Notes. The wise king who recognizes the clue provided by the footprints might remind you of a fox in Aesop's fables: The Fox and the Lion in the Cave. You can find out more about the nature spirit of the lake, a yaksha, at Wikipedia. Compare also the story of the three princes and the yaksha.
Summary: The wise monkey king and his monkey troop confront a fierce water-ogre who refuses to let them drink the water of his lake.
Read the story below:
THE MONKEYS AND THE HOLLOW CANES
Frametale: The Buddha and his Brethren
One evening during a pilgrimage through the country of Kosala, Buddha and the Brethren were sitting beside a pool around which grew cane-sticks. A Brother broke one off, and after looking at it carefully asked, "Master, why are these cane-sticks hollow?"
"Listen, my Brother, and you shall hear, for such were my orders in times gone by," replied Buddha. Thus he told them this story:
The troop of monkeys and their king
In years long past, all about us was a thick forest in the center of which was a lake of clear cold water. In this lake dwelt a wicked water-ogre who devoured every one that went to the water to bathe or drink.
In the forest also dwelt a troop of eighty thousand monkeys. Their king was the largest and strongest of them all, a mighty monkey as big as the fawn of a red deer. He shielded his subject monkeys from harm, and they gave him in return their love and confidence. Desiring to let them roam at will through the forest, and yet fearing for their safety, one day he cautioned them, saying: "Friends, we have about us trees that are poisonous and lakes that are haunted by ogres. Beware of fruit you have not eaten, and of water you have not drunk. Ask me before you eat or drink."
Readily they assured him that they would do his bidding, and they kept their word, else today we should have no story.
The monkeys at the lake
One warm day when they had wandered far from their home trees, they came upon a lake which was unknown to them. Very thirsty were they, but remembering the words of their wise and good king they sat down to await his coming.
When he came up and found them sitting down, very patient, he said, "Friends, why do you not drink?"
"This lake, dear king," said the spokesman, "we have never seen before. We could not drink without your good word."
"Quite right, my friends," replied the king, for he would have grieved sadly to lose even the least of his subjects. Then he went carefully around the lake examining every foot of ground. At last he came upon a very strange thing. He found the footprints of many animals going towards the lake, but there were no footprints to show that an animal had ever returned.
"Aha," he thought, "this is undoubtedly the haunt of an ogre," and turning to his followers said, "Your caution, friends, has saved you from a terrible death. This lake is haunted by an ogre. Those who go to its brink to drink never return to tell of its waters. Rest you here a while."
Suffering and parched with thirst, they did the bidding of their king, knowing well that in time they would be refreshed.
The ogre and the monkey-king
The ogre, who had been watching them greedily from the bottom of the lake, became angered when he saw the king with his eighty thousand subjects peacefully surround his lake. Such a feast had never before been thrust before his ever-hungry eyes. When he could no longer stand the suspense, he assumed the shape of a monster with a blue belly and the most horrible bright red hands and feet, and went to the top of the water crying, "Why are you all seated here like senseless idiots? When you are so thirsty after your day's walk, why do you not go down to the lake and drink of its cool water?"
Then he added in the sweetest voice he could assume, "Come, come, my friends, come cool yourselves with a long drink out of the most beautiful lake in all India. Its waters are fed from mother-springs hidden deep down in its rocky bottom. Those who drink shall never more know either sorrow or unhappiness."
"Well may you say those who drink shall never more know sorrow or unhappiness," answered the king. "Are you not the ogre of the lake, and do you not take as your prey all who are so unfortunate as to drink of your waters?"
"You are right, O Wise One. I am the ogre of the lake. You are right, I eat every one who comes to drink in my lake. Yes," he went on ferociously for he saw that his words of honey had been of no use, "I eat every one from the smallest of birds upwards, and I shall eat you and every one of your eighty thousand monkeys sitting like toads on the ground."
"Not a monkey seated here shall ever go to fatten your ugly body," said the king.
"If you do not drink, you will die as you sit. You and your eighty thousand monkeys are now near to death for want of water. You see you are mine whether or not you drink of my water."
"Yes, O ogre of the water, water we must have, for faint and weary we are. Yes, water we will have, yet we shall not fall into your power."
"How can you drink without coming to the water's edge? All must do that," said the wicked ogre, not knowing that the king of the monkeys was Buddha the All-Knowing One.
The canes transformed
"Ah," said the king, "you will soon see. You think, poor monster, that we shall have to go to the brink of the lake to drink? If you will wait you will see the lake come to the monkeys as they sit far up on its banks."
These words said, he had a cane brought to him and repeated solemnly the following words: "With canes we'll drink; you shall not take my life." He then blew with all his might down the cane and straightway it became hollow; not even a single knot was left throughout its entire length. Thus he blew through another and yet another, but his eighty thousand subjects would have died of thirst before he could have finished one for each, and not one monkey was he willing to lose. Knowing this he wasted no more time on single sticks, but walked around the lake saying: "Let all the canes growing here become hollow throughout! Let all the canes around here become hollow throughout!"
Immediately all the canes became hollow. The king then commanded each monkey to grasp one cane in his hands and follow him to the lake. He sat down on the banks the length of his cane-stick from the water. One end he put in his mouth, the other in the water, then he began slowly to suck up the water, which came through the cane as easily as though it were the hollow stalk of a lotus. Eighty thousand monkeys did likewise. In this way every one drank his fill from the waters of the lake, yet never a one did that wicked water-ogre catch.
After their thirst was quenched, the obedient monkeys, grateful to their king for having saved their lives from the ogre, began to praise and thank him. The king bade them keep their words and follow him back to the home trees deep in the forest.
When the water-ogre saw that he had been outwitted by the king of the monkeys, he crept in a great rage back to his home at the bottom of the lake, there, as before, to await the com- ing of the unwary traveler who looked not before he drank. As years passed on, the hollow canes growing on the banks of the lake of the ogre became the parents of other hollow canes and they spread and spread to all parts of the world.
That is why we have hollow canes today.
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