The early rays of the sun glistened on the tree-tops of the forest hermitage.
The students, with their tangled hair still wet with their morning bath, sat under the ancient tree, before the master.
There came Satyakāma.
He bowed low at the feet of the sage, and stood silent.
“Tell me,” the great teacher asked him, “of what clan art thou?”
“My lord,” he answered, “I know it not. My mother said when I asked her, ‘I had served many masters in my youth, and thou hadst come to thy mother Jabālā’s arms, who had no husband.’”
There rose a murmur like the angry hum of bees disturbed in their hive; and the students muttered at the shameless insolence of that outcast.
Master Guatama rose from his seat, stretched out his arms, took the boy to his bosom, and said, “Best of all Brahmins art thou, my child. Thou hast the noblest heritage of truth.”
LXV
May be there is one house in this city where the gate opens for ever this morning at the touch of the sunrise, where the errand of the light is fulfilled.