Short stories for kids from Mahabharat on Generosity:
Mahabharata is a great epic written by sage Vyasa. It is a story of family, love, property, strife and conflict. It is also a story that brings out the complex characters in each human being . It is a story that can be told to kids to help them understand that no situation in life is binary and one can view every situation from multiple points of view.
One time the great warrior Arjuna and Lord Krishna were having a conversation. Arjuna was praising his older brother Yudhishtra as being the most generous person in the world. Krishna agreed that Yudhishtra was generous but Karna was even more generous. When Arjuna expressed his doubts, they decided to find out for themselves as to who was more generous.
Arjuna and Krishna went to visit Yudhishtra first. They told him that Arjuna was working on a project that required good quality dry wood and if Yudhishtra would help them with it. Yudhistra immediately called his household staff and asked them to go find good quality wood. After sometime, the staff came back saying that they couldn’t find any dry wood as this was the monsoon. Yudhishtra was crestfallen and he apologized to them profusely.
Next, Krishna and Arjuna went to Karna. Karna was very nice to them and received them as honored guests ( even though there were tensions between them). Arjuna repeated the same requirement to Karna. Karna immediately got hold of his staff and asked them to get dry good quality wood. After a while, they also returned saying that good quality wood was not available. Karna asked Arjuna and Krisha to wait. After sometime, Krishna and Arjuna got a bit worried and went inside to see what was happening. They saw Karna cutting down his own furniture to make logs. Arjuna was shocked. He asked Karna,” Why are you cutting your sandalwood furtniture?”. Karna replied, “ I am duty bound to help anyone who asks me for it”. Arjuna was move and rendered Speechless
Moral of the Story
When narrating this story to the kids, you can set the context about how Karna was brought up in a humble background and how Karna and Arjuna came to fight in opposite sides?
Lateral thinking questions you can ask. What does generosity mean to you? Is this story relevant in today’s context? Must you tear yourself apart to be of help to others?
These short moral stories for kids are curated by us to help parents build screen free conversations with kids. Please take a look at our other conversation building tools
