Reading Notes: The Merchant of Seri, Extra Credit

For my extra credit reading, I read the Jataka tale The Merchant of Seri, by Ellen C. Babbitt. In this story, there are two merchants. One merchant is good and is not greedy. While the other merchant is greedy and only wants money. They sell different plates and bowls. Therefore, one weekend they went into town and tried selling their material. The merchants decided that they would not work on the same street. However, they could work on a street that the other merchant had previously worked on.

In this town, there lived a grandmother and her granddaughter. They were very poor. They only thing that they could use to trade was an old bowl that was left behind by the grandfather. He died.

The greedy merchant made his way to the street where the poor family lived on. The granddaughter saw that the merchant was selling items and wanted to buy one. She asked her grandmother for some money. But she didn’t have any money. Therefore, she told the granddaughter to take the old bowl and trade it. She took the bowl to the merchant and asked to trade. The merchant saw that the bowl was actually gold and tried to trick the poor family. He threw the bowl on the ground and said: “This bowl is Worth nothing!” The merchant left, waiting to come back for the bowl. The nice merchant saw that the other merchant had left the street and decided to try and sell his materials here. The granddaughter took the bowl to the nice merchant and asked if she could trade her bowl for anything. The good merchant saw that the bowl was made of gold. He decided to give the girl everything he had for the bowl. He only asked for 8 coins so he could travel back home. The girl took all the merchandise and gave the merchant 8 coins. The greedy merchant came back for the gold bowl but saw that it was no longer there. He was angry and saw that the other merchant had gotten the bowl. The good merchant lived a nice conformable after selling the gold bowl.

The Merchant: flickr