Hiranyaka and the Buried Hoard

Some distance from the city of Mahilaropya stood a monastery of Mahadeva. In it lived a mendicant named Tamrachuda. He begged his food in the town, kept what was left over in his begging bowl, hung the bowl on a peg, and slept. With that food he paid the workmen who cleaned the monastery.

I — Hiranyaka — lived in a burrow in that same monastery. However high he hung the bowl, I would leap up to it and eat; I shared with my followers and ate the rest myself. Tamrachuda tried everything — tying it in cloth, using higher pegs, and at night, half asleep, rapping at the bowl with a length of bamboo — but he could not stop me.

One day a mendicant named Brihatsphij came to the monastery as a guest, an old friend passing on pilgrimage. Tamrachuda received him with honour. At night the two sat down to religious talk. Brihatsphij told his stories, but Tamrachuda's mind was elsewhere — every so often he rapped at the begging bowl with his bamboo. The guest took offence: "Tamrachuda, you are no friend of mine any more, or you would not speak to me so carelessly. I shall leave your monastery tonight."

Alarmed, Tamrachuda said: "Reverend sir, do not say so; I have no dearer friend than you. But hear the reason. This wretched mouse, however high I hang my bowl, leaps up to it and eats my alms. Because of him the monastery goes uncleaned, and I keep striking the bowl to frighten him off. It is astonishing — in leaping he has outdone even cats."

Brihatsphij asked: "Where is his burrow?" Tamrachuda said: "Reverend sir, I do not exactly know." The guest said: "Then there is certainly a treasure beneath that burrow. It is the heat of wealth that gives him this spirit and strength. Never mind spending it or giving it away — the mere presence of wealth increases a creature's force."

In the morning the two took a digging tool and dug out my burrow — and up came the hoard I had been living above all that time, on whose warmth I had been leaping to the tops of great trees. They carried it back to the monastery, well pleased.

After that I went slack. At dusk I tried hard to reach the bowl, and could not leap; and hearing the noise Tamrachuda struck me with his bamboo so that I fell to the ground. Then he laughed and said to his guest: "Look at this curiosity!" And the guest said: "It is wealth that makes all men strong; the rich man is the learned man. See — this mouse has come down to the level of his own kind."

Hearing that, I thought: "Now I have not even the strength to jump. A curse on the life of a man without money. Like a creature stranded in dried mud, the poor man has neither friend nor honour; even those he helped walk away from him." And so, in that detachment, I left the place — and it was then that my friendship with Laghupatanaka began.

दंष्ट्राविरहितः सर्पो मदहीनो यथा गजः । तथार्थेन विहीनोऽत्र पुरुषो नाममात्रकः ॥

Moral: Like a snake without fangs or an elephant without its rut, a man stripped of wealth is left a mere name.

From the Panchatantra, Book II — The Winning of Friends.