rest of them get presents from their mothers' family, but no one sends me anything. Are you an orphan?" Then she replied, "My boy, your grandsires are the Sakya kings, but they live a long way off, and that is why they send you nothing." Again when he was sixteen, he said, "Mother, I want to see your father's family." "Don't speak of it, child," she said. "What will you do when you get there?" But though she put him off, he asked her again and again. At last his mother said, [147] "Well, go then." So the lad got his father's consent, and set out with a number of followers. Vasabhakhattiya sent on a letter before him to this effect: "I am living here happily; let not my masters tell him anything of the secret." But the Sakyas, on hearing of the coming of Vidudabha, sent off all their young children into the country. "It is impossible," said they, "to receive him with respect."

When the Prince arrived at Kapilavatthu, the Sakyas had assembled in the royal rest-house. The Prince approached the rest-house, and waited. Then they said to him, "This is your mother's father, this is her brother," pointing them out. He walked from one to the other, saluting them. But although he bowed to them till his back ached, not one of them vouchsafed a greeting; so he asked, "Why is it that none of you greet me?" The Sakyas replied, "My dear, the youngest princes are all in the country;" then they entertained him grandly.

After a few days' stay, he set out for home with all his retinue. Just then a slave woman washed the seat which he had used in the rest-house with milk-water, saying insultingly, "Here's the seat where sat the son of Vasabhakhattiya, the slave girl!" A man who had left his spear behind was just fetching it, when he overheard the abuse of Prince Vidudabha. He asked what it meant. He was told that Vasabhakhattiya was born of a slave to Mahanama the Sakya. This he told to the soldiers: a great uproar arose, all shouting--"Vasabhakhattiya is a slave woman's daughter, so they say!" The Prince heard it. "Yes," thought he, "let them pour milk-water over the seat I sat in, to wash it! When I am king, I will wash the place with their hearts' blood!"

When he returned to Savatthi, the courtiers told the whole matter to the king. The king was enraged against the Sakyas for giving him a slave's daughter to wife. He cut off all allowances made to Vasabhakhattiya and her son, and gave them only what is proper to be given to slave men and women.