A broken loom creates an unexpected offer
When the pegs of his loom break, the weaver Slow takes an axe to find suitable wood. At the seashore he selects a large sissoo tree. A being living in it, called a fairy in Ryder’s translation, asks him to spare the pleasant home. Slow explains that without equipment his family will go hungry.
The tree’s inhabitant offers a wish in exchange for its preservation. Slow does not answer immediately. He decides to consult his friend and his wife before returning. The delay appears prudent: the opportunity is unusual, and he seeks advice about how to use it. The subsequent disagreement shows that consulting others does not automatically supply a sound decision.
Source: Panchatantra, Book 5: Ill-considered Action · Panchatantra, Book 5, Slow, the Weaver, pp. 449–453
Two advisers imagine different futures
His barber friend recommends asking for a kingdom, with the barber himself as chief minister. His wife rejects the proposal, emphasizing the dangers and obligations of political rule. She suggests an extra head and a second pair of arms instead. With these, she imagines, he could weave in two directions and double his household’s income.
Slow likes the plan because it extends his familiar occupation rather than placing him at the center of a dangerous court. He returns to the tree and makes the request. The gift takes effect immediately: he becomes two-headed and four-armed. Delighted, he starts home expecting the altered body to improve ordinary work and family life.
Source: Panchatantra, Book 5: Ill-considered Action · Panchatantra, Book 5, Slow, the Weaver, pp. 449–453
The audience omitted from the plan
People who see him approaching mistake him for a fiend. They attack him with stones and clubs and kill him. Neither adviser has considered how the surrounding community will interpret the transformation. A wish designed to strengthen his place in the town instead makes him unrecognizable within it.
The dialogue contains hostile claims about women and competing claims about whose advice should count. Those generalizations belong to the historical tale; the plot does not establish them as truths. Both proposals are interested and incomplete. The barber imagines an office for himself, while the wife focuses on household production. The fatal omission is the reception of the result by others, showing why a locally sensible benefit can fail when its wider consequences are left outside the decision.
Source: Panchatantra, Book 5: Ill-considered Action · Panchatantra, Book 5, Slow, the Weaver, pp. 449–453
- Period / witness
- Pūrṇabhadra recension dated 1199 CE; Arthur W. Ryder translation, 1925. The tales have differing earlier histories.
- Recording context
- Original synopsis and commentary on Ryder’s translation of the Pūrṇabhadra recension, edited by Johannes Hertel. This selected literary witness does not represent all Indian traditions.
A recording location is not necessarily a story’s origin. Dates of texts, copies, and translations answer different questions.
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These references support the explanation above. Rights and edition notes are recorded individually.
Panchatantra, Book 5: Ill-considered Action ↗
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