The Riddle of the Unequal Inheritance

Betaal began once more, telling of a dying farmer with two sons, who divided his estate in a way that shocked the entire village: to his elder son he left all his substantial farmland, and to his younger son he left nothing but a single, ordinary-looking cow of no obvious distinction. Neighbors whispered that the father had clearly favored his elder son and given the younger only a token gift out of obligation.

The elder son, delighted with his inheritance, farmed the land eagerly — only to discover within two seasons that it flooded badly every single year during the monsoon, ruining crop after crop, the land having always been more trouble than it was worth, which was precisely why the father had struggled with it his whole life without ever telling his sons how poor its true yield actually was.

The younger son, disappointed at first with merely a cow, cared for her patiently and attentively anyway, and slowly discovered she was of an exceptionally rare breed his father had quietly acquired years before and never widely mentioned, producing milk of remarkable richness that fetched extraordinary prices at market, her calves alone eventually becoming worth more than the flooded land ever was. "Tell me, Vikram," Betaal demanded, "did the father love one son more than the other in this unequal division?" Vikramaditya answered: "No — he gave each son exactly what he judged that son could actually make thrive: struggle disguised as bounty to the one, and true value disguised as a mere token to the other. A gift's real worth is rarely obvious at the moment it's given; it reveals itself only in what the receiver does with it over time." His answer given, the king's silence broke once more, and Betaal vanished, laughing, back toward his tree.