Monkey is hungry for the delicious mangoes on the island in the river, but he can’t swim! How will he get there? Crocodile offers to carry Monkey across the water on his back, so Monkey hops aboard. Trouble is, Crocodile is hungry, too—for Monkey! Will clever Monkey come up with a way to get the mangoes and escape Crocodile’s sharp teeth?
Final Artworks
Studies
The Monkey and the Crocodile from the Jataka Tales
The monkey as trickster can be seen coming into India through a number of ways including the Panchatantra (ancient Sanskrit animal fables), and the 16th century novel, Journey to the West (an epic journey from China to India to receive Buddhist Sutras) but the one McDermott based this book on is from the Jataka Tales, early Buddhist texts containing some 550 stories of the Buddha’s previous lives. The story of the Monkey and the Crocodile, (read it here) recounts how the Monkey outwits the Crocodile’s plan to bring him home for dinner.
Shown at right: Carving of a monkey riding a crocodile on the temple wall of Mukteshwar Temple at Bhubaneswar, Odisha, India, a 10th century Hindu temple dedicated to Shiva.