z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 07.indd MK SJ+YS 5 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 526
526 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
- “Now I hold a different view. If a man knows the Doctrine he will find the destruction of all ills.”
VI
Said the prince to the Lord: “What a doctrine! What an exposition of doctrine ! It is so easy to understand.”
Here the young Brahmin Sankika-putta observed to the prince that, though he had testified thus, yet he had not gone on to say that he sought as a refuge the Lord and his doctrine and his confraternity as he should have.
“Say not so, my friend; say not so” said the Prince: “for, I have heard from the lips of my lady mother, how, when once the Lord was staying at Kosambi in the Ghosita pleasance, she, being then pregnant, came to the Lord, saluted him and took a seat to one side, saying: ‘Be it a boy or be it a girl that I carry in my womb, my child unborn seeks refuge with the Lord and his doctrine and his confraternity; and I ask the Lord to accept the child as a follower who has found an abiding refuge from this time forth while life lasts.’
“Another time, when the Lord was staying here in this Bhagga country at Sumsumara-gira, in the Bhesakala grove, in the deer park there, my nurse carried me to the Lord, and standing before him, said: ‘Here is Prince Bodhi who seeks refuge with the Lord and his doctrine and his confraternity.’
Now, in person, for the third time I seek such refuge and ask the Lord to accept me as a follower who has found an abiding refuge while life lasts.”
§ 5. Keniya’s Welcome
There was living at Apanath a Brahmin, Sela, who was versed in all three Vedas, was accomplished in ritual with the glosses thereon, in phonology, and in etymology, with chronicles as a fifth branch; he knew exegesis, and was learned in casuistry and in the signs that mark a superman; he had three hundred young brahmins to whom he taught the runes.
Keniya the fire-worshipper was an adherent