The Tree That Defied the Wind

The sages told the Pandavas of the great silk-cotton tree that boasted it feared not even the Wind, and of how its pride was humbled - a short, sharp tale of the folly of boasting against the mighty, and of how loud boasts of fearing nothing often hide a secret fear.

There grew in a certain forest an enormous and ancient silk-cotton tree, the Shalmali, vast and spreading, with a mighty trunk and great wide-flung branches, the largest and oldest tree in all that country. It had stood for ages, and it was proud of its size and its strength and its long endurance; for while storms had broken and uprooted many another tree around it over the years, this great tree still stood, and it took all the credit to itself, believing that it stood by its own might and would always do so, fearing nothing in the world. And in this pride the great tree grew boastful, until its boasting reached the ears of the wandering sage Narada.

The sage Narada, passing by, marveled at the great tree's size and strength, and spoke to it, asking how it had managed to stand so long and so mightily when the Wind-god, Vayu, who uproots and breaks even the strongest trees, must surely assail it. 'Does not the Wind break you,' Narada asked, 'as he breaks others? How is it that you alone stand so great and unshaken?'

And the great tree answered with overweening pride and contempt for the Wind. 'The Wind?' it said. 'I do not fear the Wind at all. The Wind is my servant, or my friend, who dares do me no harm; or if he is my foe, he is a foe I despise, for I am far too strong for him. He may break the weak trees, but he cannot touch me; I have stood against him for ages by my own might, and I will always stand. I fear nothing, least of all the Wind, who is powerless against my strength.' So the tree boasted, openly scorning the Wind-god, claiming to fear nothing and to stand by its own power alone, heedless of how foolish and how dangerous such boasting against a mighty power might be.

The sage Narada was troubled by the great tree's pride and its open contempt for the Wind-god; for such boasting against a mighty power could only end badly, and Narada, who knew the ways of pride and its fruits, thought the tree should be taught the truth of its position. So he went to the Wind-god, Vayu, and told him what the great silk-cotton tree had said: that it did not fear him at all, that it called him its servant or despised him as a powerless foe, that it boasted it stood by its own might and that the Wind could do nothing against it.

The Wind-god was angered to hear himself so scorned and belittled by the tree. 'So the tree thinks it stands by its own strength,' said Vayu, 'and that I am powerless against it? It does not know that it stands only because I have spared it; that if I chose, I could break it in a moment. It has forgotten who upholds the order of things, and grown proud, and dared to despise me. I will go and humble its pride, and show it whose power truly keeps it standing or casts it down.' And the Wind-god resolved to come against the tree in his full fury, that its boast might be answered.

Narada, having stirred up the Wind-god's wrath, went back to the great tree and warned it of what was coming. 'O tree,' he said, 'I have been to the Wind-god, and told him of your boast; and he is exceedingly angry, and means to come against you in his full fury to humble your pride. He says that you stand only because he has spared you, and that he could break you in a moment if he chose; and now, provoked by your scorn, he is coming. Prepare yourself, for the Wind is roused, and you have boasted against a mighty power indeed.'

Now when the great tree heard this - that the Wind-god was truly coming in wrath - all its proud boasting fell away in an instant, and it was seized with a secret and overmastering fear. For all its loud claims that it feared nothing and despised the Wind, the moment it learned that the Wind was actually coming against it in earnest, it was terrified, and trembled inwardly, and began at once to think how it might save itself from the wrath it had so foolishly provoked. The boast had been brave while the danger was distant; but at the approach of the real danger, the fear that had hidden beneath the boast came rushing out.

In its sudden fear, the great tree took counsel with itself how to survive the Wind's coming wrath; and it hit upon a desperate remedy. It knew, in truth, that against the full fury of the Wind it could not stand by its strength after all - that the Wind could seize its great spreading boughs and its mass of leaves and flowers and tear it up or break it apart. So, to give the Wind nothing to seize, the tree, in its dread, deliberately shed its own leaves and flowers, dropped its fruit, and let its great branches wither and droop and fall away, stripping itself bare of all the spreading mass by which the Wind might catch and break it.

So the tree that had boasted it feared nothing now, in secret terror, made itself small and bare and humble before the Wind had even arrived, doing to itself, in its fear, the very stripping and humbling it had claimed it would never suffer. It stood at last gaunt and leafless and shorn, a shadow of its proud former self, having torn away its own glory in dread of the Wind - the proud tree humbled not even by the Wind's blow, but by its own fear of that blow, before the Wind so much as came.

Then the Wind-god came at last in his wrath, rushing upon the place where the great tree stood, ready to seize and break the boaster that had scorned him. But he found the tree already stripped bare and humbled - shorn of its leaves and flowers, its great boughs fallen away, standing gaunt and small, having done to itself in fear all that the Wind had come to do. And the Wind-god, seeing this, laughed and mocked the tree for its pride and its fear together.

'See now, O tree,' said the Wind, 'where your boasting has brought you. You said you feared nothing and despised me, that you stood by your own might and I was powerless against you. And yet, at the mere news that I was coming, you were so terrified that you stripped yourself bare and threw away all your glory before I had even arrived - doing to yourself, in your fear, the very humbling you swore you would never suffer. Your boast was empty; beneath it was only fear. You who claimed to fear nothing were the most fearful of all, and your pride has ended in this self-made ruin.' So the Wind humbled the tree with words, its boast exposed as the cover of a secret fear, its pride brought low by its own dread.

There was in the tale a teaching about the folly of boasting against the mighty, and about the fear that often hides beneath a loud boast. For the great tree had boasted that it feared nothing and despised the Wind; yet the moment the Wind was truly roused against it, its boast collapsed and its hidden fear came pouring out, until it humbled itself in terror before the blow even fell. The tale teaches that those who boast most loudly of fearing nothing are often the most fearful of all; that a great show of fearlessness frequently covers a secret dread; and that the truly strong have no need to boast, while the boaster betrays, in his very boasting, the fear he is trying to hide.

And it teaches the plain folly of provoking a power greater than oneself by scorn and boasting. The tree had stood safely for ages while it kept silence; it was its own boast, carried to the Wind, that roused the wrath which humbled it. Had it not boasted, it would not have been brought low. So the tale warns against the pride that scorns the mighty and the boasting that invites their wrath; for such boasting is both foolish and dangerous, drawing down upon the boaster the very ruin he claimed he need not fear, and exposing, in the end, the fear that lay beneath his pride all along.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

'See, first, the folly of boasting against the mighty. The great tree had stood safely for ages while it kept silence; but it grew proud, and boasted that it feared nothing and despised the Wind, and so roused the Wind's wrath against itself. The tale teaches that to scorn and provoke a power greater than oneself is both foolish and dangerous; that boasting invites the very ruin one claims not to fear; and that the wise do not provoke the mighty by pride and scorn, but keep a humble silence and so abide in safety. Beware, then, the pride that scorns the strong, and the boast that draws down wrath.

'And see how a loud boast often hides a secret fear. The tree that claimed to fear nothing was, at the first real approach of danger, so terrified that it stripped itself bare in dread before the blow even fell. The tale teaches that those who boast most loudly of their fearlessness are often the most fearful; that a great show of courage may cover a hidden dread; and that the truly strong have no need to boast, while the boaster betrays his fear in his very boasting. Do not, then, mistake loud boasting for true strength, in others or in yourself; for the proud tree that scorned the Wind was humbled not even by the Wind's blow, but by its own fear, and stripped away its glory with its own hands.'

And the Pandavas, who had heard much boasting from their proud foes, took to heart the tale of the great tree that boasted against the Wind and humbled itself in fear.