Conversion of the Low and the Lowly.

z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 03.indd MK SJ+YS 5 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 185

CONVERSION OF THE LOW AND THE LOWLY

185

While going back Upali, the barber thought: “The Sakyans are a fierce people. If I go back with these ornaments they will kill me thinking that I have killed my companions and run away with their ornaments. Why should I not go the way these young men of the Sakya clan have gone ?”
“Why indeed should I not?” asked Upali to himself. And he let down the bundle of ornaments from his back, and hung it on a tree, saying: “Let him who finds it take it as a gift,” and returned to follow the Sakya youths.
And the Sakyans saw him coming from afar, and on seeing, they said to him: “What have you come back for, good Upali ?”
Then he told them what he felt and they replied: “Thou hast done well, good Upali, in that thou didst not return; for the Sakyans are fierce, and they might have killed thee.”
And they took Upali the barber with them to the place where the Blessed One was. And on arriving there, they bowed down before the Blessed One and took their seats on one side. And so seated they said to the Blessed One :
“We Sakyans, Lord, are haughty. And this Upali, the barber, has long been an attendant, Lord, upon us. May the Blessed One admit him to the Order before us, so that we may render him respect and reverence, and bow down with outstretched hands before him as our senior and thus shall the Sakyan pride be humbled in us !”
Then the Blessed One received first Upali, the barber, and afterwards those young men of the Sakya clan, into the ranks of the Order.

There lived in Rajagraha a scavenger by name Sunita. He earned his living as a road sweeper, sweeping away the rubbish thrown by the householders

Conversion of the Low and the Lowly. - Page 204