The king's secret reason

There was a king whose prime minister was very, very wise. He was also quite old. The king also had a very high-ranking officer or nobleman in his court. The king used to show this nobleman his drafts before he made any announcements. The nobleman was very, very proud that the king used to show him the drafts, and not the prime minister.

In the course of time, the prime minister died. This nobleman was quite inferior to the prime minister in rank. Still, he was hoping that he would be chosen as the new prime minister. Alas, the king chose somebody else. The nobleman was so sad. He said, “The king did not show his announcements to anybody else, not even to the prime minister. He showed them only to me. It is only just that I should be the prime minister.”

The nobleman felt that a great injustice had been done to him. So he went to the king and said, “O King, how could you do this? The prime minister did not even know what you were going to announce in advance. I was the only one to whom you showed your drafts. I feel very, very sad that you have not appointed me to be prime minister. This is an act of injustice.”

The king said, “An act of injustice? Shall I tell you the real reason why I showed those drafts to you? My previous prime minister was very well educated and also had tremendous wisdom. In terms of knowledge and wisdom, you are no match for him. Such being the case, why did I show the drafts of my announcements to you and not to him each and every time? The real reason, my secret reason, is that you are an idiot. I showed my announcements to you because I knew that if you could understand them, then all my subjects would understand them. If you could understand what I was trying to say, there would be nobody in my kingdom who would not understand!”