Reading Notes: The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India

The Valuer and the King (Image Source).

This week for my second reading I of course am sticking to my theme of animal stories! The story that I chose to read for part two of this weeks reading comes from The Giant Crab and Other Tales from Old India. I am really enjoying the Jakata Tales and would like to hopefully have read all of them by the end of the semester. The story that I read is The Measure of Rice.

• The first thing I noticed about this story was that there was no clear indication as to what animal it might include in the title so I was immediately intrigued. 
• The king in this story was scamming people for their animals, he had elected a peasant as the Valuer to set the prices on when people were offering their goods to the King. 
• The King had fired his original Valuer because he was too honest and was giving people too much in exchange for their goods in the Kings eyes. 
• The horse dealer caught on when he was only offered a measure of rice for the 500 horses that he offered the king. So he found the kings Valuer and asked if what he got in exchange was fair. 
• This story was interesting because the king was made to be a fool for hiring this unknowledgeable Valuer in exchange for the logical Valuer. 
• I did not like how this story really did not include animals because all the others in the Jakata Tales have been about animals. 
• I do not think this story will inspire my story for this week.