One day, a strange and sad case came to Emperor Akbar's court. Two women stood before the throne, and between them a little baby gurgled in a basket. Both women were weeping, and both said the very same words: “Huzoor, this child is mine!”
The first woman said, “I am his mother. This woman was my neighbour. When I was ill, she cared for the baby — and now she refuses to give him back!” The second woman cried, “Do not believe her, huzoor! The child is mine. She is the neighbour, not I!”
There were no witnesses. The women had lived in the same house, and no one in their lane could say for certain whose baby it was. Akbar questioned them again and again, but each answered perfectly, and each wept just as bitterly. At last the emperor turned to Birbal. “Justice is stuck like a cart in the mud,” he said. “Pull it out, Birbal.”
Birbal studied the two women quietly. Then he said in a loud, cold voice, “This case cannot be decided by words. Very well — there is one fair solution. Guard, draw your sword! Since both women claim the child, cut the baby into two equal halves and give one half to each mother.”
The court gasped. The guard stepped forward and raised his sword slowly, as Birbal had secretly instructed him. It was only a test — Birbal would never let the child be harmed — but the two women did not know that.
One woman folded her hands and said, “The judgment is fair. Let each of us take half.” But the other woman screamed and threw herself between the sword and the basket. “No! Stop! I lied — the child is hers, not mine! Give him to her, let him live! Please do not hurt my baby!”
Birbal smiled and lifted the baby gently into that woman's trembling arms. “Here is the real mother, Your Majesty,” he said. “A true mother would rather lose her child than see him suffer.” The false claimant confessed and was sent away, and Akbar declared once more that Birbal could read hearts the way scholars read books.