Week 12: Reading Diary B

 Jataka Tales: Babbitt

Jataka Tales: The Monkey and the Crocodile
-  Mother Crocodile wants her son to catch her a monkey, so that she can eat the heart.  The son manages to trick a greedy monkey onto his back, but is foolish and tells him that he plans to kill the monkey and give his heart to his mother.  The monkey got the crocodile to take it back to its tree by saying it didn't have its heart with it.  The crocodile found the monkey again, now living in a different tree.  The monkey tricked the crocodile again, earning the crocodile's respect and promise to leave him alone.

The Quarrel of the Quails
-  The quails had a good leader who helped them discover how to save themselves from the hunter.  The hunter would bring a net, mimicking the call of the leader.  Many quail were captured.  The leader found out how this happened and figured out how to save his followers.  When the net was thrown on them, they all flew to a thorn bush, saving themselves and catching the net on the thorns.  This continued successfully until they got in an argument that divided the group.  They could not agree to all fly, leading to the hunter capturing them and selling them.

The Foolish, Timid Rabbit
-  A rabbit was asleep under a tree until he woke to the thought that the world might fall apart.  His thought was, to him, proven correct when a coconut fell next to him. He started to run and other creatures came to see why.  When he told them the earth was falling apart, they began to run with him.  This continued until the Lion stopped them, questioning why they were all running.  He stopped their running and proved that the rabbit made a mistake.  This saved the animals from continuing to try to flee from this fate.