After a time King Janaka sent a messenger to see how Pūrṇa was treating the mule. He reported to the king the precautions which had been taken. The king perceived that the mule could not escape while it was guarded in that way, so he said that he wished one of the men to be sent for. The minister asked which man was to be summoned. The king said that they were to send for the man who was sitting on the mule’s back. For while the others were asleep he could ride off with the mule. So the king had the watcher sent for who sat on the mule, and the man came away together with the beast.
When Pūrṇa was told next morning that the mule had gone off, he saw that his life was forfeited, and he took to wailing from fear. When Mahaushadha saw how miserable Pūrṇa was, he began to reflect that hitherto he had found a means of escape on each occasion, but that this time there was none. Of this, however, he said nothing. Although he was much alarmed, yet he devised a plan, and said to his father, “There is still one expedient left for settling this business.” His father asked what it was, and Mahaushadha replied that he could manage the affair provided Pūrṇa could endure being jeered at. Pūrṇa declared that he was ready to do anything which [[143]]would prevent his life being taken. Thereupon Mahaushadha cut the hair of his father’s head so as to form seven strips, and he daubed the head itself with red, black, brown, white, and other paints. Then he and his father mounted an ass and betook themselves to the capital.
When they arrived there, the news spread abroad that Mahaushadha had come riding upon an ass, and that he had cut his father’s hair into seven strips. When the king and the ministers heard this, they asked, “Why has he, who has the reputation of being so discreet and intelligent, performed so unbecoming an action?” The king and the ministers went out to see if Mahaushadha had really come in the manner alleged, or if the report was false. When the king and his followers saw that it was really so with him, the ministers said, “Wherefore is Mahaushadha praised for his judgment, intelligence, and wisdom? In spite of all that, how unbecomingly he has acted!”
The king asked Mahaushadha why he had thus dishonoured his father. He replied, “I have not dishonoured him, but have honoured him. As I stand much higher than my father on account of my great knowledge, I have shown him honour.”
The king asked, “Are you the better of the two, or is your father the better?”
He replied, “I am the better, my father is the worse.”
The king said, “Never have I seen or heard that the son is better than the father. As it is the father through whom the son becomes known, while the mother feeds him, takes care of him, and brings him up, therefore we hold that the father is altogether the better of the two.”
Then said Mahaushadha to the king, “Test the matter thoroughly to see if the father is really so or not.”
As the king and the ministers affirmed that it was so, and not otherwise, Mahaushadha fell at the king’s feet [[144]]and said, “O king, this being the case, as the mule which you sent us to watch over has run away, but as according to the testimony of the king and the ministers the father is considered better than the offspring, and the father of the mule is the ass, accept this ass as a set-off.”
When the king and the ministers had heard his speech, and perceived the cunning contrivance which it carried out, they were astonished. Whether he had acted becomingly or unbecomingly, it was clear that he was clever. Having thought the matter over, the king was much pleased, and he arrayed Mahaushadha in fine robes of various kinds, and bestowed upon him the power of a minister, and on the father he conferred that village.