Vol. 11 · pages 171–175

152 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES II 26. The king listened with reverence and remembered all the words of the Blessed One in his heart and promised to become his lay disciple. § 7. Conversion of Jeevaka 1. Jeevaka was the son of Salvati, a courtesan of Rajagraha. 2. Immediately after birth the child, being illegitimate, was placed in a basket and thrown on a dust-heap. 3. A large number of people were standing by the dust-heap watching the child. Abhaya, the Rajakumara, happened to pass by the site. He questioned the people who said : “It is alive.” 4. For this reason the child was called Jeevaka. Abhaya adopted him and brought him up. 5. When Jeevaka grew in age he learned how he was saved and was charged with the intense desire to qualify himself to save others. 6. He therefore went to the University of Takashila without the knowledge and permission of Abhaya and studied medicine for seven years. 7. Returning to Rajagraha he set up his practice as a doctor and within a very short time acquired a great name and fame in the profession. 8. His first patient was the wife of a sethi of Saketa and for curing her he received sixteen thousand kahapanas, a man-servant, a maid-servant and a coach with a horse. 9. Knowing his eminence, Abhaya gave him residence in his own establishment. 10. At Rajagraha he cured Bimbisara of a troublesome fistula and is said to have received as reward all the ornaments of Bimbisara’s five hundred wives. 11. Other noteworthy cures of Jeevaka included that of the sethi of Rajagraha on whom he performed the operation of trepanning and of the son of the sethi of Benares who was suffering from chronic intestinal trouble due to misplacement.

153 CONVERSION OF THE HIGH AND THE HOLY II 12. Jeevaka was appointed physician to the king and the king’s women. 13. But Jeevaka was greatly attached to the Blessed Lord. Consequently he also acted as a physician to him and the Sangh. 14. He became a disciple of the Lord. The Blessed Lord did not make him a Bhikku as he wanted him to remain free to tend to the sick and the wounded. 15. When Bimbisara died Jeevaka continued to serve his son Ajatsatru and was mainly instrumental in bringing him to the Lord after his crime of parricide. § 8. The Conversion of Ratthapala 1. Once when the Lord was on an alms pilgrimage in the Kuru country with a great company of almsmen, he stayed at Thullakotthita, which was a township of the Kurus. 2. They came to know of it and went to him to pay their respects. 3. When they were seated, the Lord instructed them with a discourse on the Doctrine. Having received their instruction from the Lord, the Brahmin heads of houses of Thullakotthita gratefully thanked him, rose up and departed with deep obeisance. 4. Seated among them was a young man named Ratthapala, a scion of a leading family of the place, to whom this thought came : “So far as I understand, the Doctrine which the Lord has preached is no easy matter for one who lives in a home to lead the higher life in all its fullness, purity, and perfection. 5. “What if I were to cut off hair and beard, don the yellow robes and go forth from home to homelessness as a pilgrim !” 6. When the Brahmins had not been gone long, then Ratthapala came up and, after salutations, told the Lord the thought which had come to him, and asked to be admitted to, and confirmed in, the confraternity under him. 7. “Have you your parents’ consent to this step, Ratthapala ? ’ asked the Lord.

154 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES II 8. “No, Sir.” 9. “I do not admit those who have not their parents’ consent.” 10. “That consent, Sir, I will take steps to obtain,” said the young man, who rising up and taking a reverential leave of the Lord, went off to his parents, told them his thoughts and asked their consent to his becoming a Bhikku. 11. The parents made answer as follows : “Dear Ratthapala, you are our only son, very dear to us and beloved ; you live in comfort and have been brought up in comfort, with no experience at all of discomfort. Go away ; eat, drink, enjoy yourself, and do good works in all happiness. We refuse our consent. 12. “Your death would leave us desolate, with no pleasure left in life ; why, while we have you still, should we consent to your going forth from home to homelessness as a Bhikku”. 13. A second and yet a third time did Ratthapala repeat his request, only to be met by the same refusal from his parents. 14. Failing thus to get his parents’ consent, the young man flung himself down on the bare ground, declaring that he would either die there or become a Bhikku. 15. His parents entreated him to get up while repeating their objections to his becoming a Bhikku, but the young man said not a word. A second and a third time they entreated him but still he said not a word. 16. So the parents sought out Ratthapala’s companions to whom they told all this and besought them to urge, as from themselves, what his parents had said to him. 17. Thrice his companions appealed to him, but still he said not a word. So his companions came to the parents with this report : “There on the bare ground he lies, declaring that he will either die there or become a Bhikku. If you refuse your consent, he will never get up alive. But, if you give your consent, you will see him when he has become a Bhikku. Should

155 CONVERSION OF THE HIGH AND THE HOLY II he not like being a Bhikku, what alternative will he have ! Why, only to come back here. Do give your consent!” they urged. 18. “Yes, we consent ; but when he is a Bhikku, he must come and see us.” 19. Off now went his companions to Ratthapala, and they told him that his parents had given their consent, but that when he was a Bhikku he was to come and see them. 20. Thereupon the young man arose and, when he had regained his strength, betook himself to the Lord, and after salutations seated himself on one side, saying: “I have got my parents’ consent to my becoming a Bhikku ; I ask the Lord to admit me.” 21. Admission and confirmation were granted him under the Lord; and a fortnight afterwards the Lord, having stayed at Thullakotthita as long as he wanted, proceeded on his alms pilgrimage towards Sravasti, where he took up his abode in Jeta’s grove in Anathapindika’s pleasance. 22. Dwelling alone and aloof, strenuous, ardent and purged of self, the reverend Ratthapala was not long before he won the prize in quest of which young men go forth from home to homelessness as Bhikkus, that prize of prizes which crowns the highest life. 23. Then, he went to the Lord and, seated on one side after salutations, said that with the Lord’s permission, he wished to go and see his parents. 24. Scanning with his own heart the thoughts of Ratthapala’s heart, and recognizing thereby that he was incapable of abandoning his training and reverting to the lower life of a layman, the Lord bade him go when he would. 25. Hereupon, rising up and taking his leave of the Lord with deep reverence, Ratthapala, after duly putting away his bedding, set out, with his robe and bowl, on an alms pilgrimage to Thullakotthita where he took up his abode in the deer-park of the Kuru king. 26. Early next morning, duly robed and bowl in hand, he went into the town for alms, and there as he

156 DR. BABASAHEB AMBEDKAR : WRITINGS AND SPEECHES II passed from house to house on his undiscriminating round, he came to his father’s house. 27. Indoors, in the hall within the middle door, his father was having his hair combed and, seeing Ratthapala coming in the distance, he said : “It was these shavelings of recluses who made Bhikku of my only dear and beloved son.” 28. So at his own father’s house Ratthapala was given nothing, not even a refusal; all he got was abuse. 29. At this moment a slave-girl of the family was about to throw away the previous day’s stale rice; and to her Ratthapala said: “If, sister, that is to be thrown away, put it in my bowl here.” 30. As the girl was doing so, she recognized his hands and feet and voice, and going straight to her mistress, cried out: “Do you know, madam, the young master is back.” 31. “If what you say is true, you are a slave no longer,” said the mother, who hurried off to tell her husband that she heard their son was back. 32. Ratthapala was eating that stale rice under the hedge when his father arrived, exclaiming; “Can it be, my dear son, that you are eating stale rice? Should you not have come to your own house ?” 33. Said Ratthapala, “What house of our own, householder, can we have who are homeless, having gone forth from home to homelessness ? I did come to your house, where I was given nothing not even a refusal ; all I got was abuse.” 34. ‘Come, my son; let us go indoors.’ ‘Not so, householder; I have finished my eating for today.’ said Ratthapala. 35. ‘Well then, my son promise to take your meal here tomorrow.’ 36. By his silence the reverend Ratthapala gave consent. 37. Then the father went indoors,—where first he ordered great heaps of gold and bullion to be piled up under a covering of mats and then he told his daughters-in-law, who had been the reverend