The Wind and the Silk-Cotton Tree

On one of the heights of the Himalaya there stood a shalmali, a silk-cotton tree, that had been growing for many hundreds of years.

Its trunk was four hundred cubits round. Its branches spread so wide that elephants came to stand in its shade in the hot season, and whole caravans of merchants rested under it on their way across the mountains. Parrots lived in it by the thousand. Holy men sat beneath it. There was no tree like it anywhere.

One day the sage Narada came by and stopped to admire it.

"What a delight you are," he said. "I am glad every time I see you. And do you know what I notice? In all these branches I cannot find one that the Wind has broken. The Wind tears up the tallest trees. He shakes the tops of mountains and dries up rivers. He must be a great friend of yours, to guard you so carefully."

The tree rustled all its leaves.

"The Wind is no friend of mine," said the shalmali, "and he is not my protector. I am stronger than he is. His strength is not an eighteenth part of mine. When he comes raging through the forest, I stop him with my own might. I have broken the Wind many times. That is why I am not afraid of him."

Narada was shocked.

"That is perverse talk," he said. "Nothing in creation is as strong as the Wind. Indra is not, and Yama is not. He is the breath in every creature that lives. The sandal trees, the sals and the deodars are better trees than you, and they have never spoken so. They know his strength and their own, and they bow their heads. I shall tell him what you have said."

And Narada did. He went straight to Vayu.

"There is a shalmali on the breast of the Himalaya," he said, "with deep roots and wide branches. He holds you in contempt. He said things about you that I would rather not repeat."

Vayu came down on the mountain in a rage.

"Shalmali! You have spoken ill of me before Narada. Do you know why you are still standing? When the Grandfather Brahma was making the world, he rested for a while in your shade. For that reason only I have spared you. It was never your own strength. Now you treat me as something common, and I will show you what I am."

The tree laughed at him.

"You are angry, Wind. Then show me. Pour out all your anger. What can you do to me? I am not afraid of you."

"Tomorrow," said Vayu, "I shall test your strength."

Then night fell.

In the dark, alone, the shalmali thought it over, and the truth came to him.

"Everything I told Narada was false," he said to himself. "I am no match for the Wind. He is as mighty as Narada said. I am weaker even than other trees. But no tree has my wits. I will meet this danger with my wits."

And before morning he did a sad thing. He had all his own branches cut away, the great ones and the small ones. He let fall his leaves and his flowers.

At dawn the Wind came up the mountain, breathing hard, throwing down big trees on every side. He reached the place and found a bare trunk standing there, looking at him.

Vayu's anger went out of him, and he smiled.

"Shalmali," he said, "what I would have done to you in my rage, you have done to yourself. Your proud crown is gone. Your shoots, your leaves and your flowers are gone. Your own bad counsel has put you in my power."

The tree heard him and was ashamed. He remembered what Narada had said, and he was sorry for his foolishness.