Shina Utavani

Once, Zebra and giraffe were best friends. They used to live in a jungle and used to enjoy each other’s company. They both had unique qualities. The giraffe was very proud of its long neck. He used to brag about his long neck in front of the zebra. He would show off by eating the leaves off the tree easily.Giraffe challenged Zebra one day to eat leaves from the tree. The zebra thought there was nothing that he cannot do. The Zebra got very mad and wanted to prove giraffe wrong. He tried to eat the leaves from the tree but he could not because he was short.He then realized that there are things which he can do and the giraffe could not. So, he started bragging about how fast he can run. This made giraffe jealous. The giraffe tried its best to run as fast as zebra could but failed. All his efforts were in vain.They both then realized that the two were very different and they both had unique qualities. They both understood that they cannot fight over such qualities. Their qualities were different and unique. After that day, they stopped fighting over such things. They again became best friends. Moral:Don’t get jealous of anyone. Jealousy has great potential to end friendships.

This is a story of giraffe and zebra.Moral(s) of the story: jealousy

The Zebra and the Giraffe

Ravina Sewani

A Fox, swimming across a river, was barely able to reach the bank, where he lay bruised and exhausted from his struggle with the swift current. Soon a swarm of blood-sucking flies settled on him; but he lay quietly, still too weak to run away from them.A Hedgehog happened by. “Let me drive the flies away,” he said kindly.“No, no!” exclaimed the Fox, “do not disturb them! They have taken all they can hold. If you drive them away, another greedy swarm will come and take the little blood I have left.” Moral:It is better to tolerate a lesser evil than to risk a greater one in removing it.

This is a story fo Aesop fables, fox, hedgehog and river.Moral(s) of the story: tolerance

The Fox And The Hedgehog

Pallavi Hota

The Ramayan is an ancient Sanskrit epic written by the famous sage Valmiki. It describes Lord Rama's effort to rescue Sita from the demon king Ravana. It also describes the challenges faced by Lord Rama, Laxman, and Sita when they were exiled from the kingdom for 14 years. Following is a story from ìThe Ramayana.Jatayu was a very old vulture. When he met Ravana, he was very old. He was the King of the vultures but not very strong at that time. He saw that Sita was in trouble, and Jatayu did not hesitate a moment to serve her.Jatayu flew off into the sky to fight Ravana because he wanted to serve Lord Rama. He said, ìMy body is of no value if it is not used in the service of the Lord. The Lord's most precious mother Sita is being kidnapped. It is my duty to stop this.So Jatayu fought with Ravana and gave him a good run. He made it so difficult for Ravana for a while thinking that mother Sita was going to be out of the trap of this demon king. But then Ravana regained his strength. Ravana chopped and somehow severed the wings and limbs of Jatayu. Jatayu fell in the midst of a heap of blood and his life was slowly going away.When Jatayu was losing his life, Lord Rama and Lakshman came there. Seeing Jatayu, they thought that he must be the demon trying to catch Sita. So they approached with caution. When they saw Jatayu actually dying because of Ravana, Lord Rama's heart was in pain. Jatayu told Rama, ìMy dear Lord, please forgive me that I could not execute my service to the best of my ability. I failed in my service.

This is a story of Jatayu, Laxman, Ram and Sita.

Jatayu's sacrifice in fight with Ravana

Mahabharata is an ancient Indian epic about the brothers, Pandavas and kauravas. It describes the battle between them in the Kurukshetra war for the throne of Hastinapura. It is an epic tale that combines war, religion, philosophy and Hindu history. Following is a story from ìThe Mahabharata.There are some devotees who want to show off. For hours they meditate, for hours they chant, for hours they repeat the name of Lord Krishna. They look down upon others who do not spend so much time meditating and chanting. Arjuna happened to be one of these. Bhima, one of the five Pandava brothers, was the strongest in the family. Bhima never prayed to any god. He used to eat and he used to fight. He was a voracious eater and at the same time a great fighter.Arjuna used to pray to Lord Shiva. For two hours, Arjuna used to collect hundreds of flowers and offer them to Lord Shiva one by one. Each time while offering the flowers he used to utter the name of Lord Shiva. On the other hand, Bhima would put his fingers on his forehead and concentrate for a couple of minutes before each meal. Then he would eat voraciously. This was his meditation. Poor Arjuna would spend hours gathering flowers, but Arjuna's pride could not escape Sri Krishna. Sri Krishna took Arjuna for a walk. As they were walking, they saw a man drawing a cart. The cart was loaded with flowers. All kinds of flowers. Arjuna asked the man, ìWhat are you doing with these flowers? And where are you going?î The man had no time to respond to Arjuna. Sri Krishna said, ìArjuna, let us follow him.î When the man reached his destination, there were many more carts of flowers. ìWhat are you going to do with all these thousands and millions of flowers?î, Arjuna inquired. ìI have no time to speak to you. I am now in serious concentration, said the man. The man continues, ìI can speak only to one person on earth, and that is Bhima, the second Pandava. He is the greatest spiritual seeker. When he meditates before his meals just for a minute or two, saying O mighty Lord Shiva, thousands of flowers are offered by him to Lord Shiva. His concentration is the most intense. His meditation is the most sincere. Arjuna only throws flowers at Lord Shiva. He just shows off.îThis made Arjuna realise that it's not the time or the resources one offers to the Lords but the dedication which matters the most.

This is a story of Arjun and Bheem.

Bheema's power of concentration and dedication

Yesha Desai

One day all the fruits and vegetables decided to have a separate meeting after an argument with each other.In the vegetables’ meeting, Rudy the bottle-gourd said, “No one likes us vegetables. The fruits take all the attention with how tasty they are.”Ed the Cabbage agreed, “Yes, you are right. Things must change.” The radish and cauliflower agreed and the vegetables decided to make changes.Meanwhile for the fruits, Chick the Chikoo and Ben the papaya lead their own meeting. They decided that the vegetables were getting more respect due to their nutritional values. They decided to confront the vegetables.They all met up at the kitchen counter and confessed their problems with each other. Cale the cauliflower said, “ You fruits are so colourful, tasty and sweet. Everyone loves you!”Ben the papaya argued, “No! Everyone likes you better because you are full of vitamins.”They continued arguing back and forth until a wise ant finally stepped in and said, “Stop fighting guys! You are all equally important and yummy. The world would not survive without either of you.”After much convincing, the fruits and vegetables finally stopped fighting. The ant cunningly said, “The one you should be fighting is the snacks.”And the arguments began all over again. Moral:Everyone and everything has its own significance. There should not be any comparison between anyone and anything.

This is a story of bottlegourd, cabbage, cauliflower, chikoo and papaya.Moral(s) of the story: confession

The fight between the vegetables and the fruits

A long time ago, a king named Brahmadatta ruled the city of Banaras. His chief of guards, Bodhisattva, was a very wise and knowledgeable man.One day, the queen and her friends were walking in the palace gardens. It was a hot summer day, so they decided to get some respite from the heat by swimming in the royal pool. Before going in the pool, the queen took off her pearl necklace and gave it to her maidservant for safekeeping. The maidservant put the necklace in a wooden box and sat down under a tree to watch the royal ladies have fun in the pool.Some monkeys used to live on the trees near that pool. A little girl monkey had got a glimpse of the queen’s shining pearl necklace and was besotted by it. She imagined how beautiful would she look with that necklace around her own neck. So, she waited around, hoping that the maidservant who was guarding the wooden box would soon fall asleep. The girl monkey did not have to wait for long as the maidservant who was tired of watching the queen playing with her friends, began to nod in the heat of the day and was finally fast asleep. Quick as lightning, the girl monkey jumped down, filched the necklace and hurried back to the tree. She put the pearl necklace around her neck and admired herself for a while. Then, not wanting the other monkeys to see it, she hid the string of pearls in a hollow of the tree.When the maidservant woke up, she was petrified to see that the necklace was gone. She screamed at the top of her voice, “Somebody has stolen the queen’s pearl necklace!”The palace guards came from all around and ransacked the royal garden in search of the so-called thief. There was a homeless man loitering outside the walls of the garden. He heard the commotion and sure of being accused, took to his heels. This made the royal guards suspicious. They nabbed him and started beating him up. The man denied stealing the queen’s necklace, but the guards were not ready to believe him and beat him further. The man feared that the guards would probably beat him to death if he kept denying it, so he confessed to the theft.The man was produced before the king and charged with the theft of the queen’s necklace. The king was outraged to hear the whole story and asked the man in a firm tone, “You have committed a serious offense! Now, tell us what did you do with the pearl necklace?” In an endeavour to take off the blame from his shoulders, the man replied, “Your majesty, I am a poor man. What would I do with the string of pearls? All I needed was some money to buy food to eat. It was the treasurer who lured me into stealing the necklace. I stole it from the garden and gave it to him. He knows all about it.” The king sent for the treasurer, and interrogated him on whether the poor man had passed the necklace to him or not. The treasurer also thought on the same lines as the poor man and in order to save his skin, confessed to the crime. The king asked, “What have you done with the string of pearls?” Emulating the poor man, the treasurer transferred the blame on the royal priest and said, “I was working under the directions of the royal priest and the pearl necklace is at his house.”So, the royal priest was summoned on the king’s court and questioned in the same way. Seeing no other way out of the situation, the royal priest also confessed to his involvement in the crime. He also made a statement that he had given the necklace to the chief musician, who in turn said that he had gifted it to a dancer. When the dancer was presented before the king, she denied ever having received it.Bodhisattva was also present in the king’s court and was attentively listening to the versions of all the accused people. He found it difficult to believe that anyone could enter and escape the royal garden without being noticed. He was sure that none of the accused had to do anything with the theft and they were shifting the blame onto each other, just to save themselves from the wrath of the king. He went to the garden and again inspected the whole area where the incident had taken place. He also noticed a group of monkeys swarming in the trees of the garden. He thought that perhaps it was the deed of those naughty monkeys and perhaps they were the real culprits. In order to confirm his suspicion, he got a number of glass bead necklaces made. He then went to the garden and placed them below the trees where the monkeys lived. All the monkeys were charmed by the shining glass beads of the necklaces.Each one of them came down and picked up a string except for the girl monkey who kept sitting contently on a tree. She was not at all interested in collecting a string of glass beads for herself.Bodhisattva hid behind a large rock with other guards and waited. All the monkeys were prancing around and showing off their necklaces. The girl monkey could not control the urge to show off her prized possession as well. She pulled out the pearl necklace from the hollow of the tree and put it around her neck. Then she proudly called out to other monkeys and said, “Look here! All of you have got just ordinary glass bead necklaces, but mine is made of real pearls.”At that moment the guards came out and caught the girl monkey by the arm. After confiscating the queen’s necklace from the girl monkey, Bodhisattva gave her a glass bead necklace and let her go. He had thus solved the mystery of the missing necklace. The king was well pleased with Bodhisattva’s wit and rewarded him generously. Moral:Your intelligence and wisdom are always rewarded.

This is a classic story from Jataka tales.This is a story of monkey.

The girl monkey and the spring of pearls

Once upon a time, two friends were walking through the forest. They knew that anything dangerous can happen to them at any time in the forest. So they promised each other that they would remain united in any case of danger.Suddenly, they saw a large bear approaching them. One of the friends at once climbed a nearby tree. But the other one did not know how to climb. So being led by his common sense, he lay down on the ground breathless, pretending to be a dead man.The bear came near the man lying on the ground. It smelt in his ears, and slowly left the place because the bears do not touch the dead creatures. Now the friend on the tree came down and asked his friend on the ground, "Friend, what did the bear tell you into your ears? "The other friend replied, "The bear advised me not to believe a false friend." Moral:A friend in need is a friend indeed. And if you commit to be with your friend, you should keep the promise.

This is a story of bear and friend.Moral(s) of the story: trust

Two Friends and the Bear

Once there were two brothers who were great friends and always played together. However, one day they had a huge argument about one of their toys. In the end, they decided that from then on they would only be allowed to play with their own individual toys.They had so many toys and things that they agreed to spend the next day sorting out which toy belonged to whom. So the next day each brother got to work, making a pile of his own things. When they had finished doing the big toys it was time to sort the little stuff. However, they had already taken so long that it was time for bed, so they left the small toys for the next day. The same thing happened the next day, because they had started dividing up parts of the house.Day after day it was the same story. They were spending their whole time deciding what, among all kinds of things, belonged to either one of them.Anything would set them off: seeing an animal, a tree, or even a stone. In the end, they had accumulated two complete mountains of stuff which had to be kept out in front of the house.As the years passed, nothing changed: every morning they would meet up to argue about which things belonged to whom. They were getting older, and everyone now knew them as "the grumpy old men". No one had ever seen them smile.That was, until one morning they went out and found that their two mountains of stuff had been totally mixed up together. Someone had been there, mixing their things up! After all that time and effort they had spent to separate everything!Furious, the brothers tried to find who had done it. Soon they found a pair of children playing on the other side of the mountains of stuff. They were happily playing together, picking everything up, careless of whether they were mixing it all together. They looked really happy, enjoying themselves to the max.Seeing the children so happy, the two grumpy old brothers realised how foolish they had been for so many years. They had given up playing with anything, instead spending their whole lives arguing over what was theirs to play with. How sad they felt, for spending their lives in anger. At the same time, though, they were happy to have finally realised their foolishness.They spent that day, and the rest of their days, playing together with those two children, mixing everything up, and sharing it all. People even stopped calling them the grumpy old men. Now people called them the 'Big Kids'. Moral:Sharing is caring. It’s not worth to waste time fighting over things. We should learn to share and cherish others’ company.

This is a story of brothers.Moral(s) of the story: sharing

The Angry Brothers	

Here’s another great story from the Hitopadesha. Once upon a time, there lived a deer and a crow in a dense forest. They were very good friends and often spent time with each other. One day a jackal spotted the deer and said to himself, “Nothing tastes better than&nbsp;deer flesh! I must somehow make friends with this deer and try to get close to him.”So, he approached the deer and said, “O deer! I am an orphan jackal and do not have any friends in this forest. You appear very kind-hearted to me. Would you agree to be my friend?” The deer was very pleased with the jackal’s mannerisms and took his new friend to his home.When the crow saw the deer with the jackal, he warned him, “Dear friend, you must be careful!” But the deer did not pay heed to the crow’s warning and continued being friends with the jackal. One day, the jackal said to the deer, “I know of a big field that is full of fresh corn. Do you wish to go there with me? “The deer happily accompanied the jackal to the corn field. From that day onwards, both of them started visiting that corn field every day. The owner of the field was very annoyed and decided to catch the thief who ate corn from his field. He set a trap in the field and the next day when the unsuspecting deer came to eat the corn, he got trapped in the net.The jackal saw the deer getting caught in the net and thought, “Once the owner of the field kills the deer, I shall finally get to eat the tasty deer meat for which I have waited so long.” The deer called the jackal for help, but the cunning jackal said, “I am sorry, I cannot do anything! The net seems to be very strong.” Saying so, he walked away from there and hid himself near the field, waiting for the owner to come and kill the deer.When the crow did not see his friend deer by the evening, he started searching for him and found him lying trapped helplessly in the field. When the deer saw the crow, tears filled up in his eyes and he said, “My friend, I disregarded your advice at first and now I suffer. Tomorrow, I shall be killed by the owner of this field.” The crow felt very sorry for the deer. He thought for a while and then a bright idea struck him. He told the deer, “Listen to me, my friend! When the owner comes tomorrow morning, lie down quietly; make your legs stiff and pretend to be dead. When he takes off the net, I will start cawing. That would be a signal for you to stand up and run away quickly.”The owner of the field came the next morning and saw the deer seemingly dead. As soon as he removed the net, the crow began to caw loudly. In a moment, the deer stood up and sped away. The owner got very angry and threw a stick at the deer. The deer escaped, but the stick hit the jackal on the head and killed it. Moral:We must not trust unfamiliar people very easily and instead put our loyalty and belief in the advice of the people we know.

This is a classic story from Hitopadesha tales.This is a story of crow, deer, jackal and trust.Moral(s) of the story: trust

aesop fables stories

Kids moral stories help in improving their imagination & relate to real-world life. Here are age-specific bedtime stories for children by renowned storytellers.