An object entrusted to another
Naduk leaves an inherited iron balance-beam with Merchant Lakshman before traveling abroad. Ryder specifies its great weight, making the later explanation especially absurd. On his return, Lakshman says mice have eaten it. The object is therefore not simply a quantity of metal or a generic treasure: it carries a history of ownership and entrusted custody. The story begins with one man exploiting another’s absence, then asking him to accept an implausible account instead of restitution.
Source: Panchatantra, Book 1: The Loss of Friends · Book I, The Mice That Ate Iron: deposit and demand for return
Matching an impossible explanation
Naduk appears to accept the loss, then takes Lakshman’s son to the river under an innocent pretext and hides him in a cave. He claims that a hawk carried the boy away. Lakshman objects that this cannot happen, but Naduk pairs the claim with the supposed appetite of iron-eating mice. The counterexample is designed to reveal selective belief. It is also coercive: a child becomes leverage in a dispute in which he committed no wrong.
Source: Panchatantra, Book 1: The Loss of Friends · Book I, The Mice That Ate Iron: river journey, concealment, and accusation
Restoration through a hearing
The dispute reaches the magistrates, who initially order Naduk to return the boy. Only after he explains the balance-beam do they see the relationship between the two impossibilities and arrange the return of both property and child. Cheek uses the episode in his argument against Victor’s destructive manipulation. The lesson is not that mice actually eat iron, nor that kidnapping is an impartial judicial procedure. Its carefully paired claims make an earlier deception publicly recognizable.
Source: Panchatantra, Book 1: The Loss of Friends · Book I, The Mice That Ate Iron: hearing at the palace gate and Cheek’s return to the frame
- Period / witness
- Purnabhadra recension dated 1199 CE; Arthur W. Ryder translation published 1925. These dates identify textual witnesses, not the first telling of every episode.
- Recording context
- Panchatantra in Arthur W. Ryder’s 1925 English translation of the Purnabhadra recension; passages are identified by book, named tale, and the surrounding frame narrative.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
Explore time & place →Read the sources
These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
Panchatantra, Book 1: The Loss of Friends ↗
Pūrṇabhadra recension (1199 CE); English translation by Arthur W. Ryder (1877–1938), based on Johannes Hertel’s Sanskrit edition · Pūrṇabhadra recension 1199 CE; Hertel edition 1908; Ryder translation 1925
Edition & rights note