The Foolish Merchant

At a Glance

• Central figures: The Bodhisatta, born as a wise merchant of Benares, and a foolish merchant who trades in the same city.
• Setting: The city of Benares and a surrounding village, in the Pali Jataka tradition of the Theravada canon.
• The turn: The foolish merchant refuses to buy a golden dish from a poor grandmother because he tests it with a needle and discovers its true value - then tries to cheat her by calling it worthless, hoping to return and buy it for almost nothing.
• The outcome: The wise merchant comes to the same house, pays the grandmother fairly for the golden dish, and sails away with it across the river before the foolish merchant can return.
• The legacy: The foolish merchant loses both the dish and his reputation; the Jataka is preserved as a teaching on the consequences of greed and the reward of honest dealing.

Two merchants worked the streets of Benares, each carrying a cart of small goods - tin bangles, cheap ornaments, needles, thread, trinkets for children. They divided the city between them. One took the north side of a street, the other the south. When one had finished with a district, the other went through it after him, calling out for anyone who still wanted to trade.

The arrangement was practical. It kept them from undercutting each other at the same doorstep. But the two men were not alike.

The Foolish Merchant’s Needle

The foolish merchant reached a certain house first. A grandmother lived there with her granddaughter. They had been wealthy once. The family had owned a trading house, ships, warehouses by the river. All of that was gone. What remained was the house and what was in it, and what was in it was mostly broken pots, worn cloth, and a single large dish that the grandmother used to serve rice cakes on. She did not know what the dish was made of. It was black with soot and age. She had used it for years.

The granddaughter saw the merchant passing and ran to the old woman.

Grandmother, buy me something. A bangle. Anything.

The grandmother had no money. But she had the dish.

Take this to the merchant, she told the girl. See what he will give for it.

The girl carried the dish outside. The foolish merchant took it and turned it over in his hands. It was heavy. He scratched the back of it with a needle - his testing needle, the one he used to check whether metal was base or fine. Under the black crust, a line of gold gleamed.

He knew at once. The dish was solid gold, worth a hundred thousand pieces at least. His heart lurched. He kept his face still.

What is this? he said. It’s not worth a handful of rice. It’s not worth a single needle from my cart.

He tossed it on the ground as if it disgusted him and walked away. His plan was simple. He would finish his rounds, come back to the house at the end of the day, and offer the old woman a few copper coins for the dish. She would take them. She did not know what she had.

The Wise Merchant at the Door

The wise merchant - the Bodhisatta - came through the same street an hour later, calling out his wares. The granddaughter heard him and went to her grandmother again.

The other merchant said our dish was worthless. But try this one. Please.

The grandmother shrugged but handed the dish over. The girl brought it to the Bodhisatta.

He took it. He turned it. He tested it with his own needle, scratching gently along the rim where the soot was thinnest. Gold showed beneath, clean and bright. He looked at the dish for a long time.

Mother, he called to the grandmother, who had come to the doorway. Do you know what this is?

She shook her head.

This dish is gold. Pure gold. It is worth more than everything in my cart and everything I have earned in a year. I cannot pay you what it is worth - I do not have that much. I have five hundred pieces of silver and my whole stock of goods. That is what I can give you.

The grandmother stared at him. She looked at the dish. She looked at his face.

The other merchant said it was not worth a needle.

The other merchant lied to you.

She took the five hundred pieces and the goods. The Bodhisatta took the golden dish. He went straight to the river, paid the ferryman eight pieces for passage, and sailed across to the far bank.

The Foolish Merchant Returns

The foolish merchant came back to the house as the afternoon light thickened. He had his coppers ready. He knocked.

I have been thinking about that old dish of yours, he said. I might give you a few coins for it, if you still want to sell.

The grandmother looked at him from the doorway. She was not smiling, but there was something in her face that resembled satisfaction.

A merchant came after you, she said. He told me the dish was gold. He paid five hundred silver pieces and all his stock for it. He has already crossed the river.

The foolish merchant’s hands went slack. His mouth opened and nothing came out. He stood in the street for a long time. Then he began to shout - at the grandmother, at the sky, at himself. He struck his own chest. He threw his cart over. He ran to the river, but the ferry was on the far side and the Bodhisatta was already gone, a small figure growing smaller on the opposite bank.

The foolish merchant stood at the water’s edge and wept. He wept so hard and so long that people along the riverbank stopped to watch. His tears did not bring the dish back. His grief did not bring the ferry closer. He had lost not only the golden dish but the five hundred silver pieces and the stock of goods that would have been his if he had dealt honestly in the first place. He had lost everything by reaching for more.

The Far Bank

The Bodhisatta did not look back across the river. He carried the golden dish wrapped in cloth to the goldsmiths’ quarter of the city on the far side and sold it for its true value. He gave a portion of the money to the poor. He set up a trading house of his own and lived honestly for the rest of that life.

The foolish merchant went home to Benares with an empty cart and an empty purse. He did not recover. His name became a byword among the other traders in the city - the man who held gold in his hands and threw it on the ground, because he wanted it for the price of a copper coin.

The Buddha, telling this story to his monks at Jetavana, identified himself as the wise merchant. The foolish merchant, he said, was Devadatta.

Monks, this is what comes of dishonest dealing. And this is what comes of honest dealing. The results speak for themselves.

He said nothing more. He did not need to.