The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal

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an illustration of a variant of the tale

The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal is a popular Indian folklore with a long history and many variants. The earliest record of the folklore was included in the Panchatantra, which dates the story between 200 BCE and 300 CE.

Mary Frere included a version in her 1868 collection of Indian folktales, Old Deccan Days,[1] the first collection of Indian folktales in English.[2] A version was also included in Joseph Jacobs' collection Indian Fairy Tales.[3]

Plot

A

buffalo, exploited and mistreated by humans, agrees it is only just that the Brahmin should be eaten. Finally they meet a jackal
who, sympathetic to the Brahmin's plight, at first feigns incomprehension of what has happened and asks to see the trap. Once there he claims he still doesn't understand. The tiger gets back in the trap to demonstrate and the jackal quickly shuts him in, suggesting to the Brahmin that they leave matters thus.

Variants

an illustration by John D. Batten for 1912 book by Joseph Jacobs.

There are more than a hundred versions of this tale [4] spread across the world. In some the released animal is a crocodile, in some a snake,[5] a tiger[6] and in others a wolf.

Fables of Bidpai[citation needed] and the Jataka tales. In Europe, it appeared some 900 years ago in the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsi, and later in the Gesta Romanorum and in the Directorium Vitae Humanae of John of Capua.[8]

There are also modern illustrated versions of the tale, such as The Tiger, the Brahmin & the Jackal[9] illustrated by David Kennett and The Tiger and the Brahmin[10] illustrated by Kurt Vargo. Rabbit Ears Productions produced a video version of the last book, narrated by Ben Kingsley, with music by Ravi Shankar.[11] The variant by Rabbit Ears Productions alters certain bits of the story, where the Brahmin travels alone to gain the opinion of others. An elephant is included as first of the three things (the latter two being the tree and water buffalo) that the Brahmin encounters.

See also

Notes

  1. ^ Frere, Mary (1896). "The Brahman, the Tiger, and the Six Judges" . Old Deccan Days  – via Wikisource.
  2. ISBN 0-415-20476-3
    . p. 334.
  3. ISBN 1-60506-119-0
    . where it appears as The Tiger, the Brahman, and the Jackal. Jacobs gives his source as "Steel-Temple, Wideawake Stories, pp. 116-20; first published in Indian Antiquary, xii. p. 170 seq." It can be found online here at Google Books and here Archived 2011-07-11 at the Wayback Machine with its illustration.
  4. ^ Jacobs in his notes on the tale mentions that "No less than 94 parallels are given by Prof. K. Krohn in his elaborate discussion of this fable in his dissertation, Mann und Fuchs, (Helsingfors, 1891), pp. 38-60"
  5. ^ World Tales by Idries Shah has a version called The Serpent collected in Albania. The Farmer and the Viper is a more minimal Aesop's fable.
  6. ISBN 0-8276-0830-6. accessible in Google Books
    .
  7. ^ Jacobs, Joseph. Europa's Fairy Book. New Tork and London: G. P. Putnam's Sons. 1916. p. 254.
  8. ISBN 0-86304-036-5
    .
  9. ISBN 1-86374-078-3
    .
  10. ISBN 0-88708-233-5
    .
  11. Rabbit Ears Productions media and release information
    .

External links

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