A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

Overview

A lioness kills a cow but spares and suckles its calf alongside her own cub. Before dying she tells them to live as brothers and ignore slander. Grown up, the lion and bull remain companions until a scavenging jackal resents the lion’s attention to the bull. It invents threats from each animal and tells the other to treat ordinary stretching, roaring, bellowing and movement as signs of attack. Each misreads the other’s habitual behaviour; the lion claws the bull and the bull tears the lion’s belly with his horns, killing both. Their kinship is explicitly foster kinship. A deity condemns the destructive slander, and the paired story’s alternative happy ending is not substituted here.

Foster brothers separated by a jackal’s invented threatsBuddhist narrative witness
01

Origins & earliest records

Indian Buddhist narrative preserved in Tibetan translation

02

Records & interpretation

Whole chapter and its footnotes directly read in the digitized1906 edition.

In the literature

“And so they both perished.”
Anonymous Buddhist narrative tradition; F. Anton von Schiefner and W.R.S.Ralston, mediated translators · Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources — XXXIII The Jackal as Calumniator
XXXIII The Jackal as Calumniator, hosted printed-page marker328 · W.R.S.Ralston, English from Schiefner’s German Tibetan translation

VariantA ends in the two foster brothers’ deaths, distinct from variantB’s survival.

Selected bibliography

Documented works and useful reading. This is not a list of every appearance.

  1. 01

    Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources

    F. Anton von Schiefner, Tibetan-to-German translator; W. R. S. Ralston, English translator · 1906

    XXXIII.A, The Jackal as Calumniator, pp. 325–328; chapter note cites Kah-gyur vi. ff. 239–243

  2. 02

    Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources — XXXIII The Jackal as Calumniator

    Anonymous Buddhist narrative tradition; F. Anton von Schiefner and W.R.S.Ralston, mediated translators · 1906

    Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1906, title-page transcription independently checked. Tibetan Kah-gyur to German by F. Anton von Schiefner, then German to English by W.R.S.Ralston. Complete selectedXXIX–XXXIX314–343, including bothXXXIII variants and all notes, independently read. ChapterXXXVIII read as adjacent corpus context without inventing a new profile; source-language originals not collated.

Family & connections

A source-supported family tree or inspiration record has not yet been compiled for this profile. Related reading below indicates a connection in subject matter, not a proven lineage or creative influence.

Primary records and illustrations

Direct primary record

Schiefner/Ralston, Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources (London, 1906)

XXXIII.A, The Jackal as Calumniator. XXXIII.A, The Jackal as Calumniator, pp. 325–328; chapter note cites Kah-gyur vi. ff. 239–243

Complete chapter and all notes read. Translation’s canonical locator retained; original Tibetan not independently inspected. Actual endings, explicit identities and comparative material kept separate, with no death/kinship/anatomy inferred beyond the telling.

Inspect the digitized plate · Source collection manifest

Located primary passages

Specific passages supporting details in this entry, grouped by their published witness.

Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources

Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian Sources, London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trübner & Co., 1906, title-page transcription independently checked. Tibetan Kah-gyur to German by F. Anton von Schiefner, then German to English by W.R.S.Ralston. Complete selectedXXIX–XXXIX314–343, including bothXXXIII variants and all notes, independently read. ChapterXXXVIII read as adjacent corpus context without inventing a new profile; source-language originals not collated.

  1. A pregnant lioness kills a calved cow but spares and suckles the following calf alongside her own lion cub. Her dying injunction makes them brothers by shared nursing. A greedy jackal, deprived of remnants when the lion plays with the bull, invents threats and makes their ordinary movements seem hostile. Each attacks in fear and both die. The cow is the bull’s biological mother; the lioness is its foster mother.

    XXXIII The Jackal as Calumniator, completeA325–328; chapter note Kah-gyurvi.ff239–243

Historical German-mediated English rendering, not independently collated Tibetan manuscript. Page labels from hosted transcription. Religious/moral assertions remain narrative framing. No verse, ritual, prayer, medical preparation or modern adaptation copied.

References

Sources supporting this profile. Linked pages have their own scope and editorial standards.

  1. Historical translation of Buddhist narrativeSchiefner/Ralston, Tibetan Tales (1906), XXXIII.A, The Jackal as Calumniator, pp. 325–328; chapter note cites Kah-gyur vi. ff. 239–243Research access: 2026-10-05

Image credits

A sourced illustration has not yet been added. This gap is included in the coverage record.

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