Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies - DUBOIS, Abbé Hindu Manners, Customs and Ceremonies, Dubois | Page 487

AN APPEAL TO ARBITRATION
447
Is this the gratitude which 1 have to expect
practisest
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from thee for the service I have rendered ?
" Why dost thou
" Nonsense " replied the crocodile.
The only honesty of
talk to me of honesty and gratitude %
our days is to ruin those who cherish us."
" Be pleased, at any rate, to stay the execution of thy
perfidious design for a little while," entreated the Brahmin,
" and let us see if the morality which thou professest would
be approved by anybody. Let us refer the matter to
and should there be found only three who
arbitrators
approve thy mode of acting and thinking, I consent to be
devoured by thee."
The crocodile yielded to the wishes of the Brahmin, and
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agreed to defer the sacrifice until it had secured the appro-
bation of three arbitrators who saw nothing to blame in it.
They applied first of all to a mango-tree planted on the
The Brahmin asked the tree if it was right to
river bank.
do evil to those who had done us good.
" I do not know," answered the mango-tree, " if that is
permitted or not but I know very well that it is just the
kind of treatment which men like you mete out to me.
I appease their hunger by nourishing them with my succu-
and I shield them from the heat of the sun
lent fruits
by sheltering them under my shade. Yet, as soon as old
age or any accident makes me unfit to render them such
services, they, forgetting my past kindness, cut my branches,
and lastly deprive me of life itself by digging up my very
roots.
Hence I conclude that honesty among men consists
in destroying those who cherish them."
The crocodile and the Brahmin then accosted an old
cow which was grazing without a keeper on the banks of
the river.
The Brahmin asked if it was not an offence
against honesty to do evil to those who had done good to us.
" What dost thou mean by the word honesty % " answered
" Honesty in our days consists in harming those
the cow.
who have rendered us service I have learned this only too
well from any own sad experience.
Till recently I rendered
most important services to man. I ploughed his fields
I gave him calves
I nourished him with my milk.
But,
alas
now that I am grown old and unfit to be of service
to him, he has discarded me.
Forsaken and helpless on
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