The Goat, the Brahmin, and the Three Rascals

A kind, gentle brahmin had finished performing a ceremony in a faraway village, and for his trouble he was given a fine, fat goat. He was very pleased. He lifted the goat up onto his shoulders and set off down the long road home, already thinking about what a good meal it would make.

Now, three rascals were lazing about by the side of that road, and when they saw the brahmin go by with his plump goat, their mouths began to water. “How do we get that goat off him?” they muttered. “He is far too big for us to just grab it.” Then the cleverest of the three grinned a nasty little grin. “We will not take it from him at all,” he said. “We will make him give it to us.” And he told them his plan.

The first rascal hurried on ahead and waited by the path. As the brahmin came near, he bowed politely, then looked up with great surprise. “Holy sir! Why is a learned man like you carrying a dog on his shoulders? Have you no shame?”

The brahmin frowned. “A dog? Are you blind, you fool? This is a goat, given to me for a sacred rite.” And he walked on. But a tiny worm of doubt had started wriggling somewhere in the back of his mind.

A little further down the road, the second rascal stepped out, eyes wide with shock. “Sir! What is this? A respected man like you, carrying a dead dog about on your back like some hunter? It is not proper at all!”

The brahmin stopped. He set the goat down and looked at it, hard. It looked exactly like a goat. It looked nothing at all like a dog. But that was two people now, two of them, saying the same strange thing. He picked it up again, uneasy now, and walked on faster than before.

And soon enough, the third rascal appeared, and threw up his hands in disgust. “Sir! Carrying a filthy dog around your neck! Do you not know it will ruin every one of your prayers? Throw the wretched thing away this instant!”

And now the poor brahmin’s head was spinning. Three people, he thought. Three different people, all saying the same thing. Surely three people cannot all be wrong. Surely it is my own eyes playing tricks on me. And in his confusion and his worry, he flung the goat down by the side of the road and hurried off home, glad to be rid of it.

The three rascals, laughing till their sides hurt, picked up the perfectly good goat and had themselves a fine feast that very night.