An Indian monkey might have been the reincarnation of Robin Hood, snatching cash from a woman who was visiting a temple and handing it out to the poor.
The monkey swooped down on the 50-year-old, who was travelling with her family, and grabbed her bag at the Banke Bihari temple in the northern town of Vrindavan in Utter Pradesh on Saturday, The Times of India reported.
The monkey climbed up on a ledge, opened the bag, and moments later started flinging 500-rupee notes, worth more than 10 dollars each, into the air.
Some 150,000 rupees ($A3,196) were scattered by the monkey, the report said.
Many people including worshippers and street children begging outside the temple rushed to collect what they could.
The woman, who was on a religious tour with her husband and daughters, retrieved only a small amount of the cash, the Hindustan Times reported.
She did not lodge a police complaint as she thought there was little chance of recovering the money, considered a large amount to be carrying as cash in India.
Monkeys are a menace in many Hindu temple towns, snatching foodstuffs and other items, but are generally treated kindly as descendants of the monkey god Hanuman.
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