The kind-hearted king

There was once a very kind-hearted king. He was always considerate, compassionate and generous to his subjects. One day he got a complaint from a teacher who said that his students were so unmanageable that he did not know what to do with them. He even had to strike his students because they would not behave well.

The king summoned the teacher and told him, “It is not good to beat your students.” Then he called to his palace all the students who had been beaten and presented them with extremely beautiful and expensive gifts. He also gave them three weeks’ leave from school.

Another time the king was supposed to give a talk at a particular hall. When the king arrived, he saw that the door was closed, and the guard was lying down in front of the door fast asleep. The king’s friends and admirers got furious. But what did the king do? Instead of scolding the guard, he got mad at his friends and admirers! He said, “Poor fellow, he is tired, exhausted. We can’t be unkind to him. I was supposed to give a talk here, but let us go to some other place instead.”

Then the king told one of his very faithful officers to watch over the sleeping guard so that nobody would disturb him. In this way he made sure that the man could enjoy uninterrupted sleep.