The Brahman's Clothes
:
Part I.
:
Folklore Of The Santal Parganas
There was once a Brahman who had two wives; like many Brahmans he lived
by begging and was very clever at wheedling money out of people. One
day the fancy took him to go to the market place dressed only in
a small loin cloth such as the poorest labourers wear and see how
people treated him. So he set out but on the road and in the market
place and in the village no one salaamed to him or made way to him
and when he beg
ed no one gave him alms. He soon got tired of this
and hastened home and putting on his best pagri and coat and dhoti
went back to the market place. This time every one who met him on the
road salaamed low to him and made way for him and every shopkeeper
to whom he went gave him alms: and the people in the village who had
refused before gladly made offerings to him. The Brahman went home
smiling to himself and took off his clothes and put them in a heap
and prostrated himself before them three or four times, saying each
time. "O source of wealth: O source of wealth! it is clothes that
are honoured in this world and nothing else."