The Monkey and the Crocodile

At a Glance

• Central figures: The Bodhisatta, born as a monkey-king living in a great fig tree on the bank of the Ganges; a crocodile named Sumsumara; and the crocodile’s wife.
• Setting: The banks of the Ganges river, in the Pali Jataka tradition (Sumsumara Jataka, No. 208).
• The turn: The crocodile’s wife craves the monkey’s heart, and Sumsumara lures his friend onto his back in the middle of the river to kill him.
• The outcome: The monkey outwits the crocodile by claiming he left his heart hanging in the fig tree, escapes back to shore, and ends the friendship forever.
• The legacy: The tale entered the wider corpus of world fable literature, traveling through the Panchatantra and Arabic traditions; within the Jataka canon it stands as a parable on the use of wit to preserve life without violence.

The fig tree grew where the river bent. Its branches hung so far over the Ganges that ripe figs dropped into the current every morning - some carried downstream, some caught in the shallows near the opposite bank. A monkey lived alone in that tree. He was large, quick, and had been king of a troop once, though the Jataka does not say what became of them. What mattered was the tree. It fed him through every season, and he knew its branches the way a hand knows its own fingers.

Downstream, where the fallen figs collected in an eddy against the rocks, a crocodile noticed them. He began to eat there every day.

The Friendship at the River Bend

The crocodile’s name was Sumsumara. He was not old, but he was large enough that the water barely covered his back when he floated in the shallows. He liked the figs. He had never tasted anything so sweet. After a few days of eating what the current brought him, he looked upriver and saw the monkey sitting in the crown of the tree, eating from the same supply.

Sumsumara swam up to the base of the tree. He called out.

Who are you, friend, who lives in such a fine tree?

The monkey looked down. He saw the crocodile’s eyes and the long plated back and the tail moving slowly in the water, and he was not afraid - or if he was, he did not show it. He told Sumsumara his name and said the tree had more figs than he could eat alone.

Take what you like from the water. I will shake down extra for you.

He shook the branches, and figs rained into the river. Sumsumara ate until he was gorged. He came back the next day, and the day after that. The monkey talked while the crocodile floated below, and in this way they became friends. Sumsumara brought the monkey lotus roots from the deep pools. The monkey threw down the best figs he could find - the dark ones, split open on the branch, almost too ripe.

This went on for weeks. The crocodile began carrying figs home to his wife. She lived in a den hollowed from the riverbank far downstream, and she ate the figs, and she was curious.

The Wife’s Craving

Where do you get these? she asked.

Sumsumara told her about the monkey and the fig tree. He talked about his friend with warmth. He said the monkey was clever and generous and that the tree never ran dry.

His wife listened. Then she said a thing that changed everything.

A monkey who eats nothing but those figs every day - his heart must be the sweetest thing in the world. Bring me his heart.

Sumsumara stared at her.

He is my friend.

Bring me his heart or I will starve myself. I will die here on this bank and it will be your doing.

She would not relent. She turned her back to him and lay still. Sumsumara argued, pleaded, went silent, argued again. She did not move. He left the den at dawn the next morning, sick with what he had agreed to do.

The Ride Across the Water

He swam upriver to the fig tree. The monkey was sitting on his usual branch.

Friend, Sumsumara called up, my wife wants to meet you. She has heard so much about you. Come to our home - we will feast together. Climb on my back. I will carry you across.

The monkey hesitated. He had never left the tree for the water. But Sumsumara was his friend - had been his friend for a long time now - and the invitation seemed honest. He climbed down to the lowest branch, then jumped onto the crocodile’s broad back. Sumsumara pushed off from the bank and swam toward the center of the river.

The water deepened. The current pulled. When they were so far from either shore that the monkey could not possibly swim back, Sumsumara dove. Just a dip - enough to let the water wash over the monkey’s feet and legs. The monkey gripped the crocodile’s rough hide and shouted.

What are you doing? I cannot swim!

Sumsumara said nothing for a moment. Then, because he was not clever enough to hold a lie for long, he told the truth.

My wife wants your heart. I am taking you to her so she can eat it. I am sorry, friend.

The water moved around them. The monkey’s feet were wet and the far bank was distant and the near bank was gone behind the river’s curve.

The Heart in the Fig Tree

The monkey did not panic. He sat on the crocodile’s back in the middle of the Ganges and thought very quickly.

Sumsumara, he said, and his voice was steady, why didn’t you tell me before we left? I don’t carry my heart with me when I travel. It’s too valuable. I keep it hanging in the fig tree, up in the highest fork where no one can reach it.

Sumsumara stopped swimming.

You - what?

My heart. I left it in the tree. You can see it from the water if you look - it hangs on a branch near the top, wrapped in leaves. Turn around and take me back, and I will get it for you. Then your wife can have it and we will still be friends.

The crocodile believed him. He had always believed the monkey. He turned in the current and swam hard back toward the fig tree’s bank.

The moment the overhanging branches were within reach, the monkey leaped. He caught a low limb, swung up, and was gone into the crown of the tree in three bounds. He sat on the highest branch, breathing hard, and looked down.

Sumsumara floated below, waiting.

The Highest Branch

Come down, friend. Bring your heart.

The monkey did not come down.

Sumsumara. Do you think a creature’s heart hangs in a tree? My heart is here, inside my chest, where it has always been. You told me you were taking me to die. I believed you. Now I am telling you - I have no friendship left for someone who would kill me for his wife’s craving.

The crocodile floated there for a long time. The water moved past him. The figs dropped around him and he did not eat. Eventually he sank below the surface and let the current take him downstream.

The monkey stayed in his tree. He did not shake down figs for anyone after that. The ones that fell went where the river took them, and if they piled in the eddy against the rocks, no one was there to eat them.