The Pigeon and the Crow

In one of his births the Bodhisatta lived as a pigeon. A rich man’s cook had hung a nest-basket in the kitchen for merit, and there the pigeon stayed. A greedy crow flying past spotted dainty scraps and burned to taste them. How to get some? He shaped a scheme.

When the pigeon left to forage, the crow trailed him. “What do you want?” asked the pigeon. “We do not eat the same food.” “I admire you and your habits,” said the crow. “Let us be companions and feed side by side.” The pigeon consented. The crow made a show of feeding with him, yet kept slipping aside to peck dung-heaps for fat worms. When stuffed, he chirped that the pigeon took forever over breakfast and that one must know when to stop—better fly home before dark. So they returned together.

Seeing his pigeon had brought a guest, the cook hung a second basket. Days later a large load of fish arrived. The crow ached for a share. From dawn he lay moaning. “Come breakfast, Sir Crow,” called the pigeon. “Alas, indigestion!” “Nonsense—crows do not get indigestion,” said the pigeon. “A lamp-wick may sit a while; anything else vanishes at once. Do not play sick for a glimpse of fish.” “Why say that, master? I truly ache.” “Take care, then,” said the pigeon, and flew off.

The cook finished the dishes and stood in the doorway wiping sweat. Now, thought the crow, and dropped onto a fine plate. Click! The cook heard, spun, seized him, and stripped the feathers from his head save one tuft. He powdered ginger and cumin, mixed them with buttermilk, and rubbed the paste hard over the bird. “That is for spoiling my master’s dinner and forcing me to throw it away!” He tossed the crow into its basket. The burn was fierce.

Later the pigeon came home and found the crow sprawled, making a racket. He mocked in verse: who was this tufted crane lying where he had no right? The crow answered he was no crane—only a greedy crow who would not listen, and so was plucked. The pigeon warned he would suffer again by nature, and that meat dishes were not for little birds. Then he said he could no longer share a house with such a creature, and flew away. The crow groaned until he died.

About this story

This is a Buddhist Jataka, one of the stories of the Buddha’s earlier lives. Joseph Jacobs used it to close his Indian Fairy Tales (1892); his notes say it is the Lola Jataka (No. 274 in Fausböll’s edition), “kindly translated and slightly abridged” for the book by W. H. D. Rouse.

The pigeon is the Bodhisatta, which Jacobs explains is not exactly the Buddha himself but a being on the way to becoming enlightened. The three short verses traded by the pigeon and the crow are retold in prose here. The crow’s death at the end is kept, as in the source.

Read the original: Joseph Jacobs, Indian Fairy Tales, 1892 (Project Gutenberg #7128)

Reading guidance: for mature readers. The crow is deliberately plucked, painfully treated with spices and left to die; the ending is more severe than a simple lesson about greed.

A closer reading

The crow performs friendship for access to the kitchen: he pretends to share the pigeon’s habits while feeding elsewhere, then pretends to be ill so he can stay behind. His comment that the pigeon should know when to stop eating is ironic because the crow’s own appetite drives the deception.

The cook’s response turns a warning against greed into a disturbing account of cruelty. The crow has stolen food, but the burning treatment and death are not proportionate consequences a reader should endorse. The pigeon can choose to leave an untrustworthy companion, yet his mockery of an injured bird also deserves examination. The fable’s severe moral tone need not be accepted without question.

Try this with the story

Separate the crow’s choices from the cook’s choices in two columns. Explain how the theft causes a conflict while the cook independently chooses a cruel response. Then rewrite the pigeon’s final speech so that it sets a boundary without mocking an injured creature.

Questions to ask

• Why did the crow pretend to be ill instead of going out with the pigeon?
• The pigeon warned the crow. Why do you think the crow ignored him?
• If you shared a home with someone like the crow, what would you say to them?

Related stories

• The Lion and the Crane — another Jataka fable from the same book, where a bird helps a greedy lion
• The Crow and the Fox — a crow loses her food because she will not think before she acts
• The Dog and His Reflection — an Aesop fable where greed for more leaves an animal with nothing