One day, as the four friends sat together beside the lake, their conversation turned to the strange ways of fortune. After listening for a while, Mandharaka said, "My friend, you have often spoken wisely about wealth and its uncertain nature. Surely those words come from your own experience. Tell us, if you will, how you came to know these things."

Hiranyaka remained silent for a moment before replying. "What you say is true. I was not always as you see me now. There was a time when I possessed great wealth hidden beneath the earth. While it remained with me, my strength was unlike that of other mice, and I could leap to places beyond their reach. But wealth does not stay forever. When it was lost, everything changed."

Laghupatanaka asked, "How did you lose it?"

"It happened because of two wandering ascetics," Hiranyaka replied. "One was named Tamrachuda, the other Brihatsphika. Listen, and I shall tell you."

In a certain town stood a shrine of Shiva where an ascetic named Tamrachuda lived. Each morning he went into the town to receive alms. After he had eaten what he needed, he placed the remaining food in his alms bowl and hung it from a high wooden peg inside the shrine. At daybreak, whatever remained was given to the labourers who swept and cared for the shrine.

My burrow lay not far from that place. Every night, after the shrine had grown quiet, I climbed to the hanging alms bowl, ate what I wished, and returned before dawn. However high Tamrachuda hung the bowl, I always reached it. To stop me, he kept a split bamboo beside him. Whenever he heard the slightest sound in the night, he struck the floor with it. Even so, I returned night after night.

One day Brihatsphika came to visit his old friend. Tamrachuda welcomed him with due honour, and the two sat together talking. Yet while Brihatsphika spoke, Tamrachuda repeatedly struck the floor with the split bamboo. At last Brihatsphika said, "My friend, your body is here, but your mind is elsewhere. Why do you keep interrupting our conversation?"

Tamrachuda answered, "A mouse lives near this shrine. Every night it leaps up to my alms bowl, eats the food, and escapes before I can catch it. I strike the floor only to keep it away."

Brihatsphika reflected for a moment and then said, "No ordinary mouse could leap so high. There must be a reason for it. I believe that mouse lives above hidden wealth."

Tamrachuda looked at him in surprise. "How can you say that?"

Brihatsphika replied, "There is an old story about a woman named Shandili. From it you will understand why I have come to this conclusion. Listen carefully."

Tamrachuda saw only the loss of his food. Brihatsphika noticed the unusual strength of the mouse and asked what lay behind it. The wise are not satisfied with what they see; they seek the reason from which it arises.