Through a thoughtful confrontation between worldly power and simple necessity, this traditional fable reveals how genuine worth is measured not by what we hoard and protect, but by what actively serves and sustains human life.
There was once a king who was a follower of a Saint. Once, the Saint asked him to show him his treasure. The king felt very happy and personally took him to show him his rich treasure, which was a huge collection of diamonds, rubies and other precious stones.
The Saint asked, “How much profit do you make from these stones?”The king said, “Nothing. In fact, I have to spend a lot on keeping a tight security around them.”
To this, the Saint replied, “Let me show you a stone even more precious than these.”
And they set off. After a long walk, they reached the house of an old widow who was grinding wheat to make flour using a grind-stone.
The Saint smiled and said to the king, “This stone makes flour for hungry people and also helps this old lady make a living. Isn’t this more precious than all of your stones? There is a great difference between being expensive and being useful. What you call precious is only expensive; those stones have no value otherwise. This old rugged grind-stone is helping people make a living while your stones are wasting a lot of money unnecessarily just on security.”
Image: A painting by renowned artist Shashikant Dhotre, from his Facebook page.