It’s wise to shun the company of evil
On the way to the great Ujjain city, there was a Pippala tree. On it dwelled a crow and a crane. One afternoon, when Sun was shining bright, there arrived a traveller. He was not able to bear the heat, thought of taking rest in the shade of the tree. When he was taking rest, the Crane saw through the gaps between leaves of tree sun-light was directly falling on the face of the traveller.
Crane, who was kind hearted, couldn’t see this and spread out his wings to give shade to the person sleeping under the tree. Seeing the traveller sleeping in peace, the Crow got jealous and put his dropping on the travellers face and flew away.
The traveller who was sleeping in peace got no later and found only the crane. Mistaking crane to be the culprit the traveller shot an arrow and killed the crane. For no fault of its own the Crane was dead.
There are a few morals to be learnt from this story:
- The kindness of Crane was great. Not able to see the difficulty of the traveller, it spread its wings, took all the heat and protected the traveller. There is no greater service than helping the needful.
- Even though the Crane was a good being, just because it stayed with the evil, it got entangled in difficulties. One must never be in the company of bad. Evil ones not only destroy themselves, but also others with them.
- Anger is one’s greatest enemy. Because of his anger, the traveller, without thinking what actually happened, killed the innocent Crane. Under the clutches of anger one can do any great evil, hence one must always shun it.
