The King And His Greedy Minister

King Viswa was the King of Kantipur. Though he was skilled in various activities, he was mainly famous for his paintings. He was a man who painted smoothly and was an art expert. He was also popular for his strokes were brilliant in pastel, watercolor, sketches, and oil paintings too. The painting was his hobby.

The King had a separate room for painting in his palace. Everybody in the village was fond of his paintings.

One day, a King of the neighboring village of Kantipur, King Rana, visited King Viswa. He wanted Viswa to show him all his paintings to date. As they were very good and close friends, King Viswa agreed and ordered his courtiers to bring and present all his paintings from his art rooms.

King Rana got astonished while going through the large portraits and paintings. Then, he started praising King Viswa. While praising him, he put forward a good idea to Viswa. He asked him to frame all those large paintings and start selling them. He said it would be a great profit if he started selling because people would love to keep paintings painted by a great King. King Viswa loved his ideas and thanked him for his suggestions.

The next day, King Viswa called up his minister of the court and placed the idea that King Rana shared. The minister was strange and clever enough. The King asked him to send all his paintings to get framed and to make an announcement of selling them.

Meanwhile, the minister forwarded another idea. He asked the King to sell all his paintings to his younger brother as he was a big businessman and would help him to move forward and could also give ideas about selling his paintings well. The King trusted his minister blindly and agreed to his proposal.

On the other hand, the minister ran to his brother and explained everything that had happened and his proposal to the King. Both the brothers were clever.

The greedy minister shared his actual notice behind giving the proposal to the King with his brother. As said, the brother was a big businessman and had large connections with villages abroad. The main motive was that they would buy paintings from the King at a lower rate and sell those abroad at larger prices containing King Viswa’s Autograph.

King Viswa was already famous for his portraits and various other paintings. Therefore, people would be ready to buy his paintings with his autograph at higher prices.

The brother praised the minister for his wonderful plan and his proposal to the King, and they both agreed to proceed. The next day the minister, along with his brother, went up to the King and took several paintings of him to give them for framing. Here, the brother again charged the King higher rates for framing each painting and bought the paintings from him at normal rates.

As King Viswa trusted his minister blindly, he was ready to pay the charged amount. So, they took double charge from him and kept the extra money as their profit.

The minister and his brother got huge responses on the first day of selling the paintings. They charged the paintings too much, but the people were ready to pay. All the paintings were sold. The clever brothers returned to the King and gave him the good news. But they didn’t tell him how much profit they made by charging them higher.

Days went on, and the clever brothers kept selling King’s paintings at greater rates. The paintings got more famous, and the King was also happy.

After a few days, King Viswa got a letter from King Rana requesting to meet him urgently. So he invited King Rana to his Courtyard. King Rana arrived and praised him for his wonderful paintings, but he looked tense at the same time.

He asked King Viswa to share the price rates of selling his paintings to his minister’s brother. The King shared every detail. Listening to everything, King Rana was shocked.

He then let King Viswa know that his friend, who lived abroad, had bought several paintings of the Great King Viswa. His friend praised the King and asked him to convey it to King Viswa. But he was shocked when he heard about the high price he was charged while buying those paintings.

He told the King that the minister and his brother were illegally charging high rates and double prices and selling them abroad without even getting his permission or letting the King know. Instead, through his paintings, they were earning high profits by using the King and giving him low amounts.

The King broke into tears after hearing all the conspiracy behind him. He used to trust his minister blindly and never expected that his minister would cheat him by giving him low amounts and selling his paintings at higher rates. So he called up the greedy minister and suspended him. The minister and his brother were punished and hanged in the end for being greedy.

Moral of The King and His Greedy Minister Story

Being too greedy can cost your life.