Whose Bag? Once it so happened that there was an oil merchant. When the villagers came to buy oil from him he gave them the oil and collected money from them. One day he and a villager come to the court, both fighting for a bag of money. Each claimed that the bag belonged to him. The merchant said that it was his bag, when he turned to give the customer his oil, he pulled the bag from him and started fighting. The villager said it was his bag, when he was looking at some other things he placed it in front of the merchant and the merchant started to claim it. Everybody in the court was ... read more

Birbal Imagination Once Akbar told Birbal 'Birbal, make me a painting. Use imagination in it. To which the reply was 'But hoozoor, I am a minister, how can I possibly paint?’ The king was angry and said 'If I don’t get a good painting by one week then you shall be hanged!’ The clever Birbal had an idea. After one week, he went to the court and with him he carried a covered frame. Akbar was happy to see that Birbal had obeyed him, until he opened the cover. The courtiers rushed to see what was wrong. What they saw made them feel very happy. At last, they would not see Birba ... read more

Birbal Identifies Thief It so happened that once a rich merchant's house was robbed. The merchant suspected that the thief was one of his servants. So he went to Birbal and mentioned the incident. Birbal went to his house and assembled all of his servants and asked that who stole the merchant's things. Everybody denied. Birbal thought for a moment, then gave a stick of equal length to all the servants of the merchant and said to them that the stick of the real thief will be longer by two inches tomorrow. All the servants should be present here again tomorrow with their sticks. All the ... read more

Heavy Burden Once a woman came to Birbal for his help. She said that the King wanted to construct some building on the land where her house was. She did not want to leave that place because that place belonged to her ancestors. Birbal assured her that she should be patient and he would try his best not to construct any building there. Construction began. Now, one day, Birbal came to that site with King Akbar for inspection. He saw many gunny bags lying near the pile of mud. Birbal started filling the gunny bags with that mud. "Why are you doing this, Birbal?" asked the King. Birbal repli ... read more

Akbar's Hasty Judgement Once the Emperor Akbar was riding near a mango grove. An arrow whizzed past him. His soldiers rushed to the grove and caught the person who did this. He was a young boy. On asking why did he want to kill the Emperor, he said that he did not want to kill the Emperor, he just wanted to knock down a mango from a high branch. The Emperor was too angry to listen to him. He ordered to put him to death in the same way as the boy wanted to kill him. A soldier tied the boy with a tree stump and steadied his arrow to kill him. Birbal, who was watching all this process qu ... read more