The incident of a blockhead cutting off the branch on which he is seated
seems to be almost universal. It occurs in the jests of the typical
Turkish noodle, the Khoja Nasr-ed-Din, and there exist German, Saxon,
and Lithuanian variants of the same story. It is also known in Ceylon,
and the following is a version from a Hindu work entitled _Bharataka
Dwatrinsati_, Thirty-two Tales of Mendicant Monks:
In Elakapura there lived several mendicant monks. One of them, named
Dandaka, once went, in the rainy season, into a wood in order to procure
a post for his hut. There he saw on a tree a fine branch bent down, and
he climbed the tree, sat on the branch, and began to cut it. Then there
came that way some travellers, who, seeing what he was doing, said, "O
monk, greatest of all idiots, you should not cut a branch on which you
yourself are sitting, for if you do so, when the branch breaks you will
fall down and die." After saying this the travellers went their way. The
monk, however, paid no attention to their speech, but continued to cut
the branch, remaining in the same posture, until at length the branch
broke, and he tumbled down. He then thought within himself, "Those
travellers are indeed wise and truthful, for everything has happened
just as they predicted; consequently I must be dead." So he remained on
the ground as if dead; he did not speak, nor did he stand up, nor did he
even breathe.
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