At breakfast time the other travellers arrived at the spot. The woman, with her nurse, going apart to the shade of the banyan tree for her toilet, saw a babe of the colour of gold lying there. By-and bye she called out to the nurse that their object was gained; unwound the bandages from her loins ; and declared that the babe was her own, and that she had just brought him forth.

The attendants at once raised a tent to seclude her, and in high delight sent a letter back to Rajagaha. Her husband's parents wrote in

reply that as the babe was born, there was no longer need for her to go to her father's house; let her return. So to Rajagaha she returned at once. And they acknowledged the babe: and when the babe came to be named, named him after the place where he was born, Nigrodha-Kumara, or Master Banyan. That same day, the daughter-in-law of a merchant, on her way home to her father for the birth, brought forth a son beneath the branches of a tree; and him they named Sakha-Kumara, Master Branch. And on the same day, the wife of a tailor in the employ of this merchant bore a son amidst his bits of cloth; and him they called Pottika, or Dollie.

The great merchant sent for these two children, as having been born on Master Banyan's birthday, and brought them up with him.

They all grew up together, and by-and-bye went to Takkasila to complete their education. Both the merchants' sons had two thousand pieces to give their teacher for a fee; [39] Master Banyan provided Pottika with an education under his own wing.