The elephant is reunited with the dog.
Once upon a time, the king of India had a whole stable of elephants. There were a dozen of them and all they had to do most days was to eat hay and grass and play tricks on one another. It was a happy life, for the most part.
One day, a dog snuck into the elephant stable. All of the elephants were afraid of the dog. It had sharp teeth and looked just like a wolf. Only one elephant didn’t panic when it saw the dog. This pachyderm was more intrigued by the dog than afraid of it. It went up to the dog and asked what the small wolf-like creature’s name was.
“I am Fido,” it replied, shivering, obviously afraid of the huge creatures which stood in the stable. It thought it would be eaten.
The elephant, being very bright, could tell that it was afraid and said to the dog, “Don’t be afraid. We are all vegetarians here. I’ll talk to my friends and tell them that you are a friend.”
The dog thanked it profusely.
In time the dog and the elephant became great friends. The dog slept in the elephant stable every night and they played games together everyday.
One day, a farmer saw the dog by the stables and asked the elephant-keeper whether he could buy the dog. The elephant-keeper didn’t like the dog, thinking it would spread fleas to the king’s elephants, so he sold it to the farmer for only a few rupees. The elephant became very sad. It barely ate and barely slept.
Soon after, a war started between the elephant’s king and the king of a distant. This was the first time the elephant had been to war and it was extraordinarily frightened. When it was back in the king’s camp, it saw all of the dead bodies and the dying men being carried in carts. The elephant only wanted to go home. It had had enough of this war.
As it turned out, the dog, having been just as sad as the elephant and not wishing to do any work, had been sold by the farmer to a soldier in the other country. It served as a war dog in the army and it was only with a great deal of prodding that it would attack the opposing army.
On the second day of the battle, the elephant was walking across the field when it spied a great pack of dogs running towards it. The elephant reared up, ready to smash the dogs, not because it liked war, but because it didn’t want the king, who was riding on its back, to be hurt.
The dog was the leader of this pack and recognized the elephant. It stopped and so did the dog soldiers under it. They asked their captain what the problem was. It replied that the elephant had been a good friend years earlier.
The kings of both sides saw this and considered it a miracle. They both called for a ceasefire. The two men, being very wise, talked about the issue which had caused this war. They saw that it had been a misunderstanding and decided to ally themselves, should some enemy attack them or threaten war. From them on, each year, the elephant and the dog spent six months in the elephant’s king’s palace and six months in the dog’s king’s palace. They never again had to go to war and they remained great friends for the rest of their lives.
Author’s Note
In this story, I took a Jataka tale and decided to elaborate on some of the circumstances surrounding the animals’ reunification. Rather than simply being lonely and the king recognizing this, the elephant and the dog must go through the terrible circumstances of war in order to find each other again. Their reunification also offers a chance of reconciliation to the two kings. They wisely decide that if the “war” elephant and the “war” dog can get along, then their two kingdoms can too.
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