Tenali and the Great Pundit

Once, a great pundit (learned man) came to Vijayanagar. He approached the king and claimed that he was so knowledgeable that he could defeat all the king’s ministers in a debate about any subject.

The king accepted the challenge and asked his ministers to compete with the pundit. However, All the ministers were defeated as the pundit seemed to be an expert on every subject.

At last, it was Tenali Raman’s turn. Tenali showed the pundit a cloth cover in the shape of a book and told him, “I will debate with you on a topic from this great book called ‘Thilakstha Mahisha Bandhanam’.” The pundit was stumped, as he had never heard of such a book.

The pundit asked the king for one night’s time to prepare. However, the pundit was worried that he would lose the debate as he had never heard of the book. So he packed his things and left the kingdom quietly at night.

The next day, the king and courtiers heard that the pundit had gone away during the night. The king was impressed with Tenali and told him he wanted to read the book that scared the pundit away. Tenali laughed and said such a book did not exist. He unpacked the cloth cover only to reveal a bundle of ’til’ sticks and some sheep dung tied together by a buffalo-hide rope to form the shape of a book. Tenali had combined the Sanskrit names of the contents of the cloth cover to make up the book’s name – ‘Thilakashta Mahisha Bandhanam’.

The King was impressed with Tenali’s cleverness and rewarded him.

Moral
You should not be overly arrogant about your knowledge and wisdom.