As the Bhagavata tells it
Bhagavata Purana 10.80 to 10.81 · 3 min read
There was a Brahmin who had studied with Krishna as a boy, in the hermitage of their teacher Sandipani. The Bhagavata does not give his name; later tellers call him Sudama, and in the south he is Kuchela, the man in rags. He knew the Vedas, wanted nothing, and lived on whatever came to him, and so he and his wife were very poor. Often they went hungry.
One day his wife, thin and trembling, said to him, "Your friend from school is Krishna, the lord of Dwaraka, the husband of Lakshmi herself. He loves the Brahmins. Go to him. He will see how we live."
Sudama did not want to ask anyone for anything. But he thought, "At least I will see him." So he said, "If I am to go, I must take him a gift. Is there anything in the house?"
His wife went to the neighbours and begged four handfuls of flattened rice, and tied them in a scrap of old cloth, and he set out.
When he reached Dwaraka he passed through the gates and the courts until he came to one of Krishna's palaces. Krishna was sitting on a couch with Rukmini. He saw his old friend at the door, and jumped up and ran to him and threw his arms round him. He sat him on his own couch, washed his feet and sprinkled the water on his own head. He rubbed sandal paste on Sudama's body, waved lamps before him and fed him, while Rukmini fanned him with a whisk. The people of the palace stared at this ragged, dusty Brahmin being treated like a king.
The two friends held hands and talked of their school days. "Do you remember," said Krishna, "the day our teacher's wife sent us into the forest for firewood, and the storm came, and we were lost all night in the rain, holding on to each other? And in the morning our teacher came to find us." Sudama remembered.
Then Krishna smiled. "What have you brought me from home? Even a leaf or a flower or a little water, given with love, I take as a feast."
Sudama was ashamed, and kept his head down, and did not offer the rice. But Krishna knew. He pulled the bundle out of his friend's clothes. "What is this?" he cried. "This is what I love most. These grains will satisfy me and the whole world with me." And he ate a handful.
When he reached for a second handful, Rukmini caught his hand. "That is enough," she said, "to give him every wealth there is, in this world and the next."
Sudama stayed the night in comfort and set out for home in the morning. Krishna walked a little way with him. Sudama had not asked for anything, and Krishna had not offered anything, and on the road Sudama thought, "He did not give me money, because he knew a poor man with money forgets God. That was kind of him."
When he came to his village, his hut had gone. In its place stood a shining palace in gardens full of birds, and men and women came out to greet him with music. His wife came out among them, dressed like a goddess, and he hardly knew her.
Sudama lived in that house for the rest of his life. He never grew fond of it. "My friend gives a great deal," he would say, "and makes it look like nothing, and what I gave him, he makes look like a great deal."