The story of the foolish gardener begins long ago. This story begins with a landlord who had a huge garden. The garden means a lot to the landlord, but because the garden is so big, the man can’t take good care of it. So, the landlord had no choice but to hire a gardener to tend to his garden.
The gardener was a very loyal man to his employer, and he looked after the garden with great care. During summer, the gardener would water the plants every day. Because of this, the man had no day off, however, he knew that if he took a break, the plants would dry up because he didn’t water them.
Each time the gardener asked the landlord for a break, the landlord would reject him. The landlord explained to him that if he took the break, then who would water the plant? After all, he was the only one in charge of the garden.
The landlord then refused to grant him any holiday because there would be no one else to help him to water the plants. After hearing the landlord’s response, the gardener was scared. He couldn’t do anything to try and convince his employer to grant him a break.
Each time the gardener asked for a holiday, the landlord would turn him down. One faithful day, there was a yearly temple festival happening at the gardener’s village. The gardener wanted to spend the festival with his family, but he couldn’t ask the landlord for a day off.
Determined, the gardener planned to enjoy the festival with or without the landlord’s permission. So, the man decided to ask the monkeys in the forest for help. The man approached the monkey king and told him that he was a gardener who looked after the garden at the forest border. However, the owner of the garden wouldn’t give him a break.
The monkeys all recognized the gardener. Then, the man narrated how he wanted to spend time with his family in his village for the next festival, but the landlord wouldn’t give him a break. The monkeys then asked the man how they could be of help because they didn’t know anything about gardening.
The man told them that all they had to do was to water the plants. He would give them pots and vessels which they would use to get water from the river and to water the plants. The Monkey King decided to help the man.
So, the next day the man left for his village to spend time with his family and to enjoy the festival.. However, the monkeys were confused because they didn’t know how much water to use to water the plant, so they consulted their king.
The Monkey King told them to water the plants according to their roots. So, to find out how deep the root was, the monkey had to pull out the plant from the ground. On the day of the festival, the monkeys pulled out all the plants and watered them.
Once they were done, they planted the roots back on the ground. When the hardener returned to the garden, he saw that all the plants had dried up. Then landlord came to check them, he was angry, and so he dismissed the man. This concludes the story of the foolish gardener.