The Four Treasure-Seekers

I. Four Poor Friends and a Yogi’s Gift

In a prosperous town in ancient India, four Brahmin friends shared everything: their meals, their Sanskrit verses, their long debates about scripture, and their poverty. They had studied hard and prayed faithfully, but the wealth they had hoped learning would bring them had never arrived. Year after year they watched wealthier households prosper around them and felt the quiet shame of men who cannot provide what they believe they deserve.

One evening, as they sat together after a spare dinner of plain rice, they reached a decision. The town had given them nothing. The world was large. They would leave and find their fortune elsewhere. They said their farewells to friends and relatives, packed what little they owned, and set off without any fixed destination in mind — only the conviction that somewhere beyond the horizon, better things awaited.

After many days of walking they came to a thriving city they had never visited, with bustling markets and a great Shiva temple on the bank of a clear river. They bathed in the river, made their offerings at the temple, and while resting in the temple courtyard they fell into conversation with an aged Yogi who had made the hermitage nearby his home for decades.

The Yogi saw their gaunt faces and worn sandals and asked gently who they were and what had brought them so far from home. They explained their situation with complete honesty — the poverty, the shame, the desperate hope that somewhere there was treasure waiting for men willing to walk far enough to find it.

The Yogi listened in silence, then went to a small wooden box and returned with four cotton wicks — the kind used to light oil lamps, soft and ordinary in appearance. He placed one in each man’s palm.

“Take these and walk toward the Himalayas,” he said. “Do not look for the direction — simply walk. At some point, one of you will accidentally drop his wick. Wherever the wick falls, dig. You will find treasure buried there. Take it and return home content. That is all you need to do.”

The four Brahmins bowed to the Yogi, tucked the wicks safely in their bundles, and set off north toward the mountains.

II. Copper, Silver, Gold: Three Who Knew When to Stop

They walked for several days through forest and plain, climbing gradually as the air grew cooler and the road thinner. On the third day, the first Brahmin stumbled on a stone and his wick slipped from his fingers to the earth. He stared at the spot for a moment, then remembered the Yogi’s words and knelt to dig.

Within a few inches of topsoil he struck the edge of a large clay pot, and within that pot he found copper coins — more copper than he had ever seen in his life, enough to keep a household comfortable for many years. He looked up at his three companions, his face flushed with joy.

“Come, this is enough for all of us! Four men cannot carry more than this between them. Let us take what we can and go home.”

His three friends considered the copper carefully. One of them put it plainly: “You were destined to copper. Perhaps we are destined to something more. Take your treasure and go home safely. We will continue.” The first Brahmin needed no more persuading. He filled his bag with as many coins as he could carry and headed home a contented man.

The remaining three walked on for several more days. The second man dropped his wick at the edge of a pine forest, dug, and found a sealed bronze urn full of silver. Again he invited his companions to join him in turning back; again they declined gently. The second Brahmin returned home rich in silver and richer still in the knowledge that he had accepted what the universe had offered him.

The third Brahmin’s wick fell in a mountain meadow blanketed with wildflowers. He dug and found a stone-lined pit packed with gold — bars of it, heavy and yellow in the afternoon light. He turned to his one remaining companion, a man whose wick still lay undisturbed in his palm.

“Brother, look at this. We have copper, silver, and gold behind us. Come home with me now. Whatever you find cannot be worth more than sharing gold with a friend.”

But the fourth Brahmin shook his head. He was not angry, not dismissive — only certain. The pattern was too clear to ignore. Copper had given way to silver; silver to gold. What came after gold? Diamonds, surely. Pearls. Jewels beyond imagining. He had been patient this long. Why stop now? The third Brahmin, unable to move his friend’s mind, agreed to stay beside the gold and guard it until his companion returned from whatever lay ahead.

III. The Wheel of Kubera

The fourth Brahmin walked on alone. The mountain path grew steeper and the air thinner. By midday the sun was punishing and there was no stream in sight. By afternoon he was so thirsty that the thought of diamonds had retreated behind the more immediate thought of water. He had completely lost the path and was walking in wide circles without realising it.

Then, in a small clearing at the edge of a rocky outcrop, he found a man standing very still. The man’s face and arms were smeared with dried blood, and above his head, spinning without stopping, was a great iron wheel — turning like a millstone, suspended in air by no visible means, and clearly causing tremendous pain.

The fourth Brahmin, in his thirst, forgot everything else. “Please tell me where I can find water,” he said. “You there, with the wheel on your head — where is the nearest water?”

The instant those words left his mouth, the wheel rose from the standing man’s head and descended onto his own. The pain was immediate and enormous — the weight of iron, the sharp edges, the relentless spinning — and he gasped and cried out.

The man who had been freed stood for a moment in visible relief, rubbing his temples. Then he explained what had just happened.

“This wheel is a device of Kubera, the god of wealth, designed to protect the treasure of this place from greedy men. Only a person carrying one of the Yogi’s magical wicks can reach this spot at all. When such a person speaks to the one carrying the wheel, the wheel transfers. I do not know how long I have been here. It was in the time of King Rama that I came this way, also following a magical wick, also unwilling to stop at gold. I found someone here before me, as you found me. And now you will remain until the next one comes — immune to hunger, thirst, aging, and death — but not to pain.”

He bowed respectfully, picked up his ancient walking staff, and left without looking back.

The fourth Brahmin stood in the clearing with the wheel spinning above his head. The treasure of Kubera glittered on the ground all around him. He was surrounded by diamonds, by gems of every colour, by gold beyond counting — and he could not touch a single piece.

IV. The Friend Who Could Only Watch

Back in the mountain meadow, the third Brahmin grew worried as the hours lengthened and his friend did not return. He decided to follow the path his companion had taken, and after considerable searching he found him: bloodied, in pain, the iron wheel turning above his head in the thin mountain air.

The third Brahmin ran forward. “What has happened? How can I help?”

The fourth Brahmin told him the whole story through his tears — the man he had found, the words he had spoken, the transfer of the wheel. He asked nothing of his friend because there was nothing to ask. No human hand could remove Kubera’s device. Only another wick-carrier’s words could transfer it, and the third Brahmin had no wick.

The third Brahmin stood in the clearing for a long time. Finally he said, with as much kindness as he could manage: “You are learned. You know the Panchatantra and the Mahabharata and all the verses about the nature of desire. You knew that copper led to silver and silver to gold. You knew the pattern. And yet you could not stop. Even being a scholar, you lacked the sense to govern your own greed. There is nothing I can do for you. I must go.”

He walked back through the mountains, collected the gold from the meadow pit, and made his long journey home. The fourth Brahmin remained in the clearing, immortal and in pain, surrounded by the greatest treasure in the world, unable to use any of it.