Philosophies of India

SR No.: 007309
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Heinrich Zimmer, Joseph Campbell
Publisher: Routledge and Kegan Paul Ltd
Publication Year: 1953
Total Pages: 709
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 34 MB

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THE WORLD AT WAR and then, when the man could be seen approaching to inspect his traps, safely fulfilled its pledge by quickly gnawing through the net and darting into its hole, while the cat, with a desperate lcap, broke free, got up into the branches, and escaped the death at hand.
This is a typical example from the vast treasure store of India's beast fables of political wisdom. It gives an idea of the cold blooded cynical realism and sophistication that is the very life-sap and flavor of the ancient Indian style of political theory and casuistry. The quick-witted mouse, completely unprejudiced in his forming of alliances to stave off danger, was, besides being bold, a master of the art of timing. But the episode of the net was not the end of this affair. The further course of the tale presents the particular point intended for the instruction of the Hindu kings and their chancellors.
Following the departure of the disappointed huntsman from the scene with his shattered net, the cat came down from the branches and, approaching the mousehole, called in sweetly to the mouse. He invited it to come up and rejoin its old companion. The common predicament of the night just past (so the cat maintained) and the assistance that the two had so loyally given to each other in their common struggle for survival had forged a lasting bond that expunged their former differences. Henceforward the two should be friends forever, and trust each other implicitly. But the mouse demurred. It remained cold to the toincat's rhetoric, stoutly refusing to come out of its secure abode. The paradoxical situation that had thrown the two together in a queer temporary co-operation having passed, no words could induce the canny little creature to draw near again to its natural enemy. The mouse brought forth in justification of its rejection of the other's insidious kindly sentiments the formula that is intended to be the moral of the tale, which is, frankly and simply, that on the battleground of politics there is no such thing as lasting friendship.
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