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152 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
- The king listened with reverence and remembered all the words of the Blessed One in his heart and promised to become his lay disciple.
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§ 7. Conversion of Jeevaka
Jeevaka was the son of Salvati, a courtesan of Rajagraha.
Immediately after birth the child, being illegitimate, was placed in a basket and thrown on a dust-heap.
A large number of people were standing by the dust-heap watching the child. Abhaya, the Rajakumara, happened to pass by the site. He questioned the people who said : “It is alive.”
For this reason the child was called Jeevaka. Abhaya adopted him and brought him up.
When Jeevaka grew in age he learned how he was saved and was charged with the intense desire to qualify himself to save others.
He therefore went to the University of Takashila without the knowledge and permission of Abhaya and studied medicine for seven years.
Returning to Rajagraha he set up his practice as a doctor and within a very short time acquired a great name and fame in the profession.
His first patient was the wife of a sethi of Saketa and for curing her he received sixteen thousand kahapanas, a man-servant, a maid-servant and a coach with a horse.
Knowing his eminence, Abhaya gave him residence in his own establishment.
At Rajagraha he cured Bimbisara of a troublesome fistula and is said to have received as reward all the ornaments of Bimbisara’s five hundred wives.
Other noteworthy cures of Jeevaka included that of the sethi of Rajagraha on whom he performed the operation of trepanning and of the son of the sethi of Benares who was suffering from chronic intestinal trouble due to misplacement.