PANCHATANTRA - Third Strategy: Of Crows and Owls

Following is the highlights of these stories, please click on the story name to read in detail.

Of Crows and Owls

• Trust not even a close friend who earlier was your enemy.
• Never accept peace with an enemy who is not just for, he will break his word and stab you in the back.
• Bend to the enemy when he is strong attack him when he is vulnerable. Don’t wage a war if it doesn’t bring power, or wealth or friendship.
• Neither peace nor bravado can subdue a strong enemy where these two do not work. Flight is the best alternative.

Elephants and Hares

• The great Manu had said that it was better to abandon a person to save the whole community, abandon the community to save the village and abandon the village to save the country. Even if the land were fertile, a wise king would abandon it if it were in the interests of his subjects.

The Cunning Mediator

• Doing good to others is virtue. Tormenting others is vice.
• Words out of tune with times, words that bring grief in the end, words that bring pain to others, are, any day, as good as poison.

The Brahmin and The Crooks

• There is hardly any person who is not misled by the servility of a new servant or the sweet words of a guest or the mock tears of a wily woman.

The Brahmin and The Cobra

• Love once betrayed cannot be regained.
• Blessed and happy is the man with a caring and loving wife. A home is not a home without a wife; A wifeless home is like a jungle.

The Old Man, His Young Wife and The Thief

• If two rivals quarrel among themselves, we would be the beneficiaries.

The Tale of Two Snakes

• The learned have said that where wicked men are honoured and wise men are insulted, there will be fear, famine and death.

The Wedding of The Mouse

• I want you know that a crow is a crow and cannot become an owl.

Tale of The Golden Droppings

• He survives who anticipates a danger and acts to avert it, he who does not comes to grief.
• If you want to achieve your goal you will have to put up with all inconvenience and discomfort.

Frogs That Rode a Snake

• What you have said is correct. Great men do not give up what they have begun even in the face of obstacles. Cowards, afraid of failure, do not venture at all. There are some that begin a task and give it up when there is a problem. But courageous people do not give up whatever dangers they face.
• It is dangerous to leave a fire un extinguished a debt unredeemed an enemy uncrushed and a disease untreated.