The Old Wise Crow - A Panchatantra Story

The Old Wise Crow

There stood a huge banyan tree on the outskirts of a small town. Thousands of crows lived in this tree. Not far from the banyan tree, there was a mountain cave. Thousands of owls lived in it.

The king of the owls accompanied by his soldiers used to hunt crows during the night. Soon thousands of crows were killed and eaten up by the owls. One of the main reasons for the killing of the crows at such a large scale was, that they were unable to see clearly during the night. And the owls, being nocturnal, could easily locate the crows sitting in the tree during night hours. And the unfortunate crows were defenceless; they couldn't flyaway for the safety of their lives.

This kind of situation went on to such an extent, and the loss of lives of thousands of crows became so unbearable for the king of crows that one day he was compelled to call a meeting to discuss ways and means to combat the situation and bring an end to the continuing disaster.

After heated discussions and exchange of views and ideas, a plan was chalked out in the meeting, according to which a drama was to be enacted at a little distance from the owls' cave.

So, on the next day, the drama was staged and while enacting the drama, an old crow was 'thrashed' and 'beaten mercilessly' by the king of crows and his soldiers. The seemingly half dead old crow, with a goat's blood sprinkled all over his body was later picked up by thesoldiers of the king owl. This was done on the advice of a senior minister in king owl's cabinet. This minister had told the king owl. "Your Majesty, this badly wounded crow had spoken in favour of us in his king's cabinet meeting, saying that ours was a more intelligent and superior race, better managed and strong, hence we deserved the right to be known and recognized as the king of birds. This led to the murderous attack on the poor fellow."

"We should help him recuperate from his wounds and injuries," said the king of owls. "After this, we'll utilise this old knowledgeable crow's talent in demolishing the kingdom of the crows."

The old crow soon found a favourable place in the owls kingdom. Many of the owl ministers were in his favour, except, one or two, who opposed the crow, saying that he was, after all, from the enemy's camp.

Despite this opposition from certain owl ministers, the crow continued to live in the owls' cave.

Lastly, it was the day time when the owls themselves were not able to see anything, due to sunlight, when the seemingly wounded and infirm crow piled up thousands of wooden logs at the mouth of the owls' cave and put fire into it. The devouring flames leapt up high and all the owls in the owls' kingdom, inside the cave, were burnt to ashes.