Devasharma and the Flattering Disciple

In an empty monastery lived a wandering mendicant named Devasharma. Gifts of cloth from the devout had built him a comfortable hoard. Now he trusted nobody: the bundle stayed clamped under his arm day and night, and he would not let go of it even in sleep.

A rogue named Ashadhabhuti spotted that bundle and thought: "The walls of this monastery are stone and the door is high — breaking in is hopeless. The way is to win his trust and take it from inside."

He prostrated himself full length and said: "Holy one! This world is hollow. Youth is a torrent down a mountainside, life a fire in straw, pleasure the shadow of a cloud. I have understood it all — carry me across this ocean of existence." Devasharma was delighted: "Blessed are you, child, that renunciation has come at such an age."

But in granting him entry the ascetic set a condition: "You will not sleep inside at night; solitude is best for those under vows." The disciple bowed — "As you command" — and settled in the hut by the gate. He pressed his master's feet, served him, and won his heart by degrees. Still the bundle stayed out of reach.

After some time a disciple's invitation called Devasharma to a village, and he took Ashadhabhuti along. A river lay on the way. Before bathing, the ascetic wrapped the bundle in his cloth and put it into the disciple's hands — "Child, hold this until I return" — and went off.

On the road they had watched two rams fighting and the end of a jackal that licked the blood between them; caught up in that sight, the ascetic was slow coming back. When he returned there was no disciple and no bundle. "Ashadhabhuti! You have robbed me!" he cried, and fell down in a faint.

Coming to himself, he followed the footprints and found nothing. Evening came, and he reached a village and begged shelter at a weaver's house — and there, through the night, he watched his hosts deceive one another as thoroughly as he had been deceived himself. Devasharma understood that he was not the world's only victim; trickery sits at every door. In the morning he went back to his monastery with his grief put down.

Having told the tale, Karataka said to Damanaka: the one who arrives with flattery is exactly the one to fear. But Damanaka answered: "Uncle, what you say is true; yet wit is met only by wit — I shall part Sanjivaka and Pingalaka by a stratagem."

अर्थार्तमजने दुःखमजितानपि रक्षणे । आये दुःखं व्यये दुःखं धिगर्थः कष्टसंश्रयाः ॥

Moral: Pain in the getting, pain in the guarding, pain when it comes and pain when it goes — a curse on wealth, that dwelling-place of trouble.

From the Panchatantra, Book I — The Loss of Friends.