Grasp All Lose All

Once, in former times, there lived in a certain city in India a poor oil-seller, called Déna, who never could keep any money in his pockets; and when this story begins he had borrowed from a banker, of the name of Lena, the sum of one hundred rupees; which, with the interest Lena always charged, amounted to a debt of three hundred rupees. Now Déna was doing a very bad business, and had no money with which to pay his debt, so Lena was very angry, and used to come round to Déna’s house every evening and abuse him until the poor man was nearly worried out of his life. Lena gener ally fixed his visit just when Déna’s wife was cooking the evening meal, and would make such a scene that the poor oil-seller and his wife and daughter quite lost their appetites, and could eat nothing. This went on for some weeks, till, one day, Déna said to himself that he could stand it no longer, and that he had better run away; and, as a man cannot fly easily with a wife and daughter, he thought he must leave them behind. So that evening, instead of turning into his house as usual after his day’s work, he just slipped out of the city without knowing very well where he was going.

At about ten o’clock that night Déna came to a well by the wayside, near which grew a giant peepul tree; and, as he was very tired, he determined to climb it, and rest for a little before continuing his journey in the morning. lip he went and curled himself so comfortably amongst the great branches that, overcome with weariness, he fell fast asleep. Whilst he slept, some spirits, who roam about such places on certain nights, picked up the tree and flew away with it to a far-away shore where no creature lived, and there, long before the sun rose, they set it down. Just then the oil-seller awoke; but instead of finding himself in the midst of a forest, he was amazed to behold nothing but waste shore and wide sea, and was dumb with horror and astonishment. Whilst he sat up, trying to collect his senses, he began to catch sight here and there of twinkling, flashing lights, like little fires, that moved and sparkled all about, and wondered what they were. Presently he saw one so close to him that he reached out his hand and grasped it, and found that it was a sparkling red stone, scarcely smaller than a walnut. He opened a corner of his loincloth and tied the stone in it; and by-and-by he got another, and then a third, and a fourth, all of which he tied up carefully in his cloth. At last, just as day was breaking, the tree rose, and, flying rapidly through the air, was deposited once more by the well where it had stood the previous evening.

When Déna had recovered a little from the fright which the extraordinary antics of the tree had caused him, he began to thank Providence that he was alive, and, as his love of wandering had been quite cured, he made his way back to the city and to his own house. Here he was met and soundly scolded by his wife, who assailed him with a hundred questions and reproaches. As soon as she paused for breath, Déna replied:

‘I have only this one thing to say, just look what I have got!’ And, after carefully shutting all the doors, he opened the corner of his loin-cloth and showed her the four stones, which glittered and flashed as he turned them over and over.

‘Pooh!’ said his wife, ‘the silly pebbles! If it was something to eat, now, there’d be some sense in them; but what’s the good of such things?’ And she turned away with a sniff, for it had happened that the night before, when Lena had come round as usual to storm at Déna, he had been rather disturbed to find that his victim was from home, and had frightened the poor woman by his threats. Directly, however, he heard that Déna had come back, Lena appe ared in the doorway. For some minutes he talked to the oil-seller at the top of his voice, until he was tired, then Déna said:

‘If your honour would deign to walk into my humble dwelling, I will speak.’

So Lena walked in, and the other, shutting as before all the doors, untied the corner of his loin-cloth and showed him the four great flashing stones.

‘This is all,’ said he, ‘that I have in the world to set against my debt, for, as your honour knows, I haven’t a penny, but the stones are pretty!’

Now Lena looked and saw at once that these were magnificent rubies, and his mouth watered for them; but as it would never do to show what was in his mind, he went on:

‘What do I care about your stupid stones? It is my money I want, my lawful debt which you owe me, and I shall get it out of you yet somehow or another, or it will be the worse for you.’

To all his reproaches Déna could answer nothing, but sat with his hands joined together beseechingly, asking for patience and pity. At length Lena pretended that, rather than have a bad debt on his hand, he would be at the loss of taking the stones in lieu of his money; and, whilst Déna nearly wept with gratitude, he wrote out a receipt for the three hundred rupees; and, wrapping the four stones in a cloth, he put them into his bosom, and went off to his house.

‘How shall I turn these rubies into money?’ thought Lena, as he walked along; ‘I daren’t keep them, for they are of great value, and if the rajah heard that I had them he would probably put me into prison on some pretence and seize the stones and all else that I have as well. But what a bargain I have got! Four rubies worth a king’s ransom, for one hundred rupees! Well, well, I must take heed not to betray my secret.’ And he went on making plans. Presently he made up his mind what to do, and, putting on his cleanest clothes, he set off to the house of the chief wazir, whose name was Mush, and, after seeking a private audience, he brought out the four rubies and laid them before him.

Moral

Avarice ends in loss. The oil-seller’s refusal to share cost him everything. Kindness withheld ripens into ruin.

Historical & Cultural Context

Aesop’s Fables are short animal tales traditionally attributed to the enslaved Greek storyteller Aesop (c. 620–564 BCE). Each fable compresses a moral into a vivid scene, and through Latin, Arabic and European retellings they became a backbone of moral education worldwide.

This Panchatantra-inspired tale (Perry Index variant) demonstrates the ancient Indian principle of dāna (generous giving). Similar stories appear in Jātaka parallels and were transmitted through Phaedrus and medieval European fables. The harsh economics of greed – illustrated through the oil-seller’s isolation – form a persistent theme in moral tales across 2,500 years of storytelling.

Reflection & Discussion

1. Why did the oil-seller refuse to share his wealth with anyone?
2. In what ways did his selfishness create his own downfall?
3. What if he had given generously to his community from the start?

Did You Know?

• Aesop was believed to be a slave in ancient Greece around 620–564 BCE.
• Aesop’s Fables have been retold for over 2,500 years across virtually every culture.
• Many common English phrases like “sour grapes” and “crying wolf” come from Aesop’s Fables.

What This Tale Teaches Us Today

Old stories keep their power because their lessons never stop being useful. Here is how this one still applies:

• Stories that have survived for centuries have done so because their lessons still work.
• Reading folk tales aloud to children builds vocabulary, imagination, and a sense of cultural inheritance.
• Traditional stories remind us that wisdom belongs to many cultures. No single tradition holds all the answers.

Why This Story Still Matters

Grasp All Lose All joins a vast global library of folk tales that human beings have been telling one another for thousands of years. Every culture has produced its own stories, but the deepest themes – courage, kindness, cleverness, loyalty, the cost of greed – appear again and again in different clothes. Modern readers who spend time with folk tales inherit something precious: a sense that people have always wrestled with the same basic questions, and that good stories can still help us find good answers. That is why these tales persist. Each one is a small tool for living, handed down quietly through generations.

Cultural Context and Continuing Influence

Folk tales like this one survived for hundreds of years through oral storytelling before any scholar thought to write them down. Grandparents told them to grandchildren, travelers traded them along roads and rivers, and mothers repeated them to babies who would one day repeat them to their own children. Each small retelling sharpened the story, discarded unnecessary parts, and polished the essential lesson. That long process of refinement is why a good folk tale feels so weighty – it has been shaped by thousands of listeners across generations, each contributing something small to the story we read today.

Modern readers sometimes wonder whether folk tales are still relevant in an age of apps and smartphones. The answer is yes, perhaps more than ever. The technology changes, but the underlying questions – about kindness, courage, loyalty, greed, family, fear, love – do not. These are the same questions that children asked around a fire in ancient India, around a hearth in medieval Ireland, around a campfire in 19th-century Korea. And they are the same questions children ask their parents today, just phrased differently. That is why a family that reads folk tales together is doing real cultural and emotional work, not simply entertaining itself.