A washerman named Vilasa lived in Hastinapura. He had a donkey who carried his heavy loads. But the washerman never had enough to feed him. So, the poor donkey became weak. One day, Vilasa found a tiger’s skin lying on a road while he was on his rounds. He picked it up and then, slowly, an idea began to form in his head. ‘This skin is very useful,’ he thought, ‘I will put it on my donkey and let him loose to graze in a field of corn. If anyone sees an animal in the field, they will think it is a tiger. They’ll be so frightened that they usually run away.’ The washerman felt he had come up with a brilliant idea and that night he put the tiger’s skin on his donkey and let him out near the corn fields to graze.
The Donkey in a Tiger’s Skin
