The Dishonest Father 

A long time ago in the kingdom of Benares, there lived a merchant by the name of Kaushik. He was a god-fearing man. But it so happened that his wife was a woman of loose virtues. They had a daughter whose name was Vasantha. Due to the bad example set by her mother, Vasantha soon grew up to be an immoral young woman. When her father realized that her character was loose, he decided that the best remedy was to get her married off. He found a good groom for her. Her husband, Kumar was a young merchant and he was also a kind and honest man who loved Vasantha dearly. But Vasantha remained what she was - an insincere and immoral woman.

One day her father Kaushik sent a man-servant to Kumar’s house. When he arrived at Kumar’s house, only Vasantha was there. When she saw him, she was very upset because the servant had been one of her lovers when she was unmarried in her father’s house. She asked him to go away. But the man-servant refused to go. So she added poison to a glass of milk and offered it to the servant. He drank it and fell down dead. She hid the dead body in the house. That evening her husband Kumar came back and Vasantha acted normal.

In the night when he was sleeping, she shouted aloud, “Help! Help! My husband has killed my father’s servant by poisoning him.”

The soldiers captured poor Kumar and brought him before the king who sentenced him to death. The news spread everywhere. One man to hear the news was a thief. It so happened that he had entered Kumar’s house to rob it when he overheard the conversation between Vasantha and her ex-lover the manservant. The thief decided that he would not let an innocent man die. He went to the king and told him everything that he had witnessed. He also had to tell the king that he was a thief. The king on hearing this reversed the judgment. He sentenced Vasantha to death and ordered the release of Kumar. The king also let the thief go after making him promise never to steal again.

Betal asked KingVikram, “Who was responsible for the whole incident?”

King Vikram answered, “Kaushik was responsible for the whole unfortunate incident because he had married off his daughter by hiding her immoral nature. Thus he was the one to blame for the plight of poor Kumar.”

Betal agreed. But he slipped away again since the king had failed to remain silent. King Vikram had to go back to the banyan tree again to continue with his task.