Karma Story of Buddhist Ethics

Author(s): Paul Carus
Publisher: Chicago Open Court Publishing Company

Page 20

BUSINESS IN BENARES.
TO corner the market of the necessities of
1 life' is not a modern invention. The Old Testament contains the story of Joseph, the poor Hebrew youth who became minister of state, and succeeded with unscrupulous but clever business tricks in cornering the wheat market, so as to force the starved people to sell all their property, their privileges, and even their lives, to Pharaoh. And we read in the Jâtaka Talest that one of the royal treasurers of Kâsî, which is the old name of Bârânasî, made his first great success in life by cornering the grass market of the metropolis on the day of the arrival of a horse dealer with five hundred horses.
When Pandu the jeweller arrived at Bârânasî it so happened that a bold speculator had brought about a corner in rice, and Mallika, a rich banker and a business friend of Pandu,