Tiny Tales: Traditional Stories in 100 Words: India: not in book

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Dasharatha's Grief

After Rama departed into exile, Dasharatha was grief-stricken, unable to leave his bed.

"There was a boy," he said in his delirium, remembering the boy he had shot, the son of the blind parents. "All my fault."

Staring at nothing Dasharatha repeated, "Rama. Rama. Rama."

Sitting by Dasharatha's bedside through the night, Sumitra and Kaushalya fell asleep. In the morning, they saw that the king was dead.

All Ayodhya was plunged into grief.

The priests put the king's body in a vat of oil, and they sent news to Bharata and Shatrughna who were at their grandfather's house in Kekaya.

Inspired by: Valmiki's Ramayana

Notes: This is from the Ayodhya Kanda (Book 2), sarga 65.

Dasharatha on his deathbed

Tenalirama's neighbor sent his son to boarding school.
"My heart breaks seeing him go!" his neighbor sighed.
"That's good," Tenalirama said.
The neighbor thought Tenalirama was being cold-hearted, but he kept that thought to himself.
The boy finally came home, but broke his leg falling off his horse.
"My poor boy!" sobbed the neighbor.
"That's good," Tenalirama repeated.
This time the neighbor spoke out. "Those are cruel words!" he said.
Tenalirama did not reply.
The next day soldiers came to dragoon recruits for the army; they did not take the boy with the broken leg.
"That's good," Tenalirama repeated, smiling.

Inspired by: Fix Your Problems the Tenali Raman Way by Vishal Goyal
Notes: This story is on p. 219 of the book. Compare the story in the Koran when Moses learns that God's purposes are not always clear: Moses Meets with Khidr.

Tenalirama and his Horse, Shankara

A villager's donkey-cart fell into a ditch. The donkey was killed; the cart was stuck. Tenalirama's farm was nearby, and he offered to help. "My Shankara can get the cart out!"
The villager knew that horse. "Your Shankara is old and blind; he'll never do it."
Tenalirama just smiled and led Shankara to the ditch.
"Soma, pull! Pull, Vijaya! Rajulu, pull! Pull, Shankara!"
Sure enough, Shankara pulled the cart out of the ditch.
"Why did you call all those other names first?" asked the villager, dumbfounded.
"When Shankara thinks he's part of a team, he can pull anything," Tenalirama explained.

Inspired by: Fix Your Problems the Tenali Raman Way by Vishal Goyal
Notes: This story is on p. 54 of the book.

Tenalirama and the Candy

The courtesan Rangasani had pranked Tenalirama, so Tenalirama used a delivery boy to get revenge.
"Here's some candy to reward you," she said to the boy.
"Can I have more candy?"
"Yes," she said, and gave him more.
"I want more!"
Rangasani had no more candy.
"More!" he shouted. "You said I could have more! More! More!"
"Help!" she yelled.
Tenalirama appeared, with candy in both hands. "Which is more candy?"
The boy pointed to the hand with more.
"Take it!" Tenalirama said. "Now you have more candy. Go!"
Tenalirama smiled slyly at Rangasani. He had pranked her this time!

Inspired by: The Wit of Tenali Raman by Devika Rangachari
Notes: This story is on p. 85 of the book. The original story presents them as rivals in logic, and Tenalirama forces her to admit that she is trapped in her own words before he frees her with the trick of "more candy" in one hand as opposed to the other.

Tenalirama and Kali

Tenalirama, still just a boy, went to Kali's temple and chanted all night. The goddess appeared, showing him her thousand faces, but he wasn't afraid. Instead, he laughed.
"Why are you laughing?" she shrieked.
"O Mother," he said, "you have just two hands and a thousand noses. What do you do when you catch cold and your noses are all runny?"
Kali was enraged. "I curse you to be a vikatakavi, a jester."
The boy laughed again. "A jester backwards and forwards!" (vi-ka-ta-ka-vi)
Even Kali had to laugh at his cleverness. "I bless you to be jester to the king."

Inspired by: Folktales from India, edited by A. K. Ramanujan
Notes: This is "How Tenali Rama Became a Jester" (p. 57). As you can see, the word is a syllabic palindrome, not letter by letter, but syllable by syllable. Tenali Rama was the most famous jester of southern India; you can read about him at Wikipedia, and also about the goddess Kali. This was a story that Ramanujan heard as a child growing up.

Harvesting the Dates

A farmer sent a servant to harvest dates. "The man's a fool, but surely he can harvest dates," thought the farmer.
As it happened, one of the date-palms had fallen down in a storm. The dates were on the ground, easy to harvest. Te servant then decided to knock down all the trees. "I'll raise them up afterwards," he thought.
But after harvesting the dates, he couldn't get any of the date-palms to stand up again, no matter how hard he tried.
The farmer was furious. "But that's what I deserve," he admitted, "for entrusting the work to a fool."

Inspired by: The Ocean of Story by Somadeva, translated by C.H. Tawney: Volume 5.
Notes: This is Story 92.

(dates)

The Farmer's Cotton Harvest

A foolish farmer took his harvest of cotton to the market to sell, but no one wanted to buy it.
"It's filthy!" someone told him. "You have to clean the cotton before you can sell it."
The farmer saw a long line of customers at the goldsmith's stall.
"Your gold must be very clean!" he said to the goldsmith.
"My gold is the most pure you will find!" the goldsmith said proudly. "I clean it in the fire."
So the farmer threw all his cotton into the fire, hoping to clean it, and he ended up with nothing at all.

Inspired by: The Ocean of Story by Somadeva, translated by C.H. Tawney: Volume 5.
Notes: This is Story 91.

The Lazy, Foolish Priest

A priest was getting ready to attend a sacrifice. "I need to take fire and water," he thought to himself. "I need water for washing, and fire to burn the incense."
But because this priest was lazy, he decided not to carry both the fire pot and the water pot. Instead, he poured the water into the fire pot.
When he got to the sacrifice, the fire had gone out and the water was all sooty.
Nevertheless, he washed his hands and face with the water, and they turned black with soot, so everyone laughed at the foolish priest's mistake.

Inspired by: The Ocean of Story by Somadeva, translated by C.H. Tawney: Volume 5.
Notes: This is Story 87.

The Fool Who Sowed Roasted Sesame

There was a fool, but he knew one thing for sure: "As you sow, so shall you reap."
Since he was very fond of roasted sesame seeds, he decided that he would plant some roasted sesame seeds in the ground. "I'll sow roasted sesame seeds," he said to himself, "and then I'll reap a harvest of roasted sesame seeds."
So, instead of eating his roasted sesame seeds, he planted them in the ground.
He watered them.
He weeded them.
He kept the birds away.
But he never harvested roasted sesame seeds.
The foolish man wondered what he had done wrong.

Inspired by: The Ocean of Story by Somadeva, translated by C.H. Tawney: Volume 5.
Notes: This is Story 86.

The Crow and the Quail

A crow and a quail were friends, living together at the same tree.
One day they went with the other birds on a pilgrimage to honor Garuda, king of the birds.
Along the road, they flew over a farmer carrying a pot of curds on his head. The crow started eating the curds.
"What's going on?" shouted the farmer. He looked up, and saw the crow and the quail. The crow flew away quickly and escaped, but the quail was slower, and so was caught and killed by the farmer.
Stay not with a villain; go not with a villain.

Inspired by: Hitopadesha, or, The Book of Good Counsel translated by B. Hale-Wortham
Notes: It is in Book 3, Story 6. In the book, this story is paired with another story about the wicked crow: The Goose and the Crow. The moral, which I have quoted from Hale-Wortham's translation, applies to both stories.

The Old Merchant and the Thief

There was an old merchant who had married a young wife. She treated him coldly by day and even more coldly by night.
Then, one night as they lay in bed, a thief crept in through the window. When the woman saw him, she was frightened and hugged her husband, who was thrilled by her touch.
"Dear thief," he said, "thank you! Take whatever you want."
The thief filled his sack. "I'm available to come back again at any time if my services are required," he said obligingly as he clambered back out the window, hauling his sack behind him.

Inspired by: The Panchatantra, translated by Arthur Ryder.
Notes: It is in Book 3, Story 10. In the Panchatantra version, the thief doesn't take anything, but I like the idea that he was paid for service rendered.

The Bull and the Hungry Jackals

There was a mighty bull, chief of the herd, who had very big balls.
Near the herd lived a jackal and his wife.
"Follow that bull!" said the lady-jackal, "His balls will surely fall down soon. They would make a sumptuous meal."
The jackal protested. "I'd rather stay here and eat mice."
But the wife insisted, and so the jackal followed the bull.
Finally he came back to his wife and said, "His balls are big, but they did not fall. Mice are small but certain."
And so the jackal stayed home and hunted mice, as he had always done.

Inspired by: The Panchatantra, translated by Arthur Ryder.
Notes: It is in Book 2, Story 8. The story is one told by Ramakrishna too.

The Brahman: What Is

A father sent his two sons to a guru to study the Brahman.
When the two boys returned, he decided to see what they had learned.
He asked the older brother, "What is the Brahman?"
The boy began to recite passages from the Vedas.
After a while, the father stopped him, and then asked the younger son, "What is the Brahman?"
The boy stood there, silent and calm.
"So, you begin to understand!" said the father. Then he turned to the older boy and said, "Learn from your brother how to go beyond; the Brahman cannot be expressed in words."

Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 120 in the book. You can find out more about the Brahman and about the Vedas at Wikipedia.

Vishnu and the Washermen

Vishnu was reclining on Shesha, floating on the Ocean of Milk, while Lakshmi rubbed his feet. Suddenly Vishnu jumped up and ran off.
He returned almost immediately, and Lakshmi asked, "Where did you go?"
"I saw one of my followers was in trouble!" Vishnu explained. "Meditating on my name, he walked across clean laundry spread out to dry, and the angry washermen were going to attack him."
"Did you rescue him?" Lakshmi asked.
"I didn't need to. He heard the washermen shouting and grabbed a stick to defend himself, so I was able to come back here," Vishnu said smiling.

Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 99 in the book. You can read about Vishnu, Shesha, Lakshmi, and the Ocean of Milk at Wikipedia. In the story, the washermen are going to use sticks to attack the devotee, and he picks up a brick to defend himself; I changed it to have the devotee grab a stick.

Becoming What You Pretend to Be

There was a man who was deeply in debt. He could not see any way of paying off his debts, so he decided to pretend to be insane. Physicians were summoned; none were able to cure him of his madness. Indeed, the more the physicians did, the worse the madness became.
A wise physician finally realized what the man was doing. "Beware," he told the man. "Pretending to be insane like this could make you lose your mind for real."
The man realized the truth of the physician's words. He set aside the play-acting and prepared himself to face reality.

Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 45 in the book. You can find out more about Ramakrishna at Wikipedia.

The Ambitious Brahmin

An ambitious brahmin said to the king, "I shall teach you about God!"
The king laughed. "You know nothing of God. Go away!"
Angry, the brahmin went away and spent time reading the scriptures. He returned to the palace, but again the king laughed and dismissed him.
This happened many times.
Eventually, the brahmin understood. Kings, riches, power: he saw they were nothing.
He no longer returned to the palace.
The king realized what the brahmin's absence meant, so he then went to the brahmin. "Now you understand the scriptures!" the king said. "I ask you to please teach me."

Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 204 in the book. The story refers specifically to the brahmin reading the Bhagavata Purana; you can learn more about that at Wikipedia.

What the Letter Tells You

A man working in the city received a letter from his family in the village; it was a shopping list. But when he went to go shopping, he couldn't find the letter. The man was frantic. "I must find that letter!"
He finally found the letter and read it carefully: such-and-such cloth, such-and-such medicine, such-and-such tea, and so on.
He went shopping, and then threw the letter away.
It was once important; now it was not.
So it is with holy scripture: you need to read it carefully, but when you are on the path, you don't need it anymore.

Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 201 in the book. You can find out more about Ramakrishna at Wikipedia.

The Monk and the Prostitute

A monk constantly rebuked a prostitute who lived near the temple. He put a pebble in a heap for each client who visited her. "Behold your wicked deeds!" he would say, pointing to the heap.
The woman prayed constantly to God for forgiveness. When she died, her spirit ascended to heaven. When the monk died, his spirit descended to hell.
"You never sinned with your body," God explained, "so you received a fine funeral, while vultures gnawed the prostitute's body. But your spirit was cruel, while she was faithful in spirit. You were the real prostitute at heart, not she."

Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 197 in the book. The story invokes God as Vishnu, and it is the "messengers of Vishnu" who explain to the monk what has happened in death. For more about Vishnu and the netherworld of Patala, see Wikipedia.

The Saint and the Fishermen

A holy man practicing deep meditation fell in the river. Fishermen caught him in their net. When they brought the net to shore, the mere touch of his body sent them into religious ecstasy and they wandered around chanting "God! God! God!"
The holy man, meanwhile, completed his meditation and returned to his ashram.
The desperate relatives of the fishermen eventually came to him for help.
"Just get some rice and put it into their mouths," he advised.
As soon as the fishermen tasted food again, they ceased to chant the name of God and returned to the material world.

Inspired by: Tales and Parables of Sri Ramakrishna
Notes: This is story 179 in the book. Ramakrishna tells this story about the holy man Sri Gauranga, a 16th-century Bengali saint; you can read more about Sri Gauranga at Wikipedia.

(murti of Sri Gauranga)

The Lion and the Woodcutter

A woodcutter encountered a lion.
"Prepare to die!" roared the lion.
"Wait!" said the woodcutter. "I'll give you food!"
The lion had never tasted human food. "Delicious!" he said.
He returned every day for more.
Since the lion stopped hunting, the jackal and crow had no more scraps to eat. "We'll eat the woodcutter!" they said.
"No!" said the lion. "He'll feed you too."
But when the woodcutter saw the jackal and crow, he climbed a tree. "I like you, Lion, but I don't like your friends!"
So the lion, jackal, and crow all went away with nothing to eat.

Inspired by: The Panchatantra, translated by Arthur Ryder.
Notes: It is in Book 1, Story 17.