Long, long ago near the great Indian city of Benares there was a beautiful forest. Many animals lived there including mischievous monkeys.
Not only was the forest beautiful, it had a deep and wide river meandering throughit.
An island which was full of delicious fruit trees sat in the middle of the wide river and next to it was a huge rock.
Now, there was a monkey who had his home on the river bank. While going about his daily activities and doing his monkey tricks the monkey caught sight of the island of delicious fruit trees and wanted to feast on the luscious fruit. But there was a big obstacle to doing so – the wide and deep river.
The monkey was determined not to let this prevent him from going to the island and having a feast of fruit. So, he set his clever, monkey brain to work and thought long and hard. He finally figured out that he could do it in two jumps. First, a jump to the rock in the middle of the wide river and then a jump from it to the island.
And the monkey did just that and got to the island and was overjoyed to see the variety of delicious fruit there. He ate and ate to his heart’s content and returned to his home on the river bank by jumping from the island to the rock and from the rock to the river bank.
Thereafter, the monkey went to the island every day, ate his fill and returned home to the river back.
Remember the deep and wide river which flowed through the forest? An enormous and fierce but foolish crocodile lived in this river with his wife. For a crocodile monkey flesh is a great delicacy and they never passed by a chance to taste this delicacy.
After a while the crocodile’s wife noticed the monkey jumping to and fro from the river bank to the island and back and she had a great longing to eat this little monkey’s flesh. She asked her husband, the crocodile, to catch the monkey for her.
Now, the crocodile was faced with the problem of how to catch the monkey for the monkey never got into the river on his journey to the island and back.
After thinking about this problem for a long time the crocodile came up with an idea. He decided to lie on the rock in the middle of the river so that he too would look like a rock. He thought that the monkey would mistake him for a rock and jump on to him and that he would be able to catch the monkey easily.
One fine day the crocodile put his plan into action after the monkey had reached the island hoping to catch the monkey on his return journey. After having spent the day on the island and having eaten his fill the monkey got ready to jump back to his river bank home.
Monkeys are very clever and very observant. As he was getting ready to jump back to his home the monkey noticed something strange about the rock in the middle of the river. He realised that it was a crocodile Pretending that he was unaware of the crocodile he spoke to the rock and asked how it was.
The crocodile got fooled and spoke to the monkey. The monkey now knew definitely that it was a crocodile and planning to trick him further spoke to him and asked him what he was doing on the rock.
The foolish crocodile told the monkey that he was there to catch him as his wife wanted to eat him. The monkey told the crocodile that he will help him and told the crocodile to open his mouth as wide as possible and that he will jump right into it. The clever monkey knew that when a crocodile opens his mouth that his eyes closes immediately.
The crocodile was very happy at what the monkey told him and opened his mouth as wide as he could and his eyes closed immediately. The monkey immediately jumped onto the crocodile’s back and from there jumped to the river bank and was home safe and sound. After a while, the crocodile opened his eyes and what did he see? He saw the monkey scampering about on the river bank and realised how he had been tricked.
Though big. the crocodile was foolish and the monkey though small was intelligent and therefore managed to fool the crocodile .
This story is based on the Vanarinda Jathakaya.