The Weight of a Good Name

A wealthy but widely distrusted trader, tired of being shunned by honest merchants despite his fortune, approached Tenali Raman with an unusual proposal: he would pay an enormous sum of gold if Tenali Raman would simply publicly vouch for his character, lending his own trusted name to improve the trader's reputation instantly.

Tenali Raman considered the offer seriously for a moment, then asked the trader a simple question: "If I sold you my good name for gold, and you used it to deceive even one honest family who trusted my word, would you agree that my name — the very thing you paid for — would then be worthless to you, since it would no longer mean anything to anyone?"

The trader, confused, admitted this was true. "Then you're not truly asking to buy my reputation," Tenali Raman explained. "You're asking me to destroy it for your temporary benefit, since a reputation used dishonestly stops being a reputation at all. My name has value precisely because it cannot be bought — the moment it could be, it would be worth exactly nothing, to either of us." The trader left without his vouching, but with a rare piece of honest counsel worth far more than what he'd offered to pay.