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58. A MONK
A man left a thousand gold coins for safe keeping with a Buddhist monk and asked for the money back after some time. But the monk was not quick enough to return the money. Every time he was asked to return it, he pretended to be busy or engaged in some thing urgent. The man decided to try some other method to recover his money.
So he went to a group of gamblers who wore red robes and held golden staves in their hands. After hearing the complaint of the man, they went to the monk and told him that they were undertaking a long journey to pay homage to certain caityas. The monk they said was known to them as a reliable person and therefore they would leave their golden staves in his charge while they were away. The monk was delighted with this word of trust. He was feeling greedy enough for the golden staves but unfortunately a minute before the staves were handed over to him, the man who had lost his money suddenly appeared on the scene as he was instructed, demanded the money that he had deposited with the monk, back immediately. The monk was clever enough to see that if he created confidence in the minds of the gamblers with golden staves he would make a big gain by giving back this man's deposit. So he promptly returned the deposit to its owner. The gamblers in their own way found some excuse or the other and went away without leaving their golden staves in the charge of the monk.
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