science in Traditional stories

Story 3: The lazy donkey 

In a village there lived a merchant who sold salt. He would load bags full of salt on his Donkey’s back every morning. Then they would go to the town to sell it. To reach the town, the merchant and his donkey had to cross a stream. One day the donkey accidentally fell into the stream. As a result the salt bags also fell into the water. The salt dissolved and the bags became light. This made the donkey happy. Then the donkey started purposely falling into the water daily. The merchant understood the donkey’s trickery. He decided to teach it a lesson. After a few days, he loaded a bag full of cotton on the donkey’s back. The donkey again fell into the stream thinking it would become light. However, the wet cotton became heavy and the donkey suffered a lot carrying it. But it learnt a lesson. It stopped playing tricks on the merchant. The merchant was happy.

Scientific Reason:
Salt dissolves in water and loses its weight while water when absorbed in cotton makes it heavy.

Story 4: The Emperor and the Seed

An emperor in the Far Eastern India was growing old and knew it was time to choose his successor. However, he had three sons and did not know whom to crown the king. Instead of choosing his eldest one as the next heir, He called his princes together one day. And said, "It is time for me to step down and choose the next emperor. I have decided to choose one of you." The emperor continued. "I am going to give each one of you a seed today. One very special seed. I want you to plant the seed, water it and come back here one year from today with what you have grown from this one seed. I will then judge the plants that you bring, and the one I choose will be the next emperor!"

The three received a seed each. Each of them took pot and planted the seed and watered it carefully. When the three princes met together before the emperor for inspection, the eldest one had brought with him a tall green plant laden with fruits; the second sibling had a smell tender plant while the youngest one came with an empty pot. The two brothers laughed at him.When the emperor arrived, he met his three sons and glanced their hard work throughout the year. He looked at him and then announced to the crowd, "Behold your new emperor! He is the one I have chosen. He crowned the youngest son as the new king.

Then the emperor said, "One year ago today, I gave everyone here a seed. I told you to take the seed, plant it, water it, and bring it back to me today. But I gave you all boiled seeds which would not grow. All of you, except my youngest son, have brought me trees and plants and flowers. When you found that the seed would not grow, you substituted another seed for the one I gave you. He was the only one with the courage and honesty to bring me a pot with my seed in it. Therefore, he is the one who will be the new emperor!"

Scientific Principle: Boiled seeds donot germinate. Germination can happen only with raw seeds with appropriate moisture and temperature conditions.

Narrator narrating the story 

     King announcing his idea of selecting next king 

King instructing the three sons

science in Traditional stories

                         Story 1: The Selfish Beast   

Once there was a selfish beast. He had a beautiful garden which was very attractive but he didn’t like anyone else to enter in his garden. One day he saw some children playing in his garden, he shouted at them and they got frightened and ran out of the garden. After that he placed a board in front of the garden written with a caption “TRESSPASSERS WILL BE PROSECUTED.” After placing that board no one entered in the garden even the birds, insects and butterflies stopped coming in it. After some time he noticed that the leaves and the flowers are getting deteriorated and his garden has lost its beauty. He was worried about his garden, then he saw a priest passing by his garden. He asked him if he knows why his garden is losing its beauty day by day. The priest advised him to remove that board and place the another one with the caption “ALL ARE WELCOME” The beast did the same thing as the priest suggested and finally he observed that his garden started getting beautiful once again, as there were many birds, children and butterflies in the garden

The Saint

The Selfish Beast   
        

Scientific Principle-
Plants and animals directly influence each other survival as they help to maintain the balance of carbon dioxide and oxygen in the atmosphere.

 

Story 2: TWO FRIENDS AND THE BEAR

Two friends were travelling together through the forest. At that time, a large bear came towards them. Seeing the bear, they ran towards a tree, but one of them fell down. The other friend didn't care to help him. He just ignored him and climbed up the tree to be safe. The friend who fell down on the ground got an idea and he held his breath and pretended to be dead. The bear came over and sniffed his face and went away thinking he is dead.
The other friend came down from the tree and asked "Was the bear talking to you?" "Yeah, the bear bent down and whispered an advice in my ears" said the first friend."
The other friend asked "What was the advice?" The first friend replied "It was a bad idea to travel with friends who leave you when you are in danger.

Scientific Principle- Bear being carnivore do not eat dead animal’s flesh.