1. In his fourteenth year, young Issa, the Blessed One, came this side of the Sindh and settled among the Aryas, in the country beloved by God.
2. Fame spread the name of the marvellous youth along the northern Sindh, and when he came through the country of the five streams and Radjipoutan, the devotees of the god Djaïne asked him to stay among them.
3. But he left the deluded worshippers of Djaïne and went to Djagguernat, in the country of Orsis, where repose the mortal remains of Vyassa-Krishna, and where the white priests of Brahma welcomed him joyfully.
4. They taught him to read and to understand the Vedas, to cure physical ills by means of prayers, to teach and to expound the sacred Scriptures, to drive out evil desires from man and make him again in the likeness of God.
5. He spent six years in Djagguernat, in
[paragraph continues] Radjagriha, in Benares, and in other holy cities. The common people loved Issa, for he lived in peace with the Vaisyas and the Sudras, to whom he taught the Holy Scriptures.
6. But the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas told him that they were forbidden by the great Para-Brahma to come near to those who were created from his belly and his feet; *
7. That the Vaisyas might only hear the recital of the Vedas, and this only on the festal days, and
8. That the Sudras were not only forbidden to attend the reading of the Vedas, but even to look on them; for they were condemned to perpetual servitude, as slaves of the Brahmins, the Kshatriyas and even the Vaisyas.
9. "Death alone can enfranchise them from their servitude," has said Para-Brahma. "Leave them, therefore, and come to adore with us the gods, whom you will make angry if you disobey them."
10. But Issa, disregarding their words, remained with the Sudras, preaching against the. Brahmins and the Kshatriyas.
11. He declaimed strongly against man's arrogating to himself the authority to deprive his fellow-beings of their human and spiritual rights. "Verily," he said, "God has made no difference between his children, who are all alike dear to Him."
12. Issa denied the divine inspiration of the Vedas and the Puranas, for, as he taught his followers,--"One law has been given to man to guide him in his actions:
13. "Fear the Lord, thy God; bend thy
knees only before Him and bring to Him only the offerings which come from thy earnings."
14. Issa denied the Trimurti and the incarnation of Para-Brahma in Vishnu, Siva, and other gods; "for," said he:
15. "The eternal Judge, the eternal Spirit, constitutes the only and indivisible soul of the universe, and it is this soul alone which creates, contains and vivifies all.
16. "He alone has willed and created. He alone has existed from eternity, and IIis existence will be without end; there is no one like unto Him either in the heavens or on the earth.
17. "The great Creator has divided His power with no other being; far less with inanimate objects, as you have been taught to
believe, for He alone is omnipotent and all-sufficient.
18. "He willed, and the world was. By one divine thought, He reunited the waters and separated them from the dry land of the globe. He is the cause of the mysterious life of man, into whom He has breathed part of His divine Being.
19. "And He has put under subjection to man, the lands, the waters, the beasts and everything which He created, and which He himself preserves in immutable order, allotting to each its proper duration.
20. "The anger of God will soon break forth upon man; for he has forgotten his Creator; he has filled His temples with abominations; and he adores a multitude of creatures which God has subordinated to him;
21. "And to gain favor with images of
stone and metal, he sacrifices human beings in whom dwells part of the Spirit of the Most High;
22. "And he humiliates those who work in the sweat of their brows, to gain favor in the eyes of the idler who sitteth at a sumptuous table.
23. "Those who deprive their brothers of divine happiness will themselves be deprived of it; and the Brahmins and the Kshatriyas shall become the Sudras of the Sudras, with whom the Eternal will stay forever.
24. "In the day of judgment the Sudras and the Vaisyas will be forgiven for that they knew not the light, while God will let loose his wrath upon those who arrogated his authority."
25. The Vaisyas and the Sudras were filled with great admiration, and asked Issa how
they should pray, in order not to lose their hold upon eternal life.
26. "Pray not to idols, for they cannot hear you; hearken not to the Vedas where the truth is altered; be humble and humiliate not your fellow-man.
27. "Help the poor, support the weak, do evil to none; covet not that which ye have not and which belongs to others."
168:* The Vaisyas and Sudras castes.