Once there was an ass belonging to a certain washerman. Worn out by carrying heavy loads of clothes, the ass had become emaciated. The washerman, hoping to fatten up the ass, covered him in a leopard’s skin and turned him loose at night in the cornfield belonging to some man. The ass began to eat the corn at will, and, thinking that it was a leopard, no-one dared to go near him to keep him away from the corn.

One day a farmer who was out keeping watch over his field happened to see the ass. Thinking it was a leopard, the farmer covered his body with his grey blanket. Crouching low and holding his bow with his upraised hand, he began to slip away stealthily. The ass, who had become plump and had recovered his strength, seeing the farmer from a distance, mistook him for a she-ass. And, as his end was near, he started to run after her at full speed. The farmer, for his part, ran ever faster.

The ass then began to thing: “Seeing me covered in a leopard’s skin, maybe she does not recognize me for who I am. So I will take back my own identity and captivate her heart with my braying.” With this idea in his head, the ass began to bray. When the man who was guarding the fields heard that, he recognized from the braying that it was an ass. He turned around and killed the ass with an arrow.

From The Pancatantra: The Book of India’s Folk Wisdom, Translated by Patrick Olivelle, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 112.