‘The Ant and the Pigeon’ is a very popular story of ‘The Panchatantra’ a Sanskrit Text of moral stories composed by Vishnu Sharma. Vishnu Sharma, a scholar, was stated to teach the principles of good government to three princes of Amarasakti. He, in order to teach the three princes, composed ‘The Panchatantra’.
‘The Panchatantra’ is a series of inter-woven fables. Many of the stories deploy metaphors of anthropomorphized animals with human virtues and vices. Its narrative illustrates the central Hindu principles of nīti.
‘The Panchatantra’ consists of five parts. Each part contains a main story that is called the frame story. The main story in turn contains several embedded stories, such as one character narrates a story to another. Often these stories contain further embedded stories. Besides the stories, the characters also quote various short verses to make their point.
The five parts have their own subtitles-
1. Mitra-bheda [Loss of Fried]
2. Mitra-samprāpti [Meeting with a friend],
3. Kakolukiyam
4. Labdh
5. Aparikshitakarkam
The Ant and the Pigeon
Once upon a time, it was summer. An ant was very thirsty. She started wandering here and there in search of water. In no time she reached near a river. The river was full of water, but the ant could not go directly to that river.
Because of this she climbed on a small stone and bent down from there and tried to drink the water of the river. As the ant bent down to drink water, she fell into the river.
A pigeon sitting on a tree on the bank of the same river was watching all this. He took pity on the condition of the ant and the pigeon made a plan to save the ant. He quickly plucked a leaf from the branch of the tree. He threw it to the ant flowing in the water of the river.
The ant sat down on that leaf and when that leaf reached the bank of the river, it jumped from the leaf and came to the ground. The ant thanked the pigeon for saving her life and left.
After a few days a hunter came on the bank of the same river. He laid his net near the nest of the pigeon. Spreading the grains on the net, he hid in a nearby bush and sat down.
The pigeon could not see the hunter and his net. When he saw the grain on the ground, he got down to pick it up and got caught in the hunter’s net.
At the same time the ant had also come there. He had seen the pigeon getting caught in the hunter’s net. The poor pigeon could not get out of the hunter’s net even after making lakhs of efforts. After this the hunter came and picked up the pigeon trapped in the net and started walking. Then the ant decided to save the life of the pigeon. The ant came running and started biting the hunter’s leg.
Due to the bite of the ant, the hunter felt very severe pain. He threw the net down and started cleaning his feet.
He threw the net down and started cleaning his feet.
In the meantime, the pigeon got out of the net as soon as it got the chance and it flew away fast.
In this way the ant saved the life of the pigeon.
Moral of the story ‘The Ant and the Pigeon’
If someone helps someone without any selfishness, then it definitely gets good results at some point or the other. Good always happens with a good person.
Note:- This story has been taken from ‘Panchatantra’ a Sanskrit Text of moral stories composed by Vishnu Sharma.
Some facts have been verified with Wikipedia.
