“Because as she walked she plucked the flowers which grew on the left side only.” [[98]]
“How did you know that she was with child?”
“Because the heels of her feet had made the deepest impression. All this is so, but if the teacher does not believe me, let him send one of the Brahmans’ sons to the inn.”
Ātreya sent some of them there, and all turned out to be just as Jīvaka had said. Then Ātreya said to the Brahmans’ sons, “O Brahmans’ sons, have ye comprehended? After such a fashion is Jīvaka’s intelligence remarkable.”
Jīvaka had learnt the whole art of healing, with the exception of the operation of skull-opening. Now a man who was afflicted by a cerebral malady came to Ātreya and asked him to treat him. Ātreya replied that the man must dig a pit that day and provide it with dung, and that next day he would take the case in hand. When Jīvaka heard this, he went to him and said, “O friend, all that I have learnt have I learnt for the benefit of mankind. As I have not yet learnt the operation of skull-opening, hide me away so that I may see how you perform it.” Ātreya promised to do so, and showed him a place to hide in.
When Ātreya came, he placed the man in the pit, opened his skull, and was about to seize the reptile with his pincers, when Jīvaka cried out, “O teacher, be not hasty in seizing it; otherwise this son of a good family might die to-day.”
“Are you there, Jīvaka?” asked Ātreya.
“Yes, teacher,” he replied.
“How then ought I to seize the reptile?”
“O teacher, warm the pincers and touch its back therewith. Then, if the reptile draws its arms and feet together, give it a toss out.”