Once, Rajguru of the court declared that poor people were poor because they were dishonest. Wanting to prove this wrong, Tenali asked the king to give him two bags of coins. He dropped one on the street and hid behind the tree. He saw a rich merchant pass by who picked up the bag of gold coins and took it with him. Similarly, sometime later, a poor man passed by, picked the bag and returned it to the royal treasury. Tenali told about the incidents to the king. Both, the poor and rich men were summoned to the court. On asking the poor man said his conscience didn’t allow him to keep the bag while the merchant said he had lately suffered losses and hence kept the bag.
This proved Tenali’s point and proved Rajguru wrong.
