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46 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES
at the foot of the Pandava hill and put up a small hut made of the leaves of trees for his sojourn.
I
Kapilavatsu by foot is nearly 400 miles distant from Rajagraha.
This long journey Siddharth Gautama did all on foot.
§ 2. King Bimbisara and his Advice
Next day he got up and started to go into the city with a begging bowl asking for alms. A vast crowd gathered round him.
Then Sreniya Bimbisara, the lord of the kingdom of the Magadhas, beheld from the outside of his palace the immense concourse of people, and asked the reason of it; and thus did a courtier recount it to him :
“He who was thus foretold by the Brahmins, ‘He will either attain supreme wisdom or be the emperor of the earth’—it is he, the son of the king of the Sakyas, who is now an ascetic. It is he at whom the people are gazing at.”
The king, having heard this and perceiving its meaning in his mind, thus at once spoke to that courtier : “Let it be known whither he is going” ; and the courtier, receiving the command, followed the prince.
With fixed eyes, seeing only a yoke’s length before him, with his voice hushed, and his walk slow and measured, he, the noblest of mendicants, went begging for alms, keeping his limbs and his wandering thoughts under control.
Having received such alms as were offered, he retired to a lonely corner of the mountain ; and having eaten it there, he ascended the Pandava hill.
In that wood, thickly filled with lodhra trees, having its thickness resonant with the notes of the peacocks, he, the sun of mankind, shone, wearing his red dress, like the morning sun above the eastern mountains.
That royal courtier having thus watched him there, related it all to the king : and the king when he