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PHILOSOPHY OF SOUL
Economic progress is no doubt essential but it cannot be the ideal of life. Uplift of soul can only be fixed as the ideal of human life for which self knowledge is indispensable. Here you will realise the substance of thousands of verses occurring in the sacred scriptures discussing the nature of soul. You might wonder how such a substance of thousands of verses would be possible to be so abridged. Then you must attend to the story of four learned persons.
FOUR SCHOLARS
There lived in a city four Scholars and each one of them was the master of medicines, religion, erotics and sexology respectively. Each one of them thought of preparing a treatise in one's own subject of mastery, containing about one lac of verses. They poured forth their profound scholarship in these treatises.
Formerly, in our country literature was highly appreciated. One lac of golden coins were rewarded for composition of a lac of verses. So these scholars thought of presenting their treatises to some king of appreciative nature and thereby to be relieved of their worries of life-maintenance. The scholars also have to incur expenses for their families, house, fooding and clothing. They also have to maintain good number of books for reference.
King Titashatru was the ruler with highly appreciative nature, so all the four scholars approached him with their treatises covered in silken cloth and carried on head by the servants.
They said : "Your Majesty, we have composed excellent treatises”.
The King said: “They appear Voluminous. How many verses do they contain ?"
The scholars replied : “One lac”!
The King said: “I congratulate you for composing one lac of verses on each subject, but you know, I have many affairs to attend. I can hardly spend so much time; please therefore tell me the summary of your text”.
Scholars replied: "We would like to summarise our text in twenty-five thousand verses".
