Tales of Avanti

The man named Avanti is said to have lived in the ancient China in the province of Sinkiang where he used to do such a lot of things for the common man. His main occupation had been the spending most of his time with a good sense of humour enlightening the common man with knowledge on life in a witty manner.

But as I came to know later the name Avanti too had been used to denote any person who cracks jokes at the expense of wrong judgment and injustice and bad mannerisms. So Avanti may have been used metaphorically.

The king of the country had wanted to see Avanti. He was asked to appear before the king in order to have a casual chat with him perhaps with the intention gauging his wit and wisdom. The king had asked Avanti:

"Avanti tell me, if I keep money on one side of this table and wisdom that goes to make justice on the other side of the table, which would you take?"

Then Avanti had been thinking for awhile and answered thoughtfully with a broad smile cast on his face.

"It is quite simple."

"All right" said the king, "I wish to know your selection."

"Of course I would like to take the money."

The king did not like the answer and asked:

"I like to know why you prefer money over wisdom that gives justice?"

" Great majesty! I am a poor man who needs money and not wisdom that goes to make justice."

But the king wanted to exhibit his philosophical attitude towards the subject and said:

"Listen, Avanti, money could be gathered from any place. But wisdom is not like that. It has to be earned with great challenges."

"It may be true in your case great majesty," said Avanti, "for you have money in your royal treasury and not the wisdom that brings justice. But In my case the situation is quite different. It is the other way about, for I have sufficient wisdom which will bring justice, to what I do. But that had never brought me money. As such whenever I see money I always prefer to have money over wisdom."

"I want you to clarify it more." Said the king in a certain tone of hidden anger.

"Don't get disturbed, honoured majesty!, I am a humble common man. I am poor. I don't want any wisdom to live, and I do not want any one to possess a sense of justice for I am born with it, whereas you are born a rich king and a lucky human being, and all the citizens in the kingdom honour you. You are also a person who has lots of money. It is true that you need wisdom for justice."

Having listened to this verdict, the king calmed down and went on contemplating the words of Avanti "This man is indeed a wise person. I need to keep him as the wisest advisor on royal matters, in my palace." Then without any hesitation, he appointed Avanti as the chief wise man of the royal palace. But the king wanted to know how Avanti got the wisdom.

One day the king summoned Avanti to his side and asked a question.

"Will you tell me, Avanti, how you got such wisdom?" The wise man, Avanti, newly appointed, said without any fear.

"I find that wisdom is buried in the barren lands of this kingdom."

The king was surprised to hear this.

"What do you mean?"

"Oh we got to find it and I know about that!"

"Where do you find those barren lands? What should you do to those lands in order to get wisdom?" Then said Avanti in a solemn voice:

"If you prefer to find wisdom, it is a matter of going there with me with some axes and mammoties and other utensils and whatever utensils one wants to dig the land."

The king agreed to supply all those utensils and wanted to know whether it is good to get some more helpers for this task and he asked:

"Are we to go alone? Or with a retinue of helpers?"

"Yes, in the first instance let us go together and see for ourselves, and then we will try to get the help of the others who prefer to find the wisdom that is buried in the land."

So in the first instance, the king and Avanti went to see the barren land in some far away place in the kingdom.

"This is the land I told you about," said Avanti. "This land has some wisdom buried in the soil and I know it for certain. We should dig the land in the first instance." So in the first instance the king and Avanti started digging the land. The king was so tired and wanted to give up saying, "why have we not found the buried wisdom?"

"Great king, we have tried our best to do a good job of work we need some more helpers now."

Then the king got down some more helpers and started digging the land further. Then Avanti suggested it is necessary to sow some grains in the land in order to see small plants sprouting up. That was also done. Then a great big paddy land was seen well cultivated. A sudden shower of rains fell down and watered the plants and a good harvest was yielded.

"This, honoured majesty, is our wisdom. We should gather it." said Avanti. A smile appeared on the face of the king who wanted to know why such a thing was done.

"To gain wisdom the first thing is to drive away the hunger and starvation. We should see that no body in this land is starved. That's where the wisdom lies."