The Half-Golden Mongoose

The sacrifice was magnificent. Huge amounts of gold were given to the brahmins and thousands of people were fed. Everyone was praising it. Just then a strange mongoose appeared: half its body was golden. It rolled on the sacrificial ground and then said in a human voice, 'This sacrifice is not worth even a handful of barley flour given by a poor brahmin of Kurukshetra.'

Everyone was startled. The mongoose told its story. In Kurukshetra lived a brahmin with his wife, son and daughter-in-law. They lived by gathering grain left in the fields. Once a terrible famine struck. The family, hungry for days, found a little barley, made it into saktu and divided it into four shares.

They were about to eat when a hungry guest came to the door. The brahmin gave him his own share. The guest was still hungry, so the wife gave hers, then the son, then the daughter-in-law. Going hungry themselves, they fed their guest until he was satisfied.

Then the guest showed his true form: he was Dharma himself. He said, 'Your gift is greater than a thousand sacrifices.' And the family rose to heaven in a divine chariot. The mongoose said, 'I came out of my hole and rolled in the grains of flour that had fallen there, and half my body turned to gold.'

'Since then I go to every great sacrifice and roll on the ground, hoping the other half will turn golden too. But it did not happen here either.' With that the mongoose left. Everyone understood that the worth of a gift is measured not by its size but by the sacrifice behind it.