The Tales · Indic
Victor the Jackal
A courtier jackal turns a lion against his friend the bull, to win back his own place at court.
Lively, a bull left behind by a merchant’s caravan, wanders into a forest and bellows. The lion Rusty, king of the forest, is frightened by the sound. Victor, a jackal who was once a minister and wants his place back, offers to find out what it is.
Victor brings Lively to the lion, and the two become close friends. Now Victor is sidelined, because the king no longer needs him. So he works on both of them. He tells the lion that the bull plans treason. He tells the bull that the lion intends to eat him. Each is told what signs to watch for, and each sees them. They fight and Rusty kills Lively. Then Rusty is sorry: Lively was almost his second life. Victor urges him not to waver.
Ryder opens the book with the moral already stated: the lion and the bull were linked in friendship, and a jackal estranged them for greedy and malicious ends.
Counsel
The original courtier. He did not need to lie to the king about the world. He only needed to lie to the king about his friend. And he profited from the break, which is the question the minister asks first: who gains if these two stop trusting each other?
Verification
Read in Arthur W. Ryder's 1925 translation (archive.org text). Ryder renders the names: Damanaka is 'Victor', his fellow jackal Karataka is 'Cheek', the lion Pingalaka is 'Rusty', the bull Sanjivaka is 'Lively'. Cite the Sanskrit names beside them. We read the opening, the middle and the ending of the tale, not every inserted story. Other recensions (Tantrakhyayika, the southern recension, the Hitopadesha) were not checked.