The Blue Jackal Who Became Emperor of the Forest Until He Remembered How to Howl

More about The Blue Jackal Who Became Emperor of the Forest Until He Remembered How to Howl

A Fable from the Hitopadeśa

Once upon a time in India, there lived a jackal who was so ordinary that even his own shadow sometimes forgot to follow him.

He was brown, hungry, and possessed absolutely no qualifications for public office.

This was about to change.

One evening, while being chased by a pack of dogs, he stumbled into a village dyer’s enormous vat of indigo.

When he climbed out, he was blue.

Not the blue of sadness or the blue of distant mountains, but the extraordinary blue of something that had accidentally become important.

He looked at himself in a puddle.

“My goodness,” he said.

He had never seen anything quite like himself before.

Neither had anybody else.

When he returned to the forest, the animals fled in terror.

Even the tiger, who considered himself an authority on frightening things, hid behind a tree.

“Do not be afraid!” announced the jackal. “I have been sent by the gods to rule this forest.”

The animals gathered cautiously.

“I am your emperor,” he continued. “The heavens have painted me blue so that you may recognize my divine authority.”

This seemed reasonable to the animals.

After all, nobody had ever seen a blue jackal.

They had also never seen a purple elephant or a green rhinoceros, but nobody thought to mention this.

The lion became his minister of war.

The tiger commanded his armies.

The elephant carried him through the forest beneath a golden parasol.

And the monkeys brought him fruit, although they occasionally ate the best pieces themselves.

The jackal sat upon a magnificent throne and discovered that being emperor was considerably more comfortable than being hungry.

He wore jewels.

He issued proclamations.

He invented ceremonies in which everybody bowed three times before breakfast.

He even banished the other jackals because they reminded him of his relatives.

For several weeks, everything went beautifully.

Then one evening, beneath a full moon, the jackals in the distant hills began to howl.

It was a wonderful sound.

It traveled through the forest like an old song remembered by somebody who had forgotten everything else.

The blue emperor listened.

Something stirred inside him.

It was older than his throne, older than his crown, and considerably older than his political ambitions.

He lifted his head.

And howled.

A magnificent, heartbreaking jackal howl.

The lion stopped polishing his claws.

The tiger looked up.

The elephant dropped the golden parasol.

For one terrible moment, the entire forest understood everything.

Their divine emperor was simply a jackal who had fallen into a bucket of blue dye.

The animals turned upon him.

He fled through the forest, losing his crown, his jewels, and most of his dignity.

Eventually, the rain washed away the indigo.

He became brown again.

That evening, he sat alone beneath a tree, listening to the other jackals singing to the moon.

He joined them.

And for the first time since becoming emperor, he sounded exactly like himself.

Thus the sages teach: A creature may change its color, acquire a throne, and persuade the world that it was born among the gods.

But somewhere beneath the robes of authority, the original animal is still waiting for the moon.

And sometimes the greatest political catastrophe in the history of a kingdom is simply somebody remembering how to sing.