160 - Foregoing the debt

During the reign of Sikandar Lodhi, there lived a very famous saint, whose name was Zain-ud-Din. During his youth the saint was rich and generous. As time passed he became poor and penniless. But his generosity remained as ever.

One day, the saint searched through his papers and picking out a number of papers, tore them into pieces. Then he ordered his servant to wash off the writing of those torn pieces.

While the servant was washing the torn pieces of papers, one of his companions came and asked the saint about the washing of those torn pieces.

The saint replied, "During my days of prosperity a number of gentry of the city borrowed money from me, I had no intention to get back this loan from them. They sent me these documents as a bearing on their loans and as a commitment to pay the loans back. Now I am poor and penniless and fear lest I may ask for the return of these loans or my successor may claim these after my death.  So I have destroyed these documents to eliminate such possibilities."

The pious saint destroyed the documents to bar every possibility of recovery of these loans to keep up the decision he had taken during the days of his prosperity. His poverty could not change his generous nature.


source: Stories from Here and There, Ekalavya Education Foundation - By: Sunil Handa - http://www.eklavya.org/storyhere.html