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Story From Panchadasi

There is a story in Panchadasi, which illustrates that our pains and pleasures are not due to facts but due to our concepts.

Two young men of a village went on a pilgrimage to North India. One of them died there. But the other having picked up some job decided to return to his village only after some time. Meanwhile he came across a wandering pilgrim and sent word through him to his village about himself and his dead friend. The pilgrim conveyed the news and in doing so inadvertently changed the names of the living and the dead man. The result was that the dead man’s people were rejoicing that he was doing well and the living man’s people were in grief that he was dead.