Some few days later the Master came to the palace, and took a seat. The king approached him, and with a greeting said, "Sir, I am told that your clansmen gave me a slave's daughter to wife. I have cut off their allowances, mother and son, and grant them only what slaves would get." Said the Master, "The Sakyas have done wrong, O great king! [148] If they gave any one, they ought to have given a girl of their own blood. But, O king, this I say: Vasabhakhattiya is a king's daughter, and in the house of a noble king she has received the ceremonial sprinkling; Vidudabha too was begotten by a noble king. Wise men of old have said, what matters the mother's birth? The birth of the father is the measure: and to a poor wife, a picker of sticks, they gave the position of queen consort; and the son born of her obtained the sovereignty of Benares, twelve leagues in extent, and became King Kattha-vahana, the Wood-carrier:" whereupon he told him the story of the Katthahari Birth .

When the king heard this speech he was pleased; and saying to himself, "The father's birth is the measure of the man," he again gave mother and son the treatment suited to them.

Now the king's commander-in-chief was a man named Bandhula. His wife, Mallika, was barren, and he sent her away to Kusinara, telling her to return to her own family. "I will go," said she, "when I have saluted the Master." She went to Jetavana, and greeting the Tathagata stood waiting on one side. "Where are you going?" he asked. She replied, "My husband has sent me home, Sir." "Why?" asked the Master. "I am barren, Sir, I have no son." "If that is all," said he, "there is no reason why you should go. Return." She was much pleased, and saluting the Master went home again. Her husband

asked her why she had come back. She answered, "The Dasabala sent me back, my lord." "Then," said the commander-in-chief, "the Tathagata must have seen good reason." The woman soon after conceived, and when her cravings began, told him of it. "What is it you want?" he asked. "My lord," said she, "I desire to go and, bathe and drink the water of the tank in Vesali City where the families of the kings get water for the ceremonial sprinkling." The commander-in-chief promised to try. Seizing his bow, strong as a thousand bows, he put his wife in a chariot, and left Savatthi, and drove his chariot to Vesali.