There were once two otters who caught a fish, and then they quarreled about how to divide it.
“The middle is mine," one otter said. "You can have the head and the tail."
“No!” said the other otter. “I want the middle! I'll give you the head and the tail.”
A greedy jackal came by. "I'll be glad to judge between you," he said.
The otters explained what had happened.
"Oh, that's easy!" the jackal exclaimed. "You take the head... and you take the tail..." and then the jackal ran away with the middle part of the fish for himself.
~ ~ ~
This is another one of the Buddhist Jataka stories, the tales of the Buddha's previous births; this is known as the Dabbhapuppha Jataka. The Buddha was prompted to tell this story because of a greedy monk; you can read about the greedy monk here in the first part of the jataka. And who was the Buddha in this story? As in many of the jatakas which do not contain a noble, wise character, the Buddha was a "tree spirit" who witnessed the dispute of the jackal and the otters.
One lesson learned: don't trust jackals! But the better lesson learned is that it is good to share. If the otters had shared instead of being greedy, they would have had some nice fish to eat.
Here are two Indian otters:
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