The Three Sensitive Queens

One queen is bruised by a fallen lotus, one blistered by moonlight, one welted by a sound heard from far away. Which of the three is the most delicate?

King Dharmadhvaja has three queens of impossible delicacy. A lotus falling on one raises a wound; moonlight blisters the second in her sleep; the third is welted merely by hearing a distant pestle. The king cannot say which is the most delicate. You judge first, then Vikramaditya does, and the answer is a small lesson in how to compare things that all seem beyond compare.

The Burning Ground

Down from the tree came the corpse, onto the king's shoulders, and he walked on. After the grim tale of the lion, the Vetala offered a lighter one, though it hid a point of its own.

The Three Delicate Queens

A king named Dharmadhvaja had three queens, each of a delicacy beyond anything the world had seen, and he could never decide which of them was the most tender.

One day the first queen, Indulekha, was playing with the king, and a single blue lotus slipped and fell into her lap. Where the soft flower touched her, a wound rose on her skin, and she fainted from the hurt of it.

Another night the second queen, Taravali, lay asleep, and a beam of the moon came through the window and fell upon her body. She woke crying that she was burned, and blisters had risen on her skin where the moonlight had lain.

And the third queen, Mrgankavati, one day heard, from a house some way off, the dull sound of a wooden pestle pounding rice. At the mere sound of it she cried out that she was struck, and welts rose upon her hands, as though she had been beaten.

The king marvelled at all three, and could not for the life of him say which was the most delicate.

The Betaal's Riddle

"So, king," said the Vetala. "One queen was wounded by the touch of a lotus. One was blistered by a ray of the moon. And one was welted by nothing but the far-off sound of a pestle. Which of these three was the most delicate?

Answer, if you know. You know the rules."

You Be the Judge

Pause here, before the verdict. All three are delicate past believing. But look closely at what it took to wound each one. A flower that touched her. A moonbeam that fell on her. A sound that reached her from a distance. Which affliction, when you truly weigh it, belongs to the most delicate woman of the three?