The Royal Thief-Catcher

One very hot day in Sravasti, a small city in India, the people gathered to stare at a stranger. He had walked a long way on rough roads, and he was so tired and footsore that he could hardly put one foot in front of the other. He was a Brahman who, in this story, had promised to give his whole life to prayer and to care nothing for comfort, money or good food.

He carried nothing but a staff to lean on and a bowl to hold whatever people chose to give him. He wore only a cloth round his waist, and his long hair was tangled and matted. Slowly he made his way through the crowd until he reached a shady corner, where he sank down, worn out, and held out his bowl. The people would soon have filled it with all kinds of good things to eat, but he made it clear that the only food he would take was rice still in its husk, and the only drink, plain water. He was, however, quite willing to take money. When people found that out, they brought him gold and silver coins, and those who had no money to spare gave him jewels and other things that could be sold.

As time went on, the Brahman became famous in Sravasti and far beyond it. People travelled from distant places to ask his advice, and since he was a wise man, his advice was good. They paid him for it, and some of them were rich, so he soon had a great deal of money. He could have done a lot of good with it by helping the poor and the sick, but that never entered his head. Instead, he grew to love the money for its own sake.

At night, when everyone was asleep and there was no danger of being seen, he would slip away into the forest. There, at the root of a great tree, he had dug a deep hole, and into it he put all his money and jewels.

In the middle of the day, when it was too hot to work, everyone in the town lay down for a rest, and the streets were empty except for the dogs. But the Brahman often went without his rest. Instead he hurried to the forest to gaze at his treasure. He would kneel at the foot of the tree, brush away the earth and leaves that hid his secret hole, and let the coins run through his fingers. He held up the jewels to watch them flash and sparkle in the light. He was never so happy as when he was alone with his riches, and he could hardly bear to tear himself away. He was turning into a selfish miser, not the holy man the people believed him to be. But by the time the rest hour was over, he was always back in his shady corner, holding out his bowl and looking as thin and poor as ever, and nobody suspected a thing.

For many months the Brahman led this double life. Then one day, when he reached his hiding place, he could see at once that someone had been there. Trembling, he knelt down, afraid of what he would find, and his fear came true. The hole was empty.

At first he could not believe his eyes. He rubbed them hard, thinking something must be wrong with them. He felt round and round the inside of the hole, hoping he was mistaken. When at last he had to accept that every coin and every jewel was gone, he nearly went out of his mind. He ran from tree to tree, peering among the roots, then rushed back to stare into the empty hole. He wept and tore his hair and stamped about, crying out to all the gods and promising them anything if only they would give his treasure back. No answer came.

Then he began to wonder who could have done such a thing. It must have been someone from Sravasti, he decided. He remembered how many of the townspeople had looked longingly into his bowl when they saw the money and jewels in it. “What wicked people they are!” he said to himself. “I hate them. I wish I could hurt them as they have hurt me.” The more he thought about it, the angrier he became, until his rage left him exhausted.

After wandering in the forest for a long time, he went back to the house in Sravasti where some kind people had given him a room. They were proud to have such a holy man living with them, and he was sure they had nothing to do with the theft, because they had shown their honesty in many ways. He poured out his troubles to them, and they tried to comfort him, telling him he would soon have plenty more. But they also let him see that they thought it was mean of him to hide his riches away instead of helping the poor with them, and that made him angrier than ever. At last he lost control of himself completely. “Life is not worth living any more,” he cried. “I will go to a holy place on the banks of the river, and I will stay there and eat nothing until I die.”

The news of the Brahman’s loss spread quickly through Sravasti, and as so often happens, everyone who told the story changed it a little, until no one knew what the truth was. The whole town was upset. People were proud of having such a holy man living among them and ashamed that he had been robbed while he was there. When they heard what he meant to do, they were shocked, and they made up their minds to stop him.

One after another, the leading men of the town came to see him. They begged him not to be so quick to give up hope, and they promised to do all they could to find his treasure. Some of them told him plainly that it was wrong to make such a fuss and that he was behaving like a miser. It was foolish, they said, to care so much about things he could not take with him when he died. One wise old man gave him a long talk about how wrong it was to throw away the life he had been given. “Put that idea out of your head,” he said. “While we search for your treasure, go on living as you did before. And next time you have money and jewels, use them for good instead of hoarding them.”

But nothing anyone said could change the Brahman’s mind. He set off for the holy place he had chosen, looking neither right nor left, and marched steadily on. At first a crowd followed him, but little by little they dropped away, until he was walking alone.

Before long, though, he saw a man coming towards him. He carried himself with a dignity that the Brahman recognized. But he was not an ordinary man. He was the king of the whole country, and his name was Prasnajit. A little way behind him came his attendants, ready to carry out his orders. Everyone loved the king, even the Brahman, because he cared so much for his people and was always trying to help them. He had heard all about the stolen treasure, and he was very sorry that such a thing had happened in his kingdom. But what troubled him most was hearing that the Brahman meant to let himself die.

The king stood right in the middle of the path, so that the Brahman could not pass without speaking to him. The unhappy man stopped and hung his head. At once the king said, “Do not grieve any more. I will find your treasure and give it back to you, or if I cannot, I will pay you what it was worth out of my own purse, because I cannot bear to think of you throwing your life away. Now tell me exactly where you hid your gold and jewels, and everything about the place.”

The Brahman was overjoyed, for he knew the king always kept his word, and that even if his treasure was never found, the king would give him plenty of money. He told the king exactly where his hiding place was and offered to show him. They went to the forest together at once, with the attendants following a little way behind.

The king looked carefully at the empty hole and noted exactly where it was and the quickest way to it from the town. Then he told the Brahman to go home and wait for a message, promising that he would want for nothing. He sent one of his attendants to a rich merchant of Sravasti who had always been kind to the Brahman, with orders to give the holy man everything he needed. The Brahman was very glad not to die after all, and for the next few days the merchant looked after him and gave him plenty to eat.

As soon as the king was back in his palace, he announced that he had been taken suddenly ill. His head ached terribly, he said, and he could not tell what was wrong. He sent a proclamation all round the town, ordering every doctor to come to the palace. The doctors hurried to obey, each hoping to be the one who cured the king and won a great reward. There were so many of them that they filled the great reception hall, glaring at one another so fiercely that the attendants kept watch in case a fight broke out.

One by one they were taken to the king’s private room. To their surprise and disappointment, the king seemed perfectly well. Instead of talking about his own illness, he asked each doctor who his patients were and what medicine he was giving them. Each doctor answered carefully, and the king said nothing more but waved his hand to show that the visit was over, and the attendants led the doctor out.

At last a doctor came who said something that made the king keep him longer than any of the others. He was a famous healer who had saved many lives. He told the king that a merchant named Matri-Datta was very ill, and that he hoped to cure him with the juice of a plant called nagaballa. In this episode, the doctor tells his patient which plant to obtain, and a servant is sent to gather it in the forest.

When the king heard that the doctor had told Matri-Datta to take nagaballa juice, he cried, “No more doctors need come to see me!” He sent away the doctor who had told him what he wanted to know, and ordered Matri-Datta to be brought to him at once.

Matri-Datta was ill, but he did not dare disobey the king, so he came straight away. The king asked how he was and said he was sorry to call him from his sickbed, but the matter was very important. Then he suddenly asked, “When your doctor told you to take the juice of the nagaballa plant, whom did you send to find it?”

Trembling with fear, Matri-Datta answered, “My servant, O King. He looked for it in the forest, found it and brought it to me.”

“Go home and send that servant to me immediately,” said the king. The merchant hurried away, wondering why the king wanted the man and hoping he himself had not done anything to make the king angry.

When Matri-Datta told his servant that he must go to the palace, the man was terrified and begged not to be sent. That made Matri-Datta fairly sure his servant had done something wrong. “Go at once,” he said, “and whatever happens, tell the king the truth. It is your only hope if you have offended him.” The servant pleaded again and again, and when he saw it was useless, he begged his master at least to come with him and speak for him. Now the merchant was certain something was badly wrong, and partly out of curiosity and partly out of fear for himself, he agreed. But at the palace, the attendants led the servant in to the king and made the master stay outside.

The moment the servant saw the king on his throne, he threw himself face down at the foot of the steps, crying, “Mercy! Mercy!”

He was right to be afraid, for the king said in a loud voice, “Where are the gold and the jewels you took from the hole among the roots of a tree when you went to find the nagaballa plant for your master?”

The servant really had taken the treasure. He was so frightened to find that the king knew that he could not say a word. He just lay on the floor, shaking all over. The king was silent too, and the attendants behind the throne waited to see what would happen.

After about ten minutes, the thief raised his head and looked at the king, who still said nothing. The king looked stern, but not furious, and something in his face made the servant hope that he would not be put to death after all. He got to his feet, clasped his hands and held them up to the king. “I will fetch the treasure,” he said in a shaking voice. “I will fetch the treasure.”

“Then go at once,” said the king, “and bring it here.” As he spoke, there was such a beautiful look in his eyes that the thief felt more sorry for what he had done than if the king had ordered him to be beaten or beheaded.

The servant jumped up and hurried away, as eager now to give the treasure back as he had been to hide it. He had buried it in another hole, deep in the forest, and it was a long time before he got back, because it was very heavy. He had expected the king to send guards with him to stop him running away, and he had hoped they would help him carry the sack. But nobody followed him, and he had to drag the heavy load all the way by himself.

Late in the evening he reached the palace gates. The soldiers let him through without a word, and soon he was back in the room where the king had seen him. The king was still sitting on his throne, with his attendants waiting behind him. The thief was so tired he could hardly stand, but he threw himself down at the foot of the steps with the sack beside him. How his heart pounded as he waited for the king to speak! It felt like a very long time, though it was only two or three minutes. At last the king said, “Go home now, and be a thief no more.”

Full of thankfulness, the man went home, hardly able to believe that he was free and would not be punished. For the rest of his life he never took anything that did not belong to him, and he never tired of telling his children and his friends how good the king had been to him.

All this time, the Brahman had been praying for his treasure to come back to him, still determined to die if it did not. When he heard it had been found, he was overjoyed. He hurried to the palace and was brought before the king.

“There is your treasure,” said the king. “Take it away, and make better use of it than you did. If you lose it a second time, I will not try to find it for you.”

The Brahman was glad to have his money and jewels, but he did not like being told by the king to make better use of them. He also wanted the thief to be punished, and instead of thanking the king and promising to take his advice, he began to talk about that. The king looked at him in much the same way he had looked at the thief. “As far as I am concerned, the matter is closed,” he said. “Go in peace.”

The Brahman was used to being honoured by everyone, from the king on his throne to the beggars in the street, and he was astonished to be spoken to like this. He would have said more, but the king made a sign to his attendants. Two of them dragged the sack to the palace door and left it there, so the Brahman had no choice but to take it and go. The story does not say what became of him afterward.

Where this story comes from

This tale comes from Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit, translated by S. M. Mitra and adapted by Mrs. Arthur Bell (1919). Its setting is Sravasti and its ruler is called Prasnajit in this book. The familiar royal name does not make this detective episode a documented historical event.

Mrs. Bell wrote her version for children and broke it into short chapters, each ending with questions such as “What do you think is the best way to make wicked people good?” The questions are left out here, but they are still well worth talking about.

Read the original: S. M. Mitra and Mrs. Arthur Bell, Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit (Project Gutenberg #11310)

Reading guidance: For mature readers or carefully guided discussion. The narrative repeatedly describes suicidal intent and despair, as well as coercive questioning and fear of execution. Its historical moralizing is not a guide for responding to someone in crisis.

A closer reading

The king interrupts the Brahman’s isolation with a concrete promise of help and ensures he has food and shelter while the search continues. Other speakers shame him for his despair, but moral criticism is not what changes his immediate course. His attachment to wealth can be questioned without treating distress as something a person deserves.

The inquiry follows a useful chain: forest gathering leads to a prescribed plant, then to a patient, then to the servant sent to collect it. Yet the telling does not spell out why nagaballa, among all plants, identifies this exact hiding place. The king’s confidence exceeds the evidence shown to the reader; the servant’s admission and returned treasure ultimately confirm the accusation. Fear before a ruler would not by itself prove guilt.

The two recoveries differ. The thief returns property and is explicitly said to change his conduct, while the Brahman’s later choices remain unknown. The pardon offers room for reform without making the victim responsible for being robbed or proving that every person responds to mercy in the same way.

Try this with the story

Trace the inquiry with arrows: hiding place, doctors, prescribed plant, patient, servant, returned treasure. Mark the link the narrator leaves unexplained. Then identify which final actions demonstrate change and which outcomes the story leaves open.

Think about it

• What practical support does the king arrange before solving the theft?
• Which evidence connects the servant to the forest, and what is still missing before he returns the treasure?
• What do we know about the thief’s later conduct, and what remains unknown about the Brahman?

Related stories

• The Magic Pitcher — another tale from Mitra and Bell’s Hindu Tales from the Sanskrit
• The Beetle And The Silken Thread — another story from the same book, about a wise minister saved by careful thinking
• Harisarman — another old Sanskrit tale about catching a thief by cleverness