Once upon a time, there was a huge palace. A sadhu (holy man) came to the palace gates and told the guard, “Tell the king that his brother has come to visit.”

The guard wondered who this sadhu was and why he claimed to be the king’s brother. He thought maybe it was a distant relative who had become a sadhu. The guard told the king, who smiled and said, “Let the sadhu in.”

The sadhu asked, “How are you, brother?”

The king replied, “I’m fine, how are you?”

The sadhu said, “The palace where I live is very old and might collapse any day. Even my 32 servants have left me one by one.”

Hearing this, the king ordered 10 gold coins for the sadhu. But the sadhu said, “10 gold coins are too few!” The king said, “This is all I have right now.” The sadhu then left.

The ministers were puzzled. They asked the king, “You don’t have a brother, so why did you give him such a big reward?”

The king explained, “Fate has two sides – king and pauper. He called me brother in that sense.”

The king then explained that the ‘old palace’ meant the sadhu’s aging body, and the ‘32 servants’ meant his 32 teeth. The sadhu cleverly hinted that giving him only ten coins was like emptying the royal treasury because the king was so rich he could have given him far more. The king then announced that he would appoint the wise sadhu as his advisor.

Moral of the story: Don’t judge a person’s intelligence by their appearance.