"Khattiya, Brahmin, Vessa, Sudda, and Candala, Pukkusa ,
All these can be compassionate, can win Nirvana's bliss:
Who among all the saints is there who worse or better is?"

Then the brahmin recited a stanza, to show that there is no higher or lower from the moment sainthood is won:

"Khattiya, Brahmin, Vessa, Sudda, and Candala, Pukkusa,
All these can be compassionate, can win Nirvana's bliss:
None among all the saints is found who worse or better is."

But Uddalaka found fault with this, reciting a couple of stanzas:

"Khattiya, Brahmin, Vessa, Sudda, and Candala, Pukkusa,
All these can virtuous be, and all attain Nirvana's bliss:
None among all the saints is found who worse or better is.
You are a brahmin, then, for nought: vain is your rank, I wis."

[304] Here the chaplain recited two stanzas more, with a similitude:

"With canvas dyed in many a tint pavilions may be made:
The roof, a many-coloured dome: one colour is the shade.

"Even so, when men are purified, so is it here on earth:
The good perceive that they are saints, and never ask their birth."

Now Uddalaka could not say nay to this, and so he sat silent. Then the brahmin said to the king, "All these are knaves, O king, all India will come to ruin through knavery. Persuade Uddalaka to renounce his asceticism, and to be chaplain under me; let the rest leave their asceticism, give them shield and spear and make them your men." The king consented, and did so, and they all entered the service of the king.

When the Master had ended this discourse, he said, "This is not the first time, Brethren, that the man was a knave." Then he identified the Birth: "At that time the dishonest Brother was Uddalaka, Ananda was the king, and I was the chaplain."

Footnotes

^188:1 Translated and discussed in Fick, Sociale Gliederung zu Buddhas Zeit, p. 13 foll. Compare No. 377 (iii. 153 of this translation).

^188:2 Cassia Fistula.

^189:1 See Journ. P. T. S. 1884, p. 95. Fick translates "sollen sich wie Fledermause benehmen," and compares the "hen-saint" and "cow saint," Oldenberg's Buddha, p. 68.

^189:2 As though they had remained so for years, after the manner of some modern fakeers.

^189:3 One to each point of the compass, and the sun above.

^189:4 The first four stanzas are repeated from iii. 236-7, in this translation iii. 155.

^191:1 Compare above, p. 127, and note the order of the first two. Cf. iii. 194.