Chapter 22 — An Old, Barren She-Buffalo Gives Milk

Literal. A poor Brahmin in Ganagapur owns an old, toothless, barren buffalo, hired out for hauling. Shri Guru visits at midday for alms. There is no corn; the wife says they cannot give him food. Shri Guru asks: why do you not give me milk from your buffalo? The wife says she is barren. Shri Guru insists: go and milk her now. She goes; the buffalo gives two pots full of milk.

Symbolic. The chapter is short and luminous. A barren resource produces what it cannot in fact produce, when correctly addressed. The pattern recurs: the dull boy who learns the Vedas, the old woman who has children at sixty, the dry log that sprouts.