The Cattle Herds: Wealth as Responsibility
Dvaraka's herds had grown vast—thousands of cattle grazing in protected pastures, their milk filling warehouses that were then distributed to the city and neighboring villages. What had begun as subsistence had become surplus; surplus, if not managed, becomes corruption. Krishna called an assembly of herders and asked a question that troubled him: "What do we owe to something that feeds us?"
The herders spoke of their daily work—cleaning, feeding, healing sick animals. Krishna listened and then proposed a radical reframing: "Each cow is a citizen of Dvaraka. Not by law, but by fact. She gives milk; we owe her life that is not diminished by our taking." He instituted rules: cattle would not be overworked; they would have access to good pasture; culling would happen only when mercy required it, not when profit suggested it.
Wealthy merchants objected: this concern for livestock would reduce yields, reduce profit, reduce competitive advantage. Krishna replied plainly: "If we keep our wealth by betraying those who make it, we keep nothing—we keep only the skeleton of power, devoid of legitimacy." The new protocols were enacted, and yields, surprisingly, did not fall; contentment in animals, like in people, produces better results.
A visiting merchant from another city observed the practice and asked why so much care for animals that could not protest their treatment. Krishna answered: "You measure morality by the volume of objection. But true ethics is revealed in how we treat those who cannot speak." The merchant took the idea home and instituted similar measures.
Years later, Dvaraka's herds became famous not for their size but for their quality—animals born into respect, which produced milk and offspring that were similarly respected. The city learned that wealth, when built on a foundation of reciprocal care, tends to endure. Greed, by contrast, is always hungry and eventually eats its own roots.