The Elephant and the Jackal: A Hitopadesha Story with Moral
Quick answer: The Elephant and the Jackal retold in full: a jackal offers a lone elephant the crown of the forest and leads him to a lake with no bottom. Hitopadesha moral on flattery.
A jackal tells an elephant that the animals of the forest have unanimously chosen him as their king, and that the coronation will take place at a lake in the middle of the marsh. The Elephant and the Jackal is a Hitopadesha tale about flattery, told also in the Panchatantra, and its lesson has never needed updating.
The story
An elephant named Karpuratilaka wandered into a forest where a pack of jackals lived, and the jackals looked at him the way a poor man looks at a bank. 'There is a year of meat walking about,' one said, 'and no way to bring it down.' They argued for a day. Then the oldest jackal said, 'Leave him to me. Strength cannot kill him. A speech can.'
He trotted up to the elephant and made three deep bows. 'Lord, forgive a small creature for approaching. I am sent by the whole forest. Since the lion died we have had no king, and we have been at each other's throats. The council met last night, and every voice, from the tiger to the mouse, chose you: your size, your dignity, your gentle eyes. We beg you to come at once. The stars are right today, and if we miss the hour we must wait a year. The coronation lake is prepared.' The elephant, who had never been asked to be anything, felt his heart lift. 'Lead the way.'
The jackal led him along a path that grew soft, then softer, to a lake that lay bright and still in the middle of a great marsh. 'The throne is on the far side, lord. The water is shallow.' The elephant stepped in. The bottom went. He sank to his knees, and then his belly, and the more he heaved the deeper the black mud drew him.
'Friend, help me. Give me your tail to hold.' The jackal sat down on the firm bank and looked at him with interest. 'Lord, you trusted a jackal and thought he spoke for the forest. Whose fault is the mud?' He walked away to fetch the pack, and they ate for a month, and the forest never did get a king.
The moral, and what it actually means
The verse says that one who is puffed up by flattery falls into the trap of the flatterer, as the elephant fell into the lake. What the story observes more precisely is what flattery needs to work. Karpuratilaka is not vain by habit; he is lonely and unregarded, and the jackal's offer answers a want he did not know he had. The best lies in fable are not the biggest but the ones that fit a hole in the listener.
Where the tale sits and why it has lasted
The Hitopadesha tells it as a lesson in policy, and the Panchatantra has a version too, so it is best described as a shared tale of the two collections rather than assigned to one book. It has lasted because of the jackal's final question. He does not gloat; he asks the elephant to name the fault, and the elephant cannot answer, and the silence in the marsh is the ending.
For young readers and classrooms
From about seven upward.
Write your own
The engine is the offer shaped to the listener's hollow. Work out what your character has never been given, then let the deceiver offer exactly that, with a deadline attached so there is no time to check. The ground should give way in the middle of the story, and the deceiver's last line should be a question the victim cannot answer.
What writers can take from this
- For readers: the jackal's list of voters ends with the mouse; the detail that no one would invent is what makes the lie land.
- For teachers: children can find the deadline trick in real advertisements after reading this.
- For teachers: pair it with The Blue Jackal from the Panchatantra, where a jackal is the one who gets crowned.
- For writers: give your flatterer a small, checkable detail and a reason there is no time to check it.
- For writers: end on the question, not the feast. The silence is the punishment.
Try it yourself
Write a story in which someone who has never been chosen for anything is told they have been chosen unanimously, with a deadline that leaves no time to confirm it. Let the ground literally or otherwise give way, and end with the deceiver asking one question the victim cannot answer.
Questions
What is the moral of The Elephant and the Jackal?
Beware of flattery, especially the kind that offers exactly what you have always wanted. The elephant follows a jackal's promise of a crown into a bottomless lake.
Which Hitopadesha book is The Elephant and the Jackal from?
It is told in the Hitopadesha as a lesson in policy and appears in the Panchatantra too, so it is best treated as a tale shared by both collections rather than fixed to one book.
Is The Elephant and the Jackal suitable for children?
Yes, from about seven. The elephant's death is implied, and the jackal's speech is a clear, teachable example of how flattery works.
By the Writory editorial team, reviewed by working writers. Updated September 2026.
Enter a Writory story contest
Enter the Writory Short Story Contest and have your own story read and scored out of 100. Entries close 25 November. That first entry makes you a Writorian.