The Statue of Wax
-----------------------
-----------------------
One day, King Akbar called Birbal and said, “Birbal! It is
written in your books that when Lord Vishnu found his devotee elephant in pain,
he himself rushed to help him. I can’t understand the reason behind it. He had
so many servants, then why did he take the trouble to go himself?”
Birbal said, “Your Majesty, I understood your question. I
will answer this question in a few days later.”
Within a couple of days, Birbal developed intimacy with the
royal servant who was commissioned with the job of taking Akbar’s grandson for
a walk.
One day, after having permission from the servant, Birbal
took the grandson to an artist and asked him to make a wax statue which
resembled the grandson. Then, Birbal dressed the statue in royal clothes and
ornaments.
Then, Birbal gave the statue to the servant and said, “Take
this statue to the king as usual and then pretend to slip beside the nearby
pond. Remember, you have to fall in such a way that you fall on the ground
while the statue falls into the water.”
The servant did as he was told. He went before the king and
intentionally fell down, letting the statue slip into the water. On seeing his
grandson drowning in water, Akbar become
panicky.
Without giving any thought, Akbar instantly jumped into the
pond to rescue his grandson. Suddenly, he found a wax statue instead of the
grandson in his arms. He looked at Birbal who stood nearby with questioning
eyes.
Birbal said, “Your Majesty, you have so many servants and
attendants. They, why did you bother to jump into the pond yourself?”
King Akbar replied, “Birbal, I was so taken aback at that
point of time that I could not think of anything else. I thought that my only
grandson is drowning. I just
spontaneously jumped into the pond to save him.”
“Exactly similar to what Lord Vishnu did, Your Majesty,” said Birbal, “God treats his devotees as his
children. If anything wrong happens to any of his children, he
gets restless.”
Akbar understood what Birbal meant and rewarded him with a
golden necklace.
No comments:
Post a Comment