They often held musical evenings in a large open field. The elephant and the deer danced. The mynahs and the parrots sang. The tiger and the bear exhibited gymnastics. They called the moon and his friends, the stars, to be the guests of honour at their musical evenings.

One day a jackal entered the forest. He was dirty, dangerous and very cunning too. He told the elephants, “You are the biggest animals in the forest. Why do you want to play with the squirrels and the rabbits?” He poisoned the minds of the peacocks saying, “You are the loveliest birds in the forest. Why do you want to praise the mynahs?” The jackal then approached the deer and whispered that the tiger was waiting for a chance to kill them.

Gradually, all the animals began suspecting one another. Earlier they had lived together, slept together and roamed around the forest together. Now they started to put up boundaries and build fences around their properties. They moved about individually or with their own group.

Now it was easy for the jackal to hunt the smaller animals and the birds. And when the smaller ones cried out for help, no one came to help them. One by one, the little ones disappeared. The forest slept as the animals were afraid. There were no more musical evenings. The moon was sad. He cried.

The moon thought for a while and decided to come down among the animals and the birds as a sadhu. As soon as the sadhu appeared in the forest, the animals and the birds approached him to narrate their tales of woe. They cried, sobbed and blamed each other for disturbing the peace in the forest. And the sadhu listened to them.