“When I was a monkey
in a cleft on the riverbank,
harassed by a crocodile
I could not get across.
Where I used to land
when jumping from the near shore to the far,
there crouched my deadly foe,
the baleful gharial.
Reassuring me, he said ‘Come!’
‘I am coming,’ I said to him.
Stepping on his head
I made it to the far bank.
I spoke no lie to him,
but acted according to my word.
There is no-one to equal my truthfulness:
this is my perfection of truth.”