Lose Your Finger Or Your Life

Once upon a time there was a king who had a very great and wise minister. One day they were sitting and talking when the servants brought a bowl of fruits. The king took an apple and proceeded to cut it. As he was cutting it, the king inadvertently cut his finger. The minister immediately put a little bandage on it and while he was doing so, he reassured the anxious kin, “Worry not Sire! Everything happens for the best.” This angered the king; how dare the minister think that cutting a royal finger could be good! The king ordered that the minister be thrown into prison. As the guards came to take the minister away, he said, “Your Highness, I am not worried for; this too must be for my good”. This statement only made the king angrier.

Next day, the king went hunting. He got lost; and separated from the rest of his courtiers , he was captured by some tribals. The tribals took him to their chieftain who ordered that he be taken to their priest who seemed to be getting ready to make a sacrificial offering. You see they were going to do a human sacrifice and propitiously, a suitable offering, – the king, had been found. And now the priest began to inspect him to see if he was worthy of being sacrificed. The priest declared that he was satisfied but just as the executioners began coming with the swords the priest noticed the bandage on the king’s finger. “Stop!” shouted the priest,” the human offering has to be perfect and whole; this one is imperfect; he won’t do.” So the tribal chieftain ordered that the king be released.

The petrified king was relieved and then he remembered his wise minister. Indeed how true the minister’s words had turned out to be! It was that cut finger that had saved his life! The king felt total remorse at having imprisoned his wise minister. He rushed back to the palace, ordered the minister’s release and hugged him and apologized to him. A little later, the king asked the minister, “But I can’t understand one thing. When I sent you to jail, why did you say-this-too-is-for-my-good?” The minister then replied, “Your Highness, if you had not sent me to jail, I would have come with you for the hunt. The tribals would have captured us both. They let you off because of your cut finger. But they would have found in me the perfect human sacrifice without physical blemishes or cuts and that would have been the end of me! So going to jail was really the best thing that happened to me.”