# I: The Lion and the Crane explained — Indian Fairy Tales

> Chapter companion for Indian Fairy Tales by Joseph Jacobs.

## What happens

This chapter presents the Jataka tale of the Lion and the Crane, tracing its origins, parallels across cultures, and historical transmission from India to the West. It discusses the fable's appearance in classical, medieval, and modern collections, and hypothesizes an Indian origin with two routes of dissemination: one through Demetrius Phalereus to Phaedrus, and another through Buddhist sources to Hebrew and European traditions.

## Themes in this chapter

### Gratitude and Ingratitude

The central theme of the fable, where the lion refuses to show gratitude to the crane for removing a bone from his throat.

### Cultural Transmission and Borrowing

The chapter explores how the fable traveled from India to Egypt, Greece, and Europe, adapting across cultures and languages.

## Character check-ins

### The Lion

The ingrate lion in the Jataka fable, who refuses gratitude to the crane after having a bone removed from his throat.

### The Crane Bodhisatta

The crane who removes the bone from the lion's throat and is denied gratitude, representing the Bodhisatta in the Jataka.

## Key lines

> The similarity of the Jataka form with that familiar to us, and derived by us in the last resort from Phaedrus, is so striking that few will deny some historical relation between them.

The Jataka version is so similar to the one we know from Phaedrus that a historical connection seems undeniable.

_Highlights the close resemblance between the Indian and Western versions of the fable._

> I conjecture that the Fable originated in India, and came West by two different routes.

The author suggests the fable began in India and spread westward through two separate paths.

_Introduces the hypothesis of dual transmission routes for the fable._

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/indian_fairy_tales_se/chapters/i-the-lion-and-the-crane
- Book: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/indian_fairy_tales_se
- All chapters: https://www.betterreads.online/discover/indian_fairy_tales_se/chapters