Once there was a temple of Lord Shiva, present near a city, named Mahilaropyam. The temple was taken care by a holy sage. He looked after the temple and lived there. He used to visit the nearby city everyday for alms and returned temple in the evening then he take his meal. When he collected alms more than his needs then he kept the excess in a bowl. He then gave these alms to the poor worker, who helped him in cleaning and decoration of the temple. In this way the sage helped his poor workers.

There was a mouse also, who lived in the home of the hermit. He would creep daily and steal some of the food from the bowl. After few days the hermit realised that someone stealing his food then he found out that it was a mouse who has been stealing his food. He made many planned to stop the mouse from doing this but not succeed. He put the bowl at the high place as he could, and tried to kill harm the mouse with a stick, but he did not get success. The mouse somehow finds a way to reach the bowl and steal some of the food.

One day a medicant came to the temple to meet the sage. At the same time the hermit looked for an opportunity to harm the mouse with the stick whenever he came again. This made the medicant very angry and he shouted, “I will not visit this temple again. You have much important work to done than talking to me. So there is no need to stay here. You are giving only unclear replies to my queries, so there is no need to stay here anymore.

The hermit explained all his problems and how the mouse kept stealing his food from the bowl. He said, “This mouse reached at the high places where cat and monkeys are not able to reach too. I have tried everything. And at this time also I tried to hit the mouse with the stick, even while talking to you, to save the food I kept for my workers.”

The medicant understood the holy man’s problems and suggested him, “This mouse jumps so high beyond his limits it means this mouse is faster than all the others. There must have some reason for this. I am sure that this mouse has collected a lot of food in his hole so he has such high energy. And the mouse thought he has nothing to lose, as no one knows about his collection, so he has no fear to lose anything.”

The sage understood all the matter what the medicant want to explain him. And then they both reached a conclusion that if they can track the way of the mouse to his hole, then they will able to reach a store of the food. So they decided to follow the mouse the next morning.

The very next morning the sage and the medicant track the mouse and they reached the entrance of the hole where the mouse lived. Within few moments they started digging the hole and then he got a huge collection of the food stored by the mouse. They collected the food from there and stored it safely at other place of the temple.

When the mouse realised that all his work gone into vain he was very depressed and lost all his confidence. As the mouse had no food for himself so he decided to reach the bowl at night for once. At night as he tried to reach the bowl, it has realised that it had neither potential nor confidence to the bowl anymore. At the same time the sage hit the mouse with a stick. It hurt the mouse very much but he managed to escape from there and then he left the temple to never come back again here.

The wise indeed say:

Strike at the source of the enemy's power to destroy him.