had an orchard. Many monkeys used to live there. One day, the royal priest was passing through the orchard. A naughty monkey made fun of him. The priest got angry and vowed to take revenge on all the monkeys. The monkey king got worried. He told the monkeys to leave the orchard as

Once there was a Brahmin. He was a great miser. He had a son whom he loved very much. When the son turned sixteen, he got very sick. The father being a miser did not send for a physician. He treated the boy himself. But the boy’s condition got worse. Now, the miser feared that

Once, a snake charmer lived in a small village. He owned a few snakes and a monkey. He travelled across the villages and made these animals perform various tricks to earn his living. But, the snake charmer was very cruel to his pets. He would never give them enough to eat and often beat them.

Once, it did not rain for a long time. A pond, where many fish and a crab lived, had very little water left. All the fish became worried. They held a meeting. One wise fish said, “We need to move to another place where there is plenty of water.” A crane, who was hearing all

Once, a beetle saw a pot of beer. Droplets of beer were scattered everywhere. The beetle enjoyed licking the drops. He was completely drunk by then. Then he crawled to the river-bank. By mistake, he fell on a dung heap. At that very moment, an elephant came to the river to drink water. Seeing the

Once, a crow and his wife were sitting near the sea. Suddenly, a big wave came and swept the crow’s wife away. The crow cried and cried over the loss of his wife. Soon, many crows gathered near him after hearing his cries. They asked him why he was crying. The crow told them everything.

A jackal used to go to the neighbouring village and steal food from there. The villagers realised that someone was stealing their food. They laid a trap for the thief. The next day, when the jackal came to steal the food, he got trapped. With great difficulty, he was able to free himself and ran

Once, there were two calves and a baby pig in a farmhouse. The pig was given the best of everything to eat while the two calves were given only grass and hay. One of the calves complained about this to the other. The other calf was wise. He said, “It is dangerous to envy anybody.

Once, a sage sent his students to the forest to gather firewood. One of them was very lazy. He found a tree with no leaves. He thought, ‘I am lucky. It will be easy to break the branches without having to break the leaves first. There is no need to hurry now.’ He decided to

Long ago, people lived much longer than they do today. Once, a king was more than a 1,000 years old. One day, he told the royal barber, “If you see any grey hair on my head, you must tell me immediately!” The barber agreed. When the king was 1,500 years old, the royal barber said,

Once, in a village, a rich man buried his gold in a field to keep it safe from thieves. Years passed by. The rich man died. One day, a poor farmer who owned the field was ploughing it. While ploughing, his plough hit something hard. At first the farmer thought it to be a stone.

Once there was a carpenter. He was working hard. Now, the carpenter was bald. A mosquito seeing the shiny bald head of the carpenter went and sat on his head. It started biting the carpenter’s head. The carpenter got irritated and chased the mosquito away with his hand but the mosquito came back. The carpenter

Once, a merchant was travelling with his caravan. They stopped near a village and camped for the night. Near their camp stood a tree which looked like a mango tree. The merchant saw the tree and said to his servants, “This tree does look like a mango tree but it is a poisonous What Not