The Four Treasure-Seekers

Four Brahman friends, worn down by poverty, resolved to seek their fortune abroad. A wandering magician gave each of them a magic quill and told them to walk toward the Himalaya: wherever a man's quill dropped from his hand, treasure would be found beneath that very spot.

The first man's quill fell where the soil was pure copper. Satisfied, he filled his bag and turned back, content with what he had. Walking on, the second man's quill fell over silver — surely richer than copper — and he too turned home, pleased with his gain.

The third man's quill dropped over solid gold. His companion urged him onward, reasoning that if copper led to silver and silver to gold, something even greater must lie ahead. But the gold-finder had already found enough, and turned back satisfied, letting his friend go on alone.

The last man pressed on alone through the scorching land until he found not gems, as he had hoped, but a man imprisoned by a whirling wheel of torment, cursed to bear it forever — because he too had once asked the same greedy question the wrong way, without knowing when enough was enough.

The moment he asked, the wheel leapt from that stranger's head onto his own, and only then did he understand the price of chasing "just a little more" without limit. Each of the three earlier friends who stopped at copper, silver, or gold had unknowingly saved himself by recognizing when to be satisfied.