Three tricksters attempt to shame a traveling priest out of his lunch. The tale becomes a mirror for the social cost of secondhand certainty.
The Brahmin had been given a goat as alms, a warm, bleating bundle of gratitude slung across his shoulders. It was not heavy; what weighed him down was propriety. He wanted to reach home and divide the meat among the hungry with the right prayers and no scandal. The rogues knew this; they also knew that truth can be vandalized by repetition. The first met him on the road and cried, “Holy sir, why do you carry a dog?” The Brahmin frowned and walked on. The second called from under a banyan, “What sin makes a priest carry a dead calf like a thief?” Doubt fogged the Brahmin’s confidence. When the third shouted, “Why parade a donkey on your neck?” the priest set the goat down and fled, heart hammering. The rogues laughed, scooped up the very real goat, and ran.
When the Brahmin’s fear cooled to reason, shame joined him like an uninvited companion. He returned along the road, replaying the insults as if they were evidence. A woodcutter, having watched the farce, told him gently, “They counted on your fear of being seen as unclean. They knew the village inside your head better than you did.” The Brahmin bought bread with the few coins he had and fed the woodcutter’s children. That night he retold the story in the temple, naming each deceit out loud and dissolving its power in laughter. Three rogues lost their sport, and a town gained a new ritual: when a lie is repeated, someone must repeat the truth with a smile, or else the lie will pass for clothing.
The goat’s fate remained goat-like, for the world is not a neat ledger. But the road changed. Travelers began to greet each other, to say plainly what they carried, and to help one another make sense when voices tried to rename things for sport. The Brahmin learned to hold his gifts with both hands—one hand for gratitude, the other for clarity.
