The Brahmin's Wife and the Mongoose

In a certain place lived a brahmin named Devasharma. His wife gave birth to a son, and on the same day a mongoose gave birth as well.

Out of love for her own child the brahmin's wife raised that mongoose too on her own milk, rubbed him with oil, and brought him up like a son. Yet she never quite trusted him; at the back of her mind there was always this: "Some day, through the fault of his nature, he may do something against my child."

One day she laid her son to sleep on the bed, picked up the water-pot, and said to her husband: "Brahmin! I am going to the tank for water; guard this child from the mongoose." And she went.

Once she had gone, the brahmin left the house empty and went off somewhere to beg.

Meanwhile, as fate would have it, a black snake came out of a hole. The mongoose knew it for his natural enemy and a danger to his brother, fought it, and tore it to pieces.

Then, his mouth soaked with blood, delighted, he ran to his mother to show her what he had done — as a child runs to its mother.

But the mother saw that blood-smeared mouth and thought, with a suspicious heart: "This wicked creature has eaten my child!" And in her anger she flung the heavy water-pot down on him — and the mongoose died on the spot.

Then, without a second thought, she went inside — and saw her son sleeping on the bed exactly as before, and beside him the pieces of a black snake.

Seeing that, and stricken with grief for her benefactor, she began beating her own head and breast.

Just then the brahmin came home with his alms, and seeing his wife's grief he said: "You greedy woman! Overcome by greed you did not do as I told you; now taste the fruit of it."

So it is said: do not let greed run to excess, and do not throw desire away altogether — for on the head of the one whom excess greed overcomes, a wheel spins.

अपरीक्ष्य न कर्तव्यं कर्तव्यं सुपरीक्षितम् । पश्चाद्भवति सन्तापो ब्राह्मण्या नकुलाद्यथा ॥

Moral: Do nothing without examining it; do only what has been well examined — or grief follows after, as it did for the brahmin's wife over the mongoose.

From the Panchatantra, Book V — Ill-Considered Action.