to have as a son-in-law
the young Issa, who was already celebrated for the edifying discourses
he made in the name of the All-Powerful.

12. Then Issa secretly absented himself from his father's house; left
Jerusalem, and, in a train of merchants, journeyed toward the Sindh,

13. With the object of perfecting himself in the knowledge of the word
of God and the study of the laws of the great Buddhas.

V.

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 Djaine asked him to stay among
them.

3. But he left the deluded worshippers of Djaine 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 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 Kshatnyas 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;[1]

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