Once upon a time, there were four friends. Of the four friends, only three of them had completed their education. Unfortunately, they lacked common sense. Although the fourth friend was not educated, he was the most sensible of them all. One day, the four friends decided to travel and use their knowledge to earn some money.

As they travelled across a forest, they noticed some bones of a dead animal lying on their path. “Why don’t we use our skills to bring this animal back to life?” said one friend.

When all of them agreed, the first friend said, “I know how to assemble the bones to form a skeleton of the original animal.”

Saying so, he assembled the skeleton.

The second friend said, “That is good. Let me now add skin, flesh, and blood.”

He immediately added muscles to the animal.

The third friend said, “That’s great. Now prepared to be amazed as I bring this animal to life.”

But before he could do that, the fourth friend interrupted and said, “Are you crazy? Can’t you see the animal is a lion? If you bring it to life, it will kill us all.”

The other three friends made fun of the fourth friend. “You are jealous of our skills. You regret not having completed your education. Therefore, do not want us to show how knowledgeable we are. We are going to bring the animal to life no matter what you say.”

The fourth friend replied, “Oh, ok. In that case, can you wait a minute? Let me just climb that tree so that I can stay safe while the lion kills you.”

Saying this, the fourth friend climbed on top of a tree and watched his friends bring the lion to life.

The minute the third friend brought the lion to life, the lion pounced on all three friends and ate them.

Once the lion left the area, the fourth friend climbed down and went home sadly contemplating about the foolishness of his friends.

Author’s Note:

All Panchatantra Stories have Morals associated with them.

“Education is nothing without common sense” is the moral of this story.