<P> The Tiger, the Brahmin and the Jackal is a popular Indian fairy tale with a long history and many variants . Mary Frere included a version in her 1868 collection of Indian folktales, Old Deccan Days, the first collection of Indian folktales in English . A version was also included in Joseph Jacobs' collection Indian Fairy Tales . </P> <P> A brahmin passes a tiger in a trap . The tiger pleads for his release, promising not to eat the brahmin . The brahmin sets him free but no sooner is the tiger out of the cage then he says he is going to eat the brahmin . The brahmin is horrified and tells the tiger how unjust he is . They agree to ask the first three things they encounter to judge between them . The first thing they encounter is a tree, who, having suffered at the hands of humans, answers that the tiger should eat the brahmin . Next a buffalo, exploited and mistreated by humans, agrees it is only just that the brahmin should be eaten . Finally they meet a jackal, who at first feigns incomprehension of what has happened and asks to see the trap . Once there he claims he still doesn't understand . The tiger gets back in the trap to demonstrate and the jackal quickly shuts him in, suggesting to the brahmin that they leave matters thus . </P> <P> There are more than a hundred versions of this tale spread across the world . In some the released animal is a crocodile, in some a snake, a tiger and others a wolf . </P> <P> Some variants are very old, going back at least to the Panchatantra or Fables of Bidpai and the Jataka tales . In Europe it appeared some 900 years ago in the Disciplina Clericalis of Petrus Alphonsi, and later in the Gesta Romanorum and the Directorium Vitae Humanae of John of Capua . </P>

The tiger the brahmin and the jackal literary elements