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Festivals
A king gave him fourteen million gold coins. He had asked for fourteen million. He still tried to give most of it back.
Kautsa finished his studies and went to his teacher to ask what he owed.
His teacher told him nothing. The teaching had been a gift; that was the end of it. Kautsa would not leave it there, and kept asking, until the teacher, irritated by a student who would not accept generosity, named an impossible figure to end the conversation. Fourteen crore gold coins. One crore for each of the fourteen sciences.
Kautsa went looking for it.
He came to King Raghu, who was famously the most generous king alive, and found him three days after Raghu had given away everything he owned in a great sacrifice. The king was eating off clay.
Raghu did not send him away. He asked for three days.
What he did in those three days depends on who is telling it, the common version has him preparing to march on the god of wealth himself rather than send a student away empty-handed. What everyone agrees on is what happened next: gold coins began falling from a shami tree, in the quantity asked for, and more.
Kautsa counted out exactly fourteen crore and would not take one coin beyond it. Raghu would not take back what he had given away. So the two of them stood arguing under a tree with a fortune on the ground between them, each refusing it.
The rest of this story, read aloud, and a new one every day.