Charity and generosity have their own
relative meanings. These days it is considered
rather generous if off springs take care of
their parents in old age. And more so, if they
also give them monetary allowances. This
attitude is, though apparent in a certain form
today, not new. It was precisely due to this
that there have been records kept of exemplary
beings. Them, nothing, not even death staring
into their face can stop from giving!
This
story from the great epic Mahabharata is of one
such family: There was a poverty stricken
Brahmin teacher and his family in the village
cursed with prolonged famine. When, one day,
they happened to get some flour, just a little
bit, his wife and daughter-in-law made a dough
out of it and, dividing it into four equal
portions, made four chapatis out of it. Then the
Brahmin and his wife, their son and
daughter-in-law, sat together and were about to
eat when there was the call of a beggar at their
door. The Brahmin, his wisdom overpowering his
bodily asking, stood up, and taking his chapati,
gave it to the beggar to eat. The beggar wanted
more, and the wife, considering it her sacred
duty to share everything with her husband, gave
up her small chapati. When the beggar asked for
more, the son, who thought it his duty never to
fail his father, gave his chapati too and
finally, the daughter-in-law too gave her little
chapati to the beggar, following her husband.
When at last the beggar was satiated, one after
another, all the four fell down and died of
starvation. The beggar, revealing Himself as the
Lord of Dharma, took the four blessed souls to
the realm of perpetual bliss.
A
mongoose that lived in a hole by the house was
witness to all these. It gleefully rolled on the
little flour that had spilt on the floor and
that side of its body turned golden and it
gained the power of speech. In an unsuccessful
search for a renunciation as great as this to
golden the other side of its body, it came to
the much publicised great sacrifice that the
Pandavas were conducting before they retired to
the forests. The mongoose rolled around and
laughed, as its body did not turn golden. The
mongoose then narrated the story to the Pandavas
as they were giving away their wealth to their
subjects, bringing their ego to
shame! |