REFORMERS AND THEIR FATE 205
he makes his knowldge known to others. The truth, lovely in its origin, lovely in its progress, lovely in its consummation, doth he proclaim, both in the spirit and in the letter, the higher life doth he make known, in all its fullness and in all its purity.
‘And good is it to pay visits to Arahats like that.’
Now at the time a young Brahman, an Ambattha, was a pupil under Pokkharasadi the Brahman. And he was a repeater (of the sacred words) knowing the mystic verses by heart, one who had mastered the Three Vedas, with the indices, the ritual, the phonology, and the exegesis (as a fourth), and the legends as a fifth learned in the idioms and the grammar, versed in Lokayata sophistry and in the theory of the signs on the body of a great man—so recognised an authority in the system of the threefold Vedic knowledge as expounded by his master, that he could say of him: ‘What I know that you know, and what you know that I know.’
And Pokkharasadi told Ambattha the news, and said : ‘Come now, dear Ambattha, go to the Samana Gotama, and find out whether the reputation so noised abroad regarding him is in accord with the facts or not, whether the Samana Gotama is such as they say or not’.
‘But how, Sir, shall I know whether that is so or not ?’
‘There have been handed down, Ambattha, in our mystic verses thirtytwo bodily signs of a great man,—signs which, if a man has, he will become one of two things, and no other. If he dwells at home he will become a sovereign of the world, a righteous king, bearing rule even to the shores of the four great oceans, a conqueror, the protector of his people, possessor of the seven royal treasures. And these are the seven treasures that he has the Wheel, the Elephant, the Horse, the Gem, the Woman, the Treasurer, and the Adviser as a seventh. And he has more than a thousand sons, heroes, mighty in frame, beating down the armies of the foe. And he dwells in complete ascendancy over the wide earth from sea to sea, ruling it in righteousness without the need of baton or of sword. But if he go forth from the household life into the houseless state, then he will become a Buddha who removes the veil from the eyes of the world. Now I, Ambattha, am a giver of the mystic verses; you have received them from me.’
- ‘Very good Sir, said Ambattha in reply; and rising from his seat and paying reverence to Pokkharasadi, he mounted a chariot drawn by mares, and proceeded, with a retinue of young Brahmans, to the Ikkhanankala Wood. And when he had gone on in the chariot as far as the road was practicable for vehicles, he got down, and went on, into the park, on foot.