The King, the Monkey and the Pea
A warlike king sets out to bag another small kingdom for his realms, but a monkey gets him thinking.
300s BC
A warlike king sets out to bag another small kingdom for his realms, but a monkey gets him thinking.
300s BC
The Jataka Tales are a collection of roughly fourth-century BC stories supposedly from the many previous lives of Gautama Buddha. Several tell, Aesop-like, how one may learn wisdom by observing the ways of the natural world around us. In this case, a belligerent monarch draws a timely lesson from the antics of a monkey.
ONCE upon a time a powerful King of a great nation set his heart on capturing a little kingdom far away. He gathered his troops and marched for many miles before pitching camp in a forest.
As the King’s men filled nosebags with peas for their horses, a sly monkey came down from his tree and stole two great handfuls of peas. On his way back up, however, he let a pea fall. Much vexed, the monkey tossed aside all his other peas and went searching for the one he had dropped; but his search was in vain, and not daring to linger he scurried back to his branch empty handed.
All this was seen by the mighty King, who called his captains together and said: “I will not be like this monkey, who lost so much to gain so little. Let us return to our own country, and be thankful for our blessings.”
Suggest answers to this question. See if you can limit one answer to exactly seven words.
Where did the monkey get his peas from?
They were being fed to some horses.
Express the ideas below in a single sentence, using different words as much as possible. Do not be satisfied with the first answer you think of; think of several, and choose the best.
A king raised an army. He planned to conquer a small country. It lay on the borders of his realm.