Manibhadra and the Greedy Barber

In the southern country was a city called Pataliputra. There lived a merchant named Manibhadra who, though he had attended to duty, wealth, pleasure and release alike, saw his fortune run out. Humiliated by the loss, he sank into deep despair.

Lying awake one night he thought: "A curse on poverty! Character, purity, patience, cleverness, sweetness, high birth — not one of them shows to advantage in a man without money. Pride, learning, judgement — all are destroyed when a man's wealth is gone. The daily anxiety over ghee, salt, rice, clothes and firewood eats up the wits of the greatest men. A house without money looks as bleak as a dried-up tank, as a cremation ground."

So thinking, he resolved: "I shall give up food and water and end my life." And he fell asleep.

In a dream the Padmanidhi appeared to him in the form of a Jain monk and said: "Merchant! Do not despair. I am the Padmanidhi, won long ago by your ancestors. Tomorrow morning I shall come to your house in this same shape; and then you must strike my head with a club — so that I become gold, and inexhaustible."

Waking in the morning he turned it over: "Is this dream true or false? False, surely, since money is all I have been thinking about. The dreams of the sick, the grieving, the anxious, the lovesick and the drunk mean nothing."

Meanwhile his wife had called in a barber to attend to her feet, and he was at work there.

At that very moment the same monk, in exactly the shape seen in the dream, came into the house. Delighted, the merchant took up a club lying nearby and struck his head — and he fell to the ground and turned to gold on the instant.

The merchant hid the gold inside the house and gave the barber money, saying: "Take this, and do not tell anyone what you have seen."

But the barber went home thinking: "Clearly all these monks turn to gold when struck on the head with a club. Tomorrow I shall bring a great many of them and strike their heads, and I shall have gold in plenty."

He got through the night with difficulty. In the morning he went to the temple of Jinendra, bowed, went round it three times, and knelt and recited verses of praise in a loud voice.

Then he went to the chief monk and said: "Reverend sir! Take your meal at my house today, with all the monks." The chief said: "Layman! You know the law — how can you say such a thing? We are not like householders who accept invitations; we are always on the move. Do not ask again."

The barber said: "Reverend sir, I know the law; but I have had many books written for you, and I have money set aside for the copying of books — take it, and come."

In the end they went. The barber went home, prepared a stout stick and hid it near the door, brought them inside and shut the door — and began striking them on the head one by one. Some died; some ran out screaming with broken heads.

Hearing the uproar the city watch came running — "What is this great noise in the middle of the city?" They saw the monks soaked in blood, asked what had happened, and having learned the whole of it they bound the barber and took him, with the survivors, before the court of justice.

The judges asked: "Why did you do this foul thing?" He said: "What was I to do? I saw this very business being done in the merchant Manibhadra's house."

Then Manibhadra was summoned and asked: "Merchant! Did you kill a monk?" And he told them the whole story of the Padmanidhi.

Then they said: "This wicked barber acted without examining anything — he is an apariksitakari, one who does not test. Impale him." And it was done.

And they said: "What is badly seen, badly understood, badly heard and badly examined, a man must not do — as this barber did."

कुदृष्टं कुपरिज्ञातं कुश्रुतं कुपरीक्षितम् । तन्न कुर्यान्न कर्तव्यं नापितेनात्र यत्कृतम् ॥

Moral: What is badly seen, badly understood, badly heard and badly examined — that a man must not do, as the barber did here.

From the Panchatantra, Book V — Ill-Considered Action.