The Tale of Three Fishes

Long ago, three fish lived together in a lake close to a river. They were good friends, and each had a name that suited him very well.

The first was called Anágatavidhátri, which means “the one who plans ahead.” The second was called Pratyutpannamati, “the one who thinks fast when trouble comes.” And the third was called Yadbhavishya, which means “whatever will be, will be.”

One day some fishermen walked past the lake. The three fish heard them talking to one another. “There must be fish in this lake,” they said.

The first fish, the one who planned ahead, did not wait to hear any more. He was afraid the fishermen would come back and catch him. So he slipped out into the current of the river and swam away to another place.

The second fish stayed where he was. He was not afraid. “If danger comes,” he said to himself, “I will find a way out of it when the time comes.”

The third fish stayed too. “What must be, must be,” he said, and he did nothing at all.

Before long the fishermen came back and threw a net into the lake. Both fish who had stayed were caught in it.

As the net was hauled up, the quick-thinking fish made his body go stiff and lay perfectly still, as if he were already dead. The fishermen were busy killing the fish they had caught. When they saw him, they thought he had died by himself, so they left him alone. The moment their backs were turned, he leapt into the river and swam off as fast as he could, far away from there.

But the third fish, the one who said “what will be, will be,” jumped and wriggled and flapped about in the net in panic. So the fishermen grabbed him, and that was the end of him.

Where this story comes from

This fable is retold from the Kathá Sarit Ságara, the eleventh-century collection of Sanskrit stories by Somadeva, in C. H. Tawney’s English translation (Project Gutenberg #40588). In Somadeva’s book a little bird called a tittibha tells it to his worried wife. He means that he, like the second fish, will think of something when trouble comes.

Tawney also gives the fishes’ Sanskrit names, which this retelling keeps. The same fable appears in the Panchatantra and in the Hitopadesha, where the three fish are often called Forethought, Ready-wit and Fatalist.

Read the original: Somadeva, Ocean of the Streams of Story (Kathá Sarit Ságara), tr. C. H. Tawney (Project Gutenberg #40588)

Reading guidance: Ages 9–12; includes fish being killed and one friend’s death. Discuss both planning and the limits of relying on a last-minute escape.

A closer reading

The story allows two kinds of successful judgment: leaving before the net arrives and improvising after capture. Their risks differ. The first fish avoids the crisis entirely; the second survives only because the fishermen misread his stillness and leave an opening to escape.

The third fish’s fatalism is not calm acceptance once danger is unavoidable; he uses it earlier as a reason to do nothing. Later he panics. The frame complicates the lesson because the bird telling the story identifies with the riskier second fish. A narrator can select the part of a story that suits the decision he already prefers.

Try this with the story

Compare the three fish in a table with columns for warning, action and risk. Then ask which fish the storytelling bird admires and whether his wife might prefer a different example.

Talk about it

• How does the first fish’s escape differ in risk from the second’s?
• What must the fishermen mistakenly believe for the second plan to work?
• Why might the bird telling the tale emphasize the quick-thinking fish?

More stories like this

• The Story of the Tittibha Birds and the Sea — the little birds who face the sea, in whose story this fable is told
• Why The Fish Laughed — another Indian story with a fish in it