Truth triumphs in the end

Once upon a time a jackal, while roaming around in search of food on the outskirts of a town, fell into a large wooden vat of indigo dye. All his efforts to get out of it failed.

The next morning, when the jackal heard the dyer’s footsteps, he lay very still and pretended to be dead. When the dyer noticed the jackal, he indeed thought he was dead. He picked him up and threw him out. No sooner had the dyer thrown him out of the vat than the jackal sprang to his feet and ran for his life into the forest. When the jackal saw his new blue colour, he thought to himself, "I am a splendid colour. Now I look different. Why shouldn’t I make the most of it?" He invited all the other jackals and said, "The Goddess of this forest has anointed my body with her own hands. Look at my colour! So, from this day onwards, I am the master of the forest and you will carry out my orders." The jackals looked at his peculiar colour with awe, bowed respectfully before him and said, "We will do as your Majesty commands!"

As time passed, other animals, living in the forest, came to recognise him as their king as well. In due course, even the lion and the tiger became his followers. This added to the jackal’s pride. He became so arrogant that he refused to allow his brother jackals to be part of his retinue. When an old jackal noticed that his fellow jackals were sad, he said to them, "Don’t feel dejected. We are clever and yet we have been put to shame by this so-called king jackal. You’ll see, he will pay for this! We must act in such a way that they come to know the truth. Let’s get together this evening and start howling."

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That evening, the jackals got together and began to howl. True to his inborn nature, the blue-coloured jackal also started howling. Immediately, the other animals knew that they had been taken for a ride. They pounced on him and killed him.

When the old jackal heard this, he said, "It doesn’t pay to deceive, truth will triumph in the end."