The Cave that Talked

Panchtantra Stories

There lived a lion named Kharanakara in a deep forest. One day, he was very hungry but found no animal after looking for a prey in every nook and corner of the forest. While wandering in search of food, he came across a big cave and thought, "This cave must be the home of some animal or the other, which will return to this cave before nightfall. I can have a good meal if I hide inside the cave and wait for the animal to return and pounce on him." Then as sun began to set, Dadhiputcha, a jackal, came to the cave that was his home and saw the footprints of the lion entering the cave. There were, however, no traces of footprints to show that the lion had left. Scared, the jackal wanted to make sure that it was a lion or some big animal that went into the cave. But how should he know? He hit upon a brilliant idea.  The jackal went near the cave and began shouting, "Hello cave, I am your friend here." There was no reply from the cave. He did not know what to do. He again shouted, "Hello cave, don’t you remember the arrangement we made? I have to shout when I arrive at the cave and you will ask me to come in. Without your green signal I do not enter the cave. Since you are silent, I will go to some other cave."  The lion heard the jackal speaking and thought, "Ah, there seems to be an arrangement between the cave and this animal. Let me get him into my trap. I will shout back a welcome to him and he will walk in happily."  The lion then roared, "Hi jackal, come in. You are welcome."  The jackal at once knew it was a lion inside the cave and hurriedly fled the place, remembering the lines of the learned,  "He survives who anticipates a danger and acts to avert it,  He who does not comes to grief."  Raktaksha said, "That is how we must also anticipate danger and act. Let us leave now before it is too late."  Listening to his advice, his ministers and others followed him to a far off place.  Seeing that the main obstacle in his way has disappeared and that the remaining king’s men were all stupid, Sthirajeevi began piling up twigs on the pretext of building a nest. He heaped them at the entrance of the cave in which the king and other owls lived. When the pile was big enough, he waited for daybreak when the owls would become blind. Then he flew off to Meghavarna and told him that before word could reach the enemy camp of this plan, he and his followers should accompany him (Sthirajeevi) each carrying a piece of burning wood. Accordingly, Meghavarna and his men followed Sthirajeevi, each carrying a burning twig in his beak. When they reached the entrance of the cave, which was now blocked by the pile of twigs Sthirajeevi built, they threw the burning twigs on the pile, which began to burn fiercely killing all the owls trapped inside.  When Megahvarna and his men returned to their kingdom, he asked Sthirajeevi to tell him how he could plan to kill the enemy.  Sthirajeevi said, "It was not an easy job living in the enemy camp. Luckily, except Raktaksha, every one of Arimardana’s ministers was a fool. Yet it was like walking on the edge of a sword. But if you want to achieve your goal you will have to put up with all inconvenience and discomfort like the snake which carried the frogs on its back."