A Jackal having seen that a Lion and a Bull are friendly, the Jackal
went and asked the Bull, "Friend, how am I also to be friendly with
you two?" Concerning it the Bull said, "You cannot."
The Jackal being angry with the Bull because of it, thinking, "I must
break the friendship of the Bull and the Lion," went one day, and
said to the Lion, "O Lord, Your Majesty, your friend the Bull said
at my hand regarding you, 'However much ability of that Lion there
should be to do things, [after] taking and sifting out my share of it,
should it be taken away the Lion will be destroyed.'"
After that, the Jackal, having gone again near the Bull, said,
"Ane! Friend, the Lion says of you, 'However much prowess and might
of that one's there should be, should I once make the Lion's roar
the other animals die, putting that one [out of consideration].'"
Thereupon the Bull having said, "When we have remained on good terms
such a time, if he says that of me I also am willing to fight with
him."
Having come near the Lion he said, "We two remained on good terms
such a time. Because of [what you have said], to-day we must die."
When he was fighting with the Lion the Lion made the Lion's roar. When
he was making the Lion's roar the Bull came and gored him. In this
way, on account of the Lion's roar the Bull died, [18] and the Bull
having gored him the Lion died.
After that, having said these false slanders and pushed the quarrel,
the Jackal who had caused them to be killed having come after these
two died, and having said, "He was unable through haughtiness to take
me as his friend; how about it now?" ate the mouth from that one and
the mouth from this one. While eating them, having summoned still
[other] Jackals, and said, "I did such a clever deed; what did ye?" he
laughed. "If ye also want, eat ye," he said.
Central Province.
In the Jataka story No. 349 (vol. iii, p. 100), a jackal in order
to taste their flesh, set a friendly lion and bull at variance. "He
said, 'This is the way he speaks of you,' and thus dividing them one
from another, he soon brought about a quarrel and reduced them to a
dying condition." When a King came to see them, "the jackal highly
delighted was eating, now the flesh of the lion, and now that of the
bull." This story, being included in the Bharahat carvings must be
of earlier date than 250 B.C.
In the Hitopadesa, as the lion was afraid of the bellowing of a bull
that was abandoned on a journey, two jackals persuaded the bull to
appear before the lion, which became friendly with it. Afterwards the
jackals, determining to get the bull destroyed as it induced the lion
to curtail their supply of meat, informed both the lion and bull that
the other intended to kill it. When the bull approached the lion they
had a long fight in which the lion was victorious. The same story
is given in the Katha Sarit Sagara (Tawney), vol. ii, p. 27. In Le
Pantcha-Tantra of the Abbé Dubois, p. 30, the story is nearly the same.
In Sagas from the Far East, p. 192, a lioness before dying advised her
cub and a calf she had reared to live together in peace. A fox which
became jealous of the calf told it and the young lion false tales of
their mutual intentions, and when they met they killed each other.
In A. von Schiefner's Tibetan Tales (Ralston), p. 325, the calumniator
was a jackal. In the same work, p. 328, there is a variant in which
the friendly animals were a lion and tiger which a jackal set at
variance. When about to attack each other they spoke, ascertained
that the whole quarrel was due to the jackal's falsehoods, and the
lion thereupon killed it. This story is given in Cinq Cents Contes
et Apologues (Chavannes), vol. ii, pp. 233 and 425; in the latter
example a lion and bull killed each other.
In Fables and Folk-Tales from an Eastern Forest (Skeat), p. 30, a
mouse-deer in the same way induced two bulls to fight, and when one
was killed the deer feasted on the flesh, after frightening away a
tiger that wanted to share it with him.