An unwise King who had blind faith

Hundreds of years ago, there was a king called Pratap Chandra. He was very particular about rendering justice to everyone. Even though most of his judgments are true, he always felt unhappy about the injustice that was befalling on very rare occasions.

So he decided to pray for the Goddess of justice for years. Finally, the goddess of justice appeared in front of him and asked,

“Why are you praying for me? What can I do for you, Pratap Chandra?”

“Grant me a seat of justice, standing on which no one can ever tell a lie. If anyone tells a lie, he/she shall fall for a while,” asked the king.

“That’s not correct, my boy. God has given you intelligence and wisdom, use it wisely,” said the deity.

But the king insisted on having an easy way of knowing the truth.

“Let it be so,” said the deity and disappeared.

The goddess granted him a seat of justice, and he took it to the kingdom. The king told his minister about the seat of justice, but somehow he wasn’t convinced. He knew how people can take advantage of the seat of justice, but for some reason, he kept quiet.

The seat of justice did its job for quite a few days. On the other hand, the minister couldn’t resist his inconvenience— the minister told his feelings about the seat of justice to the king.

The king was infuriated when his minister told him that people can take advantage of it. He said, “are you questioning our justice? How dare you?”

“No, my lord. I know the power of the seat of justice, but somehow thieves can misuse the power of seat of justice,” said the minister.

“Okay, if you are so confident about it then prove it to me in a week, or else, I will cut your head,” said the king.

That very afternoon, the minister disguised himself as a saint and sat in front of a rich woman’s house.

Soon after he sat in front of that rich woman’s house, people flocked to him and found out that he had a strange power to make anything double of its original count.

The rich woman saw this and asked him to make her all gold ornaments double. The saint said, “Okay, but all these ornaments will take some time, so you come tomorrow.”

The rich woman said okay and went to her home. She visited him the next day and asked him about the gold.

He said, “who are you? I have never seen you before.”

The rich woman was shocked and said, “you cheat yesterday you promised me to make all my gold ornaments double and today you are saying you don’t know me. How dare you?”

Not long after, people crowded in front of the saint’s tent and escorted both of them to the king for justice. Due to the saint’s disguise, the king couldn’t identify his minister. The king told him to stand on the seat of justice and tell him the truth.

The saint asked the rich woman to hold his stick and while standing on the seat of justice, he said, “I don’t own a single gram of gold of the rich woman.”

Listening to this, the rich woman got furious and said, “you liar, how can you say this outrageous lie standing up on the seat of justice? You will pay for this outrageous lie” the saint got off the seat while she was scolding him.

The rich woman stood upon the seat of justice and said, “Yesterday I gave you all my gold ornaments and this is the truth.”

She barely completed her sentence before falling unconscious on the ground. After she regained consciousness, she couldn’t believe what had happened.

Meanwhile, the minister disclosed his identity and told the truth about the theft of the rich woman’s gold and jewelry. The king couldn’t believe and asked him how it happened.

He said, “my lord, indeed I told the truth when I said it, but I kept all that gold in my stick. So when I said it, it was not in my hand — and when she said it, it was indeed in her hand. Consequently, she lost consciousness without knowing it.

The king then realized his mistake and remembered why the goddess of justice denied giving him the seat of justice at first.

The king admired his minister for his wisdom and rewarded him with a lot of gold and jewelry, and thereafter he never used his seat of justice for the judgment other than his wisdom.

The end!

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