Bedtime Stories for Kids - Self Criticism

 Self Criticism



When  Brahmadutta  was  ruling  Banaras,Bodhisattva  was  born  as  the  King  of Indraprastha. His name was Dhananjaya. During his rule the people were completely free from misery such as floods and famines, and were very happy. Dhananjaya’s righteousness and philanthropy were widely known all over the continent.At that time, King Kalinga ruled the country from his capital Dantapur. One year, there was famine in that kingdom due to drought. Hunger stalked the land. Many children perished in the arms of their mothers. The entire populace lost its nerve. This state of affairs upset King Kalinga very much. He called his ministers and asked them, “What can be the reason for the failure of rains inour land this year? What should we do to get over this menace of famine?”“O King,” they replied, “when we stray from the path of righteousness, such calamities occur. For instance, King Dhananjaya of Indraprastha never deviates from the path of virtue. No calamity has ever visited his kingdom. It rains there thrice a month, and the people are exceedingly happy.”“In that case,” King Kalinga told his ministers, ‘’go and meet King Dhananjaya, get him to write down the virtues he adopts in his rule on leaves of gold, and bring them to me. I, too, shall adopt them and save the country!”The ministers of Kalinga took leaves of gold and travelled to Indraprastha. 


They met King Dhananjaya.“O virtuous King! We come from Kalinga where people are dying of terrible famine. You’re the very Incarnation of Virtue! You rule your people absolutely righteously, so that your people live happily, free from all calamities.Would you be kind enough to write down on these leaves of gold the rules of righteous administration? We shall take them back to our lord, who will put them into practice and save our country.”The ministers of Kalinga placed the leaves of gold before King Dhananjaya. But King Dhananjaya folded his hands and said, “Pardon me, wise ministers. I’m not competent to write down the rules of righteousness. For,once I myself had transgressed the path of virtue. I shall tell you how. The Kartik festival is celebrated in our land every third year. On that day the king has to perform Yajna on the deck of a tank. At the end of it, he should shoot four arrows in four directions. On a particular occasion I shot the arrows but only three of them were recovered, the fourth having fallen into a tank. It fell with such force that many fishes and frogs died. Thus I deviated from the path of virtue. If my country is free from calamities it must be because of the virtue of someone else in the court. Kindly find out who it was.”The ministers of Kalinga were surprised to hear this.



They went to Maya Devi, the king’s mother, and told her what the king said.Then they asked her if she would oblige them by writing down the rules of righteousness on the leaves of gold.“Ah, my friends!” the venerable lady replied. “I, too,have strayed from the path of virtue once. When my elder son gave me a gold necklace, I thought since my elder daughter-in-law was rich, I should give it to the younger one. But after doing so, I was beset with remorse for having drawn a distinction between my two daughters-in-law. How am I competent to write down the rules of righteousness? Please find someone else.” Then the ministers approached the king’s brother,Nanda. But he, too, confessed that he had transgressed the path of virtue. “I take a ride to the palace every evening in my chariot. At times I stay back for the night. If I leave my whip in the chariot, my charioteer knows that I shall return, and he waits for me. If I take the whip with me,the charioteer drives away and comes for me only the next morning. Well, one evening I left my whip in the chariot, intending to return soon. But suddenly it began to rain, and my brother, the king, detained me in the palace.All through the night my charioteer waited for me, getting soaked in the rain. It was unforgivable on my part to have put him to that discomfort.”The ministers then went to the king’s purohit hoping to find in him the required merits to fill the leaves of gold.But he, too, had to confess to a breach of  virtue. He said, “One day I was going to court when I saw a chariot with gold fittings. Seeing it, I had an urge to request the king to make a gift of that chariot to me. The moment the king saw me he told me that the chariot was a gift for me.I was so ashamed of my cupidity that I had to decline the gift. So, don’t take me as an embodiment of virtue, which I am not.”


As a last resort the ministers of Kalinga went to the minister of Dhananjaya. But he, too, had a confession.“One day,” he said, “I went to measure a peasant’s land.At the exact spot where the marking peg was to be driven into the ground, I found a small hole. If I avoided the hole and drove the peg to a side, either the peasant or his neighbour would lose a bit of land. So, in the name of accurate justice, I ordered the peg to be knocked intothe hole. As this was being done, a small crab came outof the hole and got crushed. Tell me, how am I entitled to write down the rules of righteousness?”The baffled ministers of Kalinga were at last struck with a bright idea. They wrote down on the gold leaves all the stories they had heard, and took them to their king.King Kalinga read them and realised that the best virtue is the awareness of righteousness. With self-criticism as his motto, he ruled his country, and the people were freed from all calamities and lived happily.

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