King Akbar was known for his fair judgement and benevolent nature. He was a compassionate person who had great respect for intelligence and knowledge. He always appreciated skills and wisdom and tried his best to encourage men with such qualities. His court had several luminaries who were known for their profound wisdom and other important qualities. But Birbal was very much close to Akbar. Birbal was not just a man of wisdom but had also displayed praiseworthy administrative and warrior qualities.
So what happened that, one fine day King Akbar was attending to usual matters of the court when he suddenly came up with three questions. By coincidence Birbal was not present at that time in the court so King posed these questions to his courtiers;
Whose son is best?
Whose tooth is best?
Which quality is best?
All the courtiers accepted the challenge of answering the questions and discussed among themselves. After brainstorming for long enough, one of the elder courtiers replied on behalf of all the other courtiers, “My Lord, a King’s son is always the best; an elephant’s tooth is best and as far as best quality is concerned, it must be knowledge.”
The King appreciated his reply but somehow he felt Birbal would have been better suited to answer these questions. So, he sent for Birbal who came at once to the darbar. Now it was Birbal’s turn to ponder over these questions. He thought for a while and started to reply,
A cow’s son is the best of all simply because it is he who ploughs the earth. We can also use his dung as fertilizer. Because of cow’s son, we can grow crops and produce food for all.
About the second question of whose tooth is best, he replied, ‘plough’s tooth’ is the best because it helps in ploughing the land and makes it fertile. Other benefits include, enabling men to raise a variety of crops. Nourishment of many living organisms is also possible by it.
As far as last question is concerned, the answer is definitely ‘courage’. Although knowledge, skill and intelligence are also important but without courage none of them counts. King Akbar was very pleased with Birbal’s wise answers and detailed explanations.