“In a certain town, there lived four sons of Brahmans. They were great friends. Three of them were very well versed in the shastras, but lacking in common sense. The fourth was completely ignorant of the shastras, but had good common sense.
“One day, these four friends had a discussion together. They said, ‘What is the good of scholarship, if you cannot impress kings in far-off lands by it, or earn money with it? So, let us travel east.’
“Accordingly, they set out. When they had covered some distance, the eldest of them said, ‘One of us has only common sense and no scholarship. Now, no one earns the king’s esteem by mere common sense, so let us not give him any of our share of the profits. In fact, let him go home.’
“The second Brahmin turned to the one with common sense and said to him, ‘My friend, you are no scholar, so you had better go home.’
“But the third one said, ‘We shouldn’t behave like this towards our friend. After all, we have grown up together and played games with one another since we were children. So let him come. What’s more, he should get his share of our earnings, for they say: “A mean-minded man Thinks, ‘This is mine, and that is his,’ But to a generous man, The whole world is one big family.”
“Finally, the others agreed and they all proceeded on their way. After some time, they came to a jungle and found the bones of a lion lying there. Then one of them suggested, ‘Let’s put our scholarship to test. Here lies a dead lion. We’ll see if we can bring him to life.’
“And so, one of them collected bones and made a skeleton of them. The second one put flesh and blood into it, covering it with skin. The third one was on the point of putting the very life back into the lion when the fourth restrained him, ‘Stop, friend!’ he cried. ‘For goodness sake, don’t do that! Look here, if you bring this dead lion to life, he’ll kill the whole lot of us!’
“But the third Brahmin shouted, ‘You don’t think I am going to waste all my learning, after we’ve got so far, do you?’
“‘All right then,’ said the fellow with common sense, ‘but just wait a minute while I climb up this tree.’ And off he went up the tree.
“The third Brahmin brought the lion to life. The lion immediately set on the three of them and killed them. The one with the common sense waited until the lion had gone, then he got down from the tree and went home.
“And so,” continued Suvaranasiddhi, “that’s why I said, ‘Common sense is superior to scholarship: The scholars who were devoid of common sense Put life into the lion and died as a result.’
“They also say,” he continued, ‘People well versed in the shastras, But lacking in common sense, Become the object of ridicule, Like the four learned fools.’
“How was that?” asked Chakradhara.
And Suvaranasiddhi told: THE STORY OF THE FOUR LEARNED FOOLS