Lelsing put the ashes of his house into sacks and, loading them on his donkey, set out to sell them.  As he found no buyers, he rested for the night under a tree by the road side.  Presently a band of merchants with well loaded pack-bullocks came to the place.  “You must not camp here” called out Lelsing to them “I have two sacks of gold coin here and you may take an opportunity to steal them.  If you are honest men, you will go to a distance.”  So the merchants camped a little way off, but in the middle of the night they came and carried off Lelsing’s sacks, leaving two of their own in their place, and hurried on their way.  In the morning Lelsing made haste to carry home the sacks which had been changed, and when he came to open them he found them full of rice and rupees.  He sent his mother to borrow a measure from his brothers with which to measure the rupees; and when he returned it, he sent it to them full of rupees.

His brothers came running to know where he had found so much money.  “I got it by selling the ashes of my house” said Lelsing “and it is a pity that I had only one house; if I had had more houses, I should have had more ashes, and should have got more money still.”  On hearing this the brothers at once made up their mind to burn their own houses, and take the ashes for sale.  But when they did so and took the ashes for sale from village to village they were only laughed at for their pains, and in the end had to throw away the ashes and come back empty handed.  They were very angry at the trick which Lelsing had played on them and decided to kill him and his mother; but when they went to the house to do the murder, Lelsing happened to be away from home and so they were only able to kill his mother.

When Lelsing came home he found his mother lying dead.  He placed the body on his donkey and carried it off to burn it on the banks of the Ganges.  As he went, he saw a large herd of paek bullocks coming along the road.  He quickly propped the body of his mother against a tree which grew by the road and himself climbed into its branches, and when the bullocks came up he began to call out “Take care, take care:  you will have my sick mother trampled to death.”  But the drivers were too far behind to hear what he said.  When they came up, he climbed down from the tree and charged them with having allowed their bullocks to kill his mother.  The drivers had no wish to face a charge of murder; and in the end, to secure their release, they made over to Lelsing all their bullocks, with the merchandize which they were carrying.

Lelsing threw his mother’s corpse into some bushes, and drove the laden bullocks home.  Naturally his brothers wanted to know where he had got such wealth from, and he explained that it was by selling the dead body of his mother and he was sorry that he had only one to dispose of.  At once his brothers went and killed all their wives, and took the corpses away to sell; but no one would buy and they had to return disappointed.