Wriing in English

Acertain king believed that what he had been taught, and what he believed, was right.
In many
ways he was a just man, but he was one whose ideas were limited.
One day he said to his three daugthers:
All that I have yours, or will be yours. Through me you obtained your life. It is my will which
determines your future, and hence determines your fate.
Dutifully, and quite persuaded of the truth of this, two of the girls agreed.
The third daughter, however, said:
Although my position demands tha I be obedient to the laws, I cannot believe that my fate must
always be determined by your opinions.
We shall see about that, said the king.
He ordered her to be imprisoned in a small cell, where she languished for years.
Meanwhile the king and his obedient daughters spent freely of the wealth which would otherwise
have been expended upon her.
The king said to himself:
This girl lies in in prison not by her own will, but by mine. This proves, sufficiently for any logical
mind, that it is my will, not hers, which is determining her fate.
The people of the country , hering of their princess´s situation, said to one another:
She must have done or said something very wrong for a monarch, with whom we find no fault, to
treat his own flesh and blood so. For they had not arrived at the point where they felt the need to
dispute the king´s assumption of rightness in everything.
From time to time the king visited the girl. Although she was pale and weakened from her
imprisonment, she refused to change her attitude.
Finally the king’s patience came to an end.
Your continued defiance, he said to her, will only annoy me further, and seem to weaken my
rights, if you stay within my realms. I could kill you; but I am merciful. I therefore banish you into
the wilderness adjoining my territory. This is a wilderness inhabited only by wild beasts and such
eccentric outcasts who cannot survive in our.
Rational society. There you will soon discover whether you can have an existence apart from that
of your family; and if you can, wheater you prefer it to ours.
His decree was at once obeyed, and she was conveyed to the borders of the kingdom.
The princess found herself set loose in a wild land which bore little resemblance to the sheltered
surroundings of the upbringing. But she soon learned that a cave would serve for a house, that
nuts and fruit came form trees as well as from golden plates, that warmth came from the Sun. This
wilderness had a climate and a way of existing of its own.
After some time she had so ordered her life tha she had water from springs, vegetables from the
earth, fire from a smouldering tree.
Here, she said to herself, is a life whose elements belong together, form a completeness, yet
neither individually nor collectively do they obey the commands of my father the king. One day a
lost traveller- as it happened a man of great riches and ingenuity- came upon the exiled princess,
fell in love with her, and took her back to his own country, where they were married.
After a space of time, the two decided to return to the wilderness, where they built a huge and
prosperous city where there wisdom, resources and faith were expressed to their fullest possible
extent. The ‘eccentrics’ and other outcasts, many-sided life. The city and its surrounding
countryside became renowned throughout the entire world. It was not long before its power and
beauty far outshone that of the of the realm of the princess’s father.
By the unanimous choice of the inhabitants, the princess and her husband were elected to the
joint monarchy of this new and ideal kingdom.
At the length the king decided to visit the strange and mysterious place which had sprung up in a
wilderness, and which was, he heard, people at least in part by those whom he and his like
despised.
As, with bowed head, he slowly approached the foot of the throne upon which the young couple
sat and raised his eyes to meet those whose repute of justice, prosperity and understanding far
exceeded his own, he was able to catch the murmured words of his daughter.
You see, father, every man and woman has his own fate and his own choice.
WORLD TALES
IDRIES SHAH
INTRODUCTION
While such fables as the Fox and the Grapes and the Wolf in Sheep´s Clothing have become
proverbial in many countries, this one is important in the literary history of Aesopian ´teachings´. It
originates with the Panchatantra (´The Five Books´), dating at the latest from 500 AD, and perhaps
as old as 100 BC. It was compiled for the instruction in government of princess in India. It is one of
the only two stories from the Panchatantra which are attributed to Aesop ( the other is ‘The Ass
without Heart and Ears’), and also because it is found in the found in the works of Lucian and the
Fables attributed to Babrius (third century AD) and also in the Fables of Avian.
Professor Franklin Edgerton of Yale University (The Panchatantra; London: Allen y Unwin, 1951)
has pointed out that part of the original zest of the story is the fact that, in india, the ass is
considered the epitome of lencherousness.
‘The five Books ’ is a very worldly primer, preaching mainly that one should look out for oneself.
This may not have been so true of the original work which seems to have foreshadowed it. The
translations, starting from the 6th century AD Pahlavi Iranian version, are from a lost Sanskrit
original. There is a persistent belief in the Middle East and West Asia that the version which we
have are superficial in having been adapted from spiritual into political teaching. One
interpretation of the following tale, for instance, along these line, states that the skin covering the
ass stands for hypocrisy or the assumption of mystical knowledge, which are thrown off when the
real nature of the human being (the braying) breaks through under stress.
The Ass in Pantherskin
There was one a donkey belonging to a a washerman, which was exhausted through carrying
heavy loads of laundry. His owner, to help him recover, put a panther`s skin over him for warmth
and turned him into someone else’s field to graze.
The ass could eat as much as it liked, for people thought that he was a panther and did not drive
him off, and so he revived somewhat.
A certain farmer, glimpsing the wild animal’s skin, was greatly afraid and stole away as cautiously
as he might, wrapped in his grey cloak.
But the donkey, seeing what he took for a female ass in the distance, started to run after it. The
man put on speed. The ass thought that he would give a mating-call, in case his quarry had
mistaken him for a panther.
As soon as the man heard the donkey braying, he knew what he was , and, drawing his bow, killed
him on the spot.

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Wriing in English

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Acertain king believed that what he had been taught, and what he believed, was right.

One day he said to his three daugthers:

The third daughter, however, said:

We shall see about that, said the king.

The king said to himself:

Finally the king’s patience came to an end.

The Ass in Pantherskin

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