A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s3.t2.212

v2.c19.s3.t2.212

This jackal uses a magic spell, which he has heard accidentally, for making all four-footed creatures subject to him. In his arrogance he decides to go to war against the King of Benares. A lion had to stand on the backs of two elephants, and on the back of the former the jackal seated himself with the female jackal whom he had made his first queen, and thus, with great pomp, he marched towards the city of Benares. Impudently he challenges the king to yield his kingdom; all are in great terror, but through the cunning of the domestic priest (who is the Bodhisatta) the jackal with his animal host is annihilated. Then the people of Benares rush out of the city gate, in order to fetch meat, which, in a most un-Buddhistic manner, the Bodhisatta has told them to do, and what they cannot eat they dry. "At that time," thus concludes the Jātaka, in the true manner of the genuine animal fairy tales, “the drying of meat is supposed to have originated.”¹