The sage appeared at the door of the house of the farmer again after ten years. He was told that the farmer had died. He saw a dog at the door. He could intuitively divine that the farmer had been reborn as a dog. He bestowed the dog with the power of speech and awareness of the knowledge of the previous birth.

He asked the dog, “Oh man! Are you not ashamed to be born as a dog? Come, I shall free you of this mean life.” The dog said, “Oh Sage! I wish to be a watch dog at the door of my son’s house. He is very careless. Robbers may come and take away all the wealth I had hoarded for him and his family. Come after ten years.”

The sage did come after ten years. The very look of the locality had changed and in the place of the farmer’s small house, stood a big mansion. He could intuitively divine that the farmer had been born again as a serpent and was living inside an ant hill in the backyard of the mansion, guarding the wealth underneath.

The sage went near the ant-hill and whispered, “Oh my dear man! What a miserable fate! You have taken the birth of a deadly serpent. Do come with me I shall liberate you.” The serpent replied, from within “Oh revered one! I cannot come, I must guard the wealth that I had kept hidden underneath.”

The sage at once approached the inmates of the house and said, “My dear children, there is an ant-hill in your backyard. A deadly serpent is living there guarding all the wealth that your grandfather had hoarded for you. You better kill the serpent and possess the wealth.”

The grandchildren were only too glad to execute the job. The serpent was killed and at last freed. The pity is that those very people for whom the farmer had hoarded wealth and taken so many births mercilessly killed him.

-Baba