In a deep, weedy pond there lived two large fish. One was called Shatabuddhi, He of a Hundred Wits, and the other Sahasrabuddhi, He of a Thousand Wits, and both were enormously proud of their cleverness. Their friend Ekabuddhi the frog had, as his name confessed, only one wit — but the three spent pleasant evenings together at the water's edge, and the fish loved to lecture the humble frog on the hundred and thousand ways a clever creature can escape any danger.
One evening, as the sun was setting, some fishermen passed by the pond carrying nets and baskets heavy with the day's catch. They stopped and looked at the water with glittering eyes. “See how thick with fish this pond is, brothers — and how shallow! Tomorrow at dawn we shall come and sweep it clean.” And they went their way.
The frog's heart hammered. “Friends, you heard them! One wit is all I have, and it says: flee tonight. My wife and I are leaving for another pond before morning.” The two fish laughed at their timid friend. “Flee? Because a few men talked? This pond is our ancestral home, and mere men have schemed against fish since time began. I know a hundred tricks of water,” said Shatabuddhi grandly. “And I a thousand,” added Sahasrabuddhi. “We shall dive, we shall double back, we shall bury ourselves in mud. Stay, and watch cleverness at work.” But the frog bowed and said, “My one wit tells me to go, so go I must.” That very night he hopped away with his wife to a deep pond far off.
At sunrise the fishermen came and cast their nets wide. Shatabuddhi dived, doubled, darted; Sahasrabuddhi tried all his thousand tricks. But the nets were many and the pond was small, and both wise fish soon lay in the fishermen's baskets, the heaviest catch of the day. As the men walked home past the far pond, Ekabuddhi saw the two great fish carried high on their shoulders, and said quietly to his wife, “One wit that acts in time, my dear, is worth a thousand that stay to argue.”