The Brahmin, His Goat, and the Three Tricksters

A brahmin, carrying a healthy young goat over his shoulders on his way to a religious sacrifice, was spotted by three cunning rogues who devised a scheme to steal the animal without any risk of confrontation. They positioned themselves separately along his route, each far enough from the others that the brahmin would not suspect coordination.

The first rogue passed him and remarked with apparent surprise, "Why are you carrying a dog on your shoulders, holy sir?" The brahmin, confused but certain of what he carried, dismissed the comment and walked on. A short while later, the second rogue passed and asked the same question with equal sincerity, and the brahmin, now genuinely unsettled, set the goat down and examined it closely before deciding it was still, in fact, a goat, and continued on.

When the third rogue repeated the exact same claim with total conviction, the brahmin's confidence finally broke entirely — surely, he reasoned, three separate strangers could not all be lying about the same thing, and some trick of the eyes or a curse must be deceiving him about his own goat's true nature. Terrified and thoroughly convinced, he abandoned the perfectly healthy goat on the road and fled without it, allowing the three rogues to simply collect their prize once he was gone. The brahmin learned, far too late, that repetition from multiple sources can manufacture doubt about even the plainest truth sitting right in front of you — and that a lie told three times by three different voices can feel more convincing than one told a hundred times by a single one.