Beschi's _Gooroo Paramartan_: One day
Sachuli climbed up a tree, and sat on a long branch, and began cutting
off the branch between the tree and himself. A man passing by called to
him, saying, "What are you doing up there? You will be killed if you cut
that branch off." "What do you say?" asked the booby, coming down. "When
shall I die?" "How can I tell?" said the man. "Let me go." "I will not
let you go until you tell me when I shall die." At last the man, in
order to get rid of him, said, "When you find a scarlet thread on your
jacket, then you will die." After this Sachuli went to the
_bazaar_, and sat down by some tailors, and in throwing away
shreds, a scarlet thread fell on his clothes. "Now I shall die!"
exclaimed the fool. "How do you know that?" the tailors inquired, when
he told them what the man had said about a scarlet thread, at which they
all laughed. Nevertheless, Sachuli went and dug a grave in the jungle
and lay down in it.

Presently a sepoy comes along, bearing a pot of _ghi_, or clarified
butter, which he engages Sachuli to carry for him, and the noodle, of
course, lets it fall in the midst of his calculations of the uses to
which he should put the money he is promised by the sepoy.

The incident of a blockhead cutting off the branch on which he is seated
seems to be almost universal. It occurs in the jests of the typical
Turkish noodle, the Khoja Nasr-ed-Din, and there exist German, Saxon,
and Lithuanian variants of the same story. It is also known in Ceylon,
and the following is a version from a Hindu work entitled _Bharataka
Dwatrinsati_, Thirty-two Tales of Mendicant Monks:

In Elakapura there lived several mendicant monks. One of them, named
Dandaka, once went, in the rainy season, into a wood in order to procure
a post for his hut. There he saw on a tree a fine branch bent down, and
he climbed the tree, sat on the branch, and began to cut it. Then there
came that way some travellers, who, seeing what he was doing, said, "O
monk, greatest of all idiots, you should not cut a branch on which you
yourself are sitting, for if you do so, when the branch breaks you will
fall down and die." After saying this the travellers went their way. The
monk, however, paid no attention to their speech, but continued to cut
the branch, remaining in the same posture, until at length the branch
broke, and he tumbled down. He then thought within himself, "Those
travellers are indeed wise and truthful, for everythi