In the sacred city of Banaras there was a beautiful garden full of flower plants and fruit trees of many kinds. One day a cow entered the garden and did a great deal of damage to the plants. The gardener on finding this state of affairs came out with a bamboo and belaboured the cow so much that it fell down and died. He then became greatly concerned with the consequences of his act, and wanting to get rid of the sin of cow-killing, reasoned that the sin had been committed by his hands and that the presiding deity of hands, namely the king of Gods, Indra, was responsible for the sinful act and not he. It is said that the sin learnt all about the line of reasoning of the gardener and approaching Indra told him of the manner in which the gardener wanted to shirk his responsibility. Thereupon, Indra disguised himself as a human being and going to the garden in question he met the gardener and began to praise the beauty of the flowers, the trees and the layout of the garden. The gardener, thus flattered, started showing Indra the different beauty spots in the garden, whereupon Indra said, “This garden defeats even the garden of Indra. Who has made it?” The gardener said, “I alone have made this garden with my own labour.” Indra asked, “Do you mean that you have worked with your own hands?” and the proud gardener said, “With these hands of mine”. Indra then appeared in his original form and said to the gardener, “How is it that if you made the garden with your own hands you did not kill the cow with the same hands?” The gardener was nonplussed; and it is said that the sin of cow-killing, who was nearby, at once fell on the shoulders of the gardener.