Whole herds of cows may they bestow upon us,
And grant us length of days through sacrificing.”
The Jatakas of Buddha, though religious writings, and teachings by parables, are not without humor. The one about the silly son who killed the mosquito on his father’s bald head with a heavy blow of an ax, has its funny side. Or the old monarch who had reigned 252,000 years and still had 84,000 years more ahead of him, and went into solitary retirement because he discovered a gray hair in his head. Another shrewd fellow made an enormous fortune out of the sale of a dead mouse.
Of course, the animals figure largely. There is the tale of the monkeys who watered a garden and then pulled up the plants to see if their roots were wet, and the angry crows who tried to drink up the sea.
Riddles, too, must be remembered.
Though not many specimens have been preserved, yet we remember Samson’s riddle, so disastrous to the Philistines.
“Out of the eater came forth meat; and out of the strong came forth sweetness.”
And when his susceptibility to cajolery led him to tell his wife the answer, and she tattled, his comment was the pithy; “If ye had not plowed with my heifer, ye had not found out my riddle.”
The Sphinx’s riddle is well known. “What animal goes on four legs in the morning, on two at noon, and on three at night?”
The answer being: Man, who goes on all-fours in infancy, walks upright in middle life, and adds a staff in old age.