The Bird Who Would Not Stop Advising

In a mountainous region there lived a troop of monkeys. Winter came, and the wind and sleet were so bitter that their bodies shook with cold. They ran here and there looking for relief.

In their wandering they came upon some gunja berries — glossy red-and-black seeds that looked exactly like live coals. The monkeys decided: "We have found fire!" They squatted round the heap and began blowing on it with all their might, so that the fire would catch and the cold be driven off.

A bird lived nearby, named Suchimukha. Seeing their folly he said: "You are all fools. Those are not coals, they are gunja berries. They will not keep the cold off you. Give up this useless labour and go and sit in a cave or some hollow of the hillside out of the wind — there you will have shelter from the rain."

An old monkey among them warned him off: "What business is this of yours? Get away. The wise do not talk to men who are at work, at play, or already beaten — not if they want to keep out of trouble."

But Suchimukha would not stop. He came back again and again with the same lecture: "That is not fire, it is gunja; you are blowing for nothing."

At last one monkey, already smarting, sprang up, caught the bird by the wings, and dashed him against a rock, killing him.

So it is said: advice is not to be handed out to just anyone. To fools it brings only rage — and it can cost the adviser his home and his life.

उपदेशो हि मूर्खाणां प्रकोपाय न शान्तये । पयःपानं भुजङ्गानां केवलं विषवर्धनम् ॥

Moral: Advice to fools serves to enrage, not to calm them — feeding milk to snakes only increases the venom.

From the Panchatantra, Book I — The Loss of Friends.