[1] Compare the story of “The Rat’s Wedding” from the Pañjâb, The Indian Antiquary, Vol. XI., pp, 226ff: where, however, a better moral from the tale is drawn.
[2] A low caste man; Pariah.
[3] In response to the sound of the tom-tom.
XV.
Pride Goeth Before a Fall.
Corresponding to this English proverb, there is one in Tamil—Ahambhâ vam âlai al̤ikkum—“Self-pride brings destruction;” and the following story is related by the common folk to illustrate it.
In a certain village there lived ten cloth merchants, who always went about together. Once upon a time they had travelled far afield, and were returning home with a great deal of money which they had obtained by selling their wares. Now there happened to be a dense forest near their village, and this they reached early one morning. In it there lived three notorious robbers, of whose existence the traders had never heard, and while they were still in the middle of it, the robbers stood before them, with swords and cudgels in their hands, and ordered them to lay down all they had. The traders had no weapons with them, and so, though they were many more in number, they had to submit themselves to the robbers, who took away everything from them, even the very clothes they wore, and gave to each only a small loin-cloth (laṅgôṭî), a span in breadth and a cubit in length.
The idea that they had conquered ten men, and plundered all their property, now took possession of the robbers’ minds. They seated themselves like three monarchs before the men they had plundered, and ordered them to dance to them before returning home. The merchants now mourned their fate. They had lost all they had, except their chief essential, the laṅgôṭî, and still the robbers were not satisfied, but ordered them to dance.