Three friends always quarreling—monkey, elephant, partridge—decide to choose a leader—a leader must be wise—oldest is the wisest—who is the oldest—try to remember --how big was the banyan tree—recollect their memories--thus partridge was selected.
How to Select a Wise Leader -- Oldest is the Wisest
In a forest, there were three
friends- a monkey, an elephant, and a partridge. They were always quarreling
and there is no peace in the forest. To put an end to this war, they decided to
choose a leader from amongst themselves. They together decided on the qualities
of a leader.
“The leader must be wise,” said
the partridge.
“But who is the wisest?”, again
they quarrel,
“The oldest is the wisest,” said
the partridge.
“But which one of us is oldest?”
they puzzled. They together think of an idea. Ever since they entered the
forest all of them lived around an old banyan tree. So they tried to remember
how big the tree was when each one of them came to the forest. This idea was
the contribution of the monkey.
The elephant tried to recollect
his childhood memories, “I was a baby when I came to this forest and at that
time this banyan tree was hardly coming up to this much”, he pointed to his
stomach.
“Okay, when I arrived here” monkey
continued, “this banyan tree was a sapling, only four or five inches, only that
much, no doubt”.
Next was partridge’s turn, he
answered, there was a big banyan tree in the nearby forest, when I came here I
brought some of its seeds, and dropped them here, one of those seeds sprouted
into a sapling now grew into this huge banyan tree.
On hearing this the elephant and the monkey said in one voice, “Then you are the oldest amongst us, so, from here
onwards, you shall be our leader, we shall obey your every command”
Partridge agreed and thus came to an end of their quarrel.
From Jataka
Tales
A silly cricket—always singing—ants-- always working –enough
storage of food --winter comes—cricket began to
complain---starvation—famine—went to see the ant’s family—ants are not willing
–poor cricket
The Cricket and the Ants
It was a summer afternoon, as usual, the cricket sits on his favorite grass and started music for everyone. He was praised by his friends and neighbors as the best singer ever known or heard of. But he had a neighbor, a joint-family, an ant’s family, of whose opinion, “work is worship”. They were always busy with their work, they didn’t waste a silly second, even when the sun is in the middle of the sky they were working.
Days and months went by, and the winter has come. The cricket starts shivering, he was so hungry that he couldn’t sing even a single line. Nothing on the snow-covered ground, not even a leaf on trees, his cupboard was also empty.
It is well known that the ants have enough stock of food. The cricket had often watched the little ones from a distance, and noticed their hard work, thinking and wondering how much food will be there inside their castle. But he had no courage to approach them.
At last starvation and famine make him bold, he set off to that neighbor ant and described his situation;
“Sir please, I am a poor artist, I beg you to share some of your food with me from your storage”.
“I will be grateful to you always if you lend me a mouthful of grain”
He continued, “otherwise I may die of hunger”.
Ant’s family was not in a mood to accept his prayer.
One of them asked the cricket, “tell me, dear, what were you doing when the weather was fine”?
“The nature looked gay so that I sang for day and night”
“Oh ho, you sang, go then and dance the winter away”
Poor cricket, trembling with cold and hunger, he took a resolution, in the new year I will save some food for famine months.
Short Essay--Social media has made us less social
