In plain words
In the course of time that Śiva temple fell down. All the villagers got together (it was a very small hamlet) and collected money. They gathered the money and put it into the hands of a rich man who lived in that village. ‘It is not possible for us to keep so much money with us. Master! Keep it with you. Build this temple well yourself,’ they said. When so much money came near him, he was very glad. This rich man gave value to money alone. He had nothing like compassion or kindness. An utter miser. It was not in his nature to give up even a single naya paisa. If a beggar came, he would let the dog loose on him. In this way he was a very hard man. But because he was the elder of the village and a rich man, they thought it not right to keep so much money in their huts, and they made him alone the one in charge of all this money. Gradually the months went by. That rich man gave no thought at all to building the temple. All the villagers went to him: ‘What are you doing? You have still not started on building the temple at all!’ they kept asking. He had a bullock cart of his own, and with it he had sand and earth tipped there. He had bricks broken to pieces tipped there. ‘He seems to have started the work,’ all the villagers kept thinking. But it stopped right there. He did not dig at the old temple. He did nothing. Seeing all this, the villagers: ‘My lord! What is this? When will you start, then?’ they asked. To that the rich man: ‘Where is it, man? All the money is gone. It went on sand. It went on earth. It went on bricks. I still have to send for lime and the like. How am I to build the temple now?’ he said. When the rich man talks like this, what can the people do, poor things? They were very poor people, people without power. Unable to say anything, they kept whispering among themselves. ‘So great a man is acting like this!’ they agonised among themselves. Their respect for him kept falling. One day Īśvara appeared to that rich man's wife in a dream. ‘Amma! Your husband has taken all the people's money and is telling lies like this.