You have probably all heard about the padishah Akbar and his wise adviser Birbal. People have written many tales about them in different languages.
It is said that Birbal was born into a poor Brahmin family. When he grew up and became an intelligent and diligent young man, he left his native place and went in search of work. He settled in Agra, opened a small shop not far from the Shah's palace and began selling betel.
One afternoon, Birbal was sitting in his shop as usual. Suddenly a very alarmed palace servant, Karim, runs up to him and says:
“Venerable Pandit, quickly give me a quarter pound of lime.” The padishah himself demands. He's very angry.
Birbal immediately guessed what was the matter and asked:
– Did the padishah eat betel now or not?
- Ate. “I served it to him myself,” Karim answered.
- Well, then everything is clear. You brought trouble upon yourself.
- How? Why? – Karim was scared.
“It looks like you put too much lime in the betel nut, and the padishah burned his tongue.” Now he will order you to eat all this lime, and you will die a painful death.
- Venerable Pandit, you are not mistaken. For ten years now I have been faithfully serving the padishah, and only today, when I was preparing betel, I was distracted: I was thinking about how best to arrange my daughter’s wedding. This is where the mistake happened. Venerable Pandit, teach me how to save my life now!
Birbal always helped the poor. He thought and said:
- That's it, Karim. Drink a bottle of ghee now. Then the lime will not cause you any harm.
Karim drank a bottle of oil. With a bag of lime, trembling with fear, he appeared before the padishah. And in fact, the padishah ordered him immediately, in front of his eyes, to eat all the lime.
The next day, Karim, as usual, came to the padishah with betel nut on a tray. The padishah looked at him in surprise and asked:
- How did you manage to stay alive after eating a whole bag of lime?
Respectfully folding his hands, Karim told everything as it happened. The next day Birbal was called to the palace, and the padishah asked him:
- Birbal, how did you know about my intention to force Karim to eat a bag of lime?
- Your Majesty! My intelligence helped me figure this out.
- Apparently, you are a smart person. I want to test the strength of your mind and ask you a few questions. Tell me, how much is one and one?
- Your Majesty! If the king and the adviser are wise and help each other, then one and one will be eleven. And if not, then one and one will be two. That is, there will only be discord and disagreement.
– Have you heard the real answer? – the padishah turned to his advisers. – Yesterday, when I asked you the same question, no one could really answer it.
And to Birbal he said:
– From this day on, I appoint you as my chief adviser.
Birbal bowed deeply and stepped aside.
With his wit and wisdom, Birbal won the heart of the padishah in a short time. Akbar highly appreciated the resourcefulness of his new adviser. When Birbal was absent, the royal court seemed to dim. Birbal's every answer invariably pleased the padishah.
One winter, when an icy east wind was blowing, Padishah Akbar sat with Birbal in one of the upper chambers of the palace, wrapped in warm blankets. Suddenly something came into Akbar's mind and he asked Birbal:
“What do you think, Birbal, is there a person in my country who could, in severe cold, spend the whole night standing up to his neck in water?”
- O great sovereign! What a person won’t do for a piece of bread! If you set a good reward, I will find you a man who will stand for it all night, immersed up to his neck in water.
What did Emperor Akbar know about the life of the poor and their needs? He did not believe Birbal, but to test Birbal's abilities again, he said:
- Okay, find such a person. If he passes the test, he will be given one hundred gold pieces.
Birbal promised to promise, but when Akbar agreed to give the reward, he began to think: “How can we find such a person by tomorrow?” He came home preoccupied and didn’t even touch his dinner. And Birbal had a daughter - her mind was all like her father’s. She saw that her father was worried about something and was not at all in the mood for food, and asked:
- Father, what’s wrong with you? What's worrying you? Did you quarrel with someone in the palace?
At first, Birbal tried to get away with jokes, but in the end he had to tell everything honestly. The daughter listened carefully to her father and said:
– Is that all? Dear father, eat and go to bed peacefully. Tomorrow evening I will find the person you need.
The next day in the evening, when it was time to go to the palace, Birbal called for his daughter.
- Now, father! – she responded and ran to the neighboring house. Soon she returned with her neighbor Dhobi. Birbal saw the dhobi and asks:
- Well, brother, can you stand up to your neck in water all night in such cold weather?
“Our breadwinner, because all I do is spend all day fiddling with laundry in cold water.” “And for such a mercy I will stand in the water all night,” he answered, folding his hands respectfully.
Then Birbal took the dhobi to the palace.
“Your Majesty, here is a man who agrees to fulfill your desire,” he announced to the padishah.
As soon as the sun went down, . The dhobi was taken into a pond and left to stand up to his neck in water, and sentries were posted nearby. The unfortunate man stood in the water all night. When he got out of the pond in the morning, all his skin turned blue from the cold. Birbal took him to his home, warmed him up, and gave him hot milk. In the evening he took him to the palace. Akbar asked curiously:
How did you manage to survive the whole night in cold water?
Folding his hands, the dhobi replied:
- O patron of the world! I kept looking at the light that was burning somewhere in the distance on the shore.
Hearing this answer, Akbar decided not to fulfill his promise.
“Birbal,” he said, “there will be no reward for this man.” He stared at the light of the lantern all night without stopping. It turns out that the light warmed him and saved him from the cold.
Akbar’s insidious trick angered Birbal, and he decided to teach the padishah a lesson. The next day Birbal tied four long bamboo sticks together. The result was a tall pole. He dug the lower end into the ground, and tied a pot of water and cereal to the upper end. Just under the pot hanging high in the sky, he folded the stove and lit a fire in it, and he sat down next to him. When Birbal did not appear at court at noon, the Shah's vizier sent a guard to fetch him. Birbal listened to the guard and replied:
- Go and tell me that I will come when I finish cooking my porridge and eat.
An hour later another guard was sent for Birbal. Birbal told him the same as he told the first. And when evening came and Birbal did not come to the palace, Akbar himself and the vizier came to his house to see what kind of porridge it was, which had been boiling for the whole day and could not be cooked.
Seeing the guests from afar, Birbal rushed to the stove, threw wood into it and began to diligently fan the fire. Akbar raised his head high and saw a bowler hat tied to a long pole. He laughed and said:
“Are you out of your mind, Birbal?” Not only does the heat reach your pot, but even the smoke doesn’t reach it. How can you cook porridge here?
The resourceful Birbal was expecting just this question. He humbly bowed to the padishah and said:
“The distance between my pot of porridge and the hearth is five times closer than it was at night from the pond to the lantern. Moreover, note that the flame in the hearth is hundreds of times stronger than the flame of a candle in a lantern. If the dhobi in the pond could be warmed by a lantern, then the porridge would even cook on my stove. Please, Your Majesty, forgive me for the delay. As soon as the porridge is ripe, I will eat and report to the palace.
So Birbal taught the padishah a lesson for his treachery. Akbar could not sit without Birbal all evening, so as soon as he returned to the palace, he ordered two hundred gold pieces to be given to the dhobi instead of the promised hundred.
Glorifying Birbal and wishing him long life, he came home happy, and Birbal with his head held high, happy and smiling, came to the court.
This is how Akbar and Birbal constantly competed with each other in resourcefulness. Birbal always came up with such answers that Akbar had no choice but to agree with him.
One day the padishah asked Birbal:
- Birbal, what should you do when you are dealing with a fool?
“Great sir, I will answer this question tomorrow,” Birbal said after thinking a little.
With his wit and resourcefulness, Birbal delighted the emperor and received many awards for this. But he never missed an opportunity to force Akbar to bestow his bounties on poor people. That day, upon returning home, Birbal met a shepherd near the gate of his house. Birbal asked him who he was and where he was from and found out that he was very poor.
- Okay, tomorrow you will come with me to the courtyard. I will take you to the padishah himself, but you must remain silent all the time. Whatever he tells you, don’t open your mouth,” Birbal told him.
The next day Birbal and the shepherd came to the palace. The padishah saw Birbal and said:
- Well, Birbal, answer me yesterday’s question. - O patron of the world! My friend the shepherd will answer your question.
This seemed a little strange to the padishah, but he still asked the shepherd his question. The shepherd stood and was silent. The padishah repeated his question several times. But the shepherd is still silent. When Birbal saw that the padishah was already losing patience, he said:
- Your Majesty! You've already received your answer.
- How so? – Akbar was surprised. – This man is silent, as if he had taken too much water in his mouth.
- O patron of the world! This is precisely the point: if you have to deal with a fool, you need to remain silent.
Akbar was embarrassed, but did not show it. “Every time Birbal leaves me a fool,” he thought. And he began to wait for an opportunity when he could catch Birbal in some mistake and teach him a lesson.
And Birbal had ill-wishers among the courtiers. They, too, were just waiting for an opportunity to denigrate him before the padishah. One day one of them turned to Akbar:
- O patron of the world! Councilor Birbal is not impartial in his decisions. Four criminals were captured yesterday. They committed the same offenses, but Birbal gave them different punishments. You can see for yourself.
When Birbal came to the palace, the padishah asked him:
– I heard that yesterday in court you handed down different sentences for the same crimes. Is this true and what does it mean?
- Your Majesty! This is true. I did not allow injustice, I remained faithful to justice. Gold is flattened by the slightest blow, but in order to flatten iron, you need to hit it with a heavy hammer. A hint is enough for a decent person, but even punishment will not correct an unscrupulous person. The purpose of punishment is to correct the offender. When I pass a sentence, I always think about what kind of person the person who committed the crime is, and what kind of punishment can be used to correct him.
“Then prove that yesterday you made fair sentences.”
- Your Majesty! I let one go. I only told him that a man like him should be ashamed of his actions. He went home and took poison out of shame. I severely reprimanded the other and released him. He deeply realized his guilt and left the city. I ordered the third to be punished with sticks. He has now locked himself at home and does not show himself to people. I passed the most severe sentence on the fourth: they cut off his nose and ears, smeared his face with soot, put him on a donkey and drove him around the city. So this shameless guy rode around the city and laughed! And when he saw his son on the street, he ordered him to tell his mother to prepare bathing water and a good dinner for his arrival. He, they say, will drive around the city a little more and will return soon.
Hearing this answer, everyone began to praise Birbal's justice.
Translated from Russian · original on wisdomlib.ru