The Ungrateful Man

A poor Brahman, sent out by his frustrated wife to find some way to support their starving family, wandered into a forest and discovered a well containing a trapped tiger, monkey, snake, and man, all begging to be pulled to safety.

Despite his fear, the Brahman rescued the tiger and monkey first, each of whom swore friendship and offered him a standing invitation to visit. He then hesitated over the snake, whose reputation terrified him, but pulled it out too after it swore an oath of safety. All three animals warned him urgently against freeing the human man in the well, calling him a shrine of every sin -- but the Brahman's compassion won out, and he rescued the man as well.

Continuing his travels and finding nothing, the Brahman eventually visited the monkey, who fed him sweet fruit, and then the tiger, who gave him a stolen prince's gold jewelry as a gift of gratitude. Remembering the goldsmith-man he had also rescued, the Brahman brought the jewelry to him to be sold, unaware that the goldsmith recognized the pieces as belonging to a murdered prince and reported the Brahman to the king as the killer.

Sentenced to execution on the goldsmith's false testimony, the Brahman remembered the snake, who kept his promise by biting the queen and then withholding the antidote from every court physician until only the Brahman's touch could cure her -- securing his release and a chance to prove his innocence by revealing the entire true sequence of events.

Once the king understood what had actually happened, he rewarded the Brahman richly and punished the treacherous goldsmith, vindicating the animals' warning about human ingratitude while also showing that the Brahman's compassion toward all four trapped creatures, animal and human alike, ultimately proved its own reward.