REFORMERS AND THEIR FATE 209
And when he had thus spoken Ambattha remained silent. And the Blessed One asked the same question again. And still Ambattha remained silent. Then the Blessed One said to him: ‘You had better answer, now, Ambattha. This is no time for you to hold your peace. For whosoever, Ambattha, does not, even up to the third time of asking, answer a reasonable question put by a Tathagata (by one who has won the truth), his head splits into pieces on the spot.’
- Now at that time the spirit who bears the thunderbolt stood over above Ambattha in the sky with a mighty mass of iron, all fiery, dazzling, and aglow, with the intention, if he did not answer, there and then to split his head in pieces. And the Blessed One perceived the spirit bearing the thunderbolt, and so did Ambattha the Brahman. And Ambattha on becoming aware of it, terrified, startled, and agitated, seeking safety and protection and help from the Blessed One, crouched down besides him in awe, and said: ‘What was it the Blessed One said ? Say it once again!’
‘What do you think, Ambattha? What have you heard, when Brahmans old and well stricken in years, teachers of yours or their teachers, were talking together, as to whence the Kanhayanas draw their origin, and who the ancestor was to whom they trace themselves back?’
‘Just so, Gotama, did I hear, even as the Venerable Gotama hath said. That is the origin of the Kanhayana. and that the ancestor to whom they trace themselves back.’
And when he had thus spoken the young Brahmans fell into tumult, and uproar, and turmoil; and said: ‘Low born, they say, is Ambattha the Brahman; his family, they say, is not of good standing; they say he is descended from a slave girl; and the Sakyas were his masters. We did not suppose that the Samana Gotama. whose words are righteousness itself, was not a man to be trusted!
And the Blessed One thought: ‘They go too far. these Brahmans in their depreciation of Ambattha as the offspring of a slave girl. Let me set him free from their reproach. ‘And he said to them:’ Be not too severe in disparaging Ambattha the Brahman on the ground of his descent. That Kanha became a mighty seer. He went into the Dekkan, there he learnt mystic verses, and returning to Okkaka the king, he demanded his daughter Madda-rupi in marriage. To him the king in answer said: “Who forsooth is this fellow, who son of my slave girl as he is—asks for my daughter in marriage:” and. angry and displeased, he fitted an arrow to his bow. But neither could he let the arrow fly. nor could he take it off the string again.