One day, Akbar and his minsters were walking around the royal garden. It was spring season and so the garden was filled with thousands of beautiful flowers. The flowers were of various colours and it could make anyone smile.
The Royal Poet wanted to show off to King Akbar. He pointed towards a beautiful flower and said, “Look at that flower, my King. Look at how beautiful flower it is. I can say without a doubt that no man can ever create something as beautiful as this.”
Birbal was watching the flower and laughed. He said, “I disagree. There are men in this world who can make much more beautiful things than this.”
King Akbar said, “No Birbal. The royal poet is right. This flower is really very beautiful. I do not think that there is anything man made in this world that is more beautiful.”
Birbal could not refuse the king and agreed. The royal poet smiled since he believed that he had won against Birbal.
After a few days, a very famous and skilled sculptor visited the Kingdom. The sculptor presented to the King, a bouquet of carved marble flowers. The flowers were made so perfectly that it almost looked like a real flower.
King Akbar praised the sculptor a lot for the sculpture. He said that he had never seen a more beautiful sculpture than this and gave him five hundred gold coins. The sculptor thanked the King and left.
A few minutes later, a young boy came to see the King. He presented a beautiful bouquet of real flowers to the King. King Akbar was very happy to see the flowers and gave a silver coin to the boy.
Birbal was waiting for this opportunity. He whispered to the King with a smile on his face, “My King, do you agree now? The man made thing was more beautiful than the real thing. You paid 500 gold coins for the marble flowers but only one silver coin for the real flowers.”
Akbar understood what Birbal meant by that and smiled back at his witty minister.
