The Boy Who Told the Truth

The sages told the Pandavas of Satyakama, the son of Jabala - a boy of unknown father who won a teacher's heart by his truthfulness, and was taught the knowledge of the divine by the very creatures of the world. It is a tale of how truth itself is the surest passport to wisdom.

There was a boy named Satyakama, the son of a woman named Jabala who served in many houses in her youth. When the boy grew old enough, he wished to go and live with a teacher and study the sacred lore, as was the custom. So he came to his mother and said, 'Mother, I wish to go and become a student of the holy knowledge. Of what family and lineage am I? For a teacher will ask me my gotra, my father's line, before he accepts me as a pupil.' For it was the rule that a student must declare his lineage, and only the twice-born of known family were taken as pupils.

Jabala answered her son with complete honesty, hiding nothing, though the truth was not one a mother might be proud to tell. 'My son,' she said, 'I do not know of what family you are. In my youth I served in many houses as a maid, and I was much occupied with my work, and so it is that I do not know your father or the line from which you come. I am Jabala by name, and you are Satyakama. So you may say of yourself only this: that you are Satyakama Jabala - Satyakama, the son of Jabala. That is the truth, and it is all I can tell you.'

She gave him no comforting fiction, no invented lineage to smooth his way; she told him the plain and humble truth of his birth, that she did not know his father, and bade him speak of himself only as the son of Jabala. And the boy took her words to heart, resolved to speak nothing but the truth, whatever it might cost him.

Satyakama went to the sage Haridrumata Gautama and said, 'Revered sir, I wish to live with you as your student. I come to you as a seeker of the holy knowledge.' The teacher asked him, as was the custom, 'Of what lineage are you, my dear? Tell me your family and your father's line.'

And Satyakama answered without hesitation and without shame, telling the plain truth his mother had given him: 'Sir, I do not know of what family I am. I asked my mother, and she told me that in her youth she served in many houses and was much occupied, and so she does not know my father's line; she said I should call myself Satyakama, the son of Jabala. So that, sir, is what I am: I am Satyakama Jabala.' The teacher, hearing this, was deeply moved - not put off by the boy's uncertain birth, but struck by his fearless honesty. 'No one but a true brahmana,' he said, 'a child of truth, could speak so plainly and refuse to swerve from the truth even when it shamed him. Your truthfulness shows your noble nature. Go and fetch the firewood, my dear; I will accept you as my student.' And so the boy's truth, not his birth, won him a place at the teacher's side.

The teacher, having accepted Satyakama, then set him a strange and humble task before any formal teaching began. He gave the boy four hundred lean and weak cows and said, 'Take these, my dear, and tend them.' Satyakama, driving the cattle away to the forest, made a vow to himself: 'I will not return until these four hundred have become a thousand.' And so he went off alone into the wilderness with the herd, and lived there for many years, tending the cattle faithfully, asking for no other instruction, content to do the humble work he had been given.

The teacher had given him no lessons, no recitations, no doctrines - only a herd of weak cattle and a charge to tend them. It was a test of patience and of faithful service, and a strange path to wisdom; for the boy who had come seeking the highest knowledge was set to the lowliest of tasks, alone in the forest with the cows, and left to learn what he might. And learn he did - though not from any human teacher.

Years passed, and the herd grew, until the cattle numbered a thousand. And then, in the solitude of the forest, the very creatures and elements of the world began to teach Satyakama the holy knowledge that no human teacher had yet given him. One evening the bull of the herd spoke to him: 'Satyakama!' 'Yes, revered one,' said the boy. 'We have become a thousand; lead us now to the teacher's house. And I will teach you one quarter of the supreme reality, of Brahman.'

'Teach me, revered one,' said Satyakama. And the bull said, 'The eastern quarter is one part, the western quarter is one part, the southern quarter is one part, the northern quarter is one part. These four together are one foot of Brahman, the Radiant. He who knows and meditates on this fourfold foot as the Radiant becomes radiant in this world. The fire will teach you the next.' So the bull taught the boy the first quarter of the divine, that Brahman is the all-pervading expanse of the four directions; and a humble herdsman in the forest received from a bull the first lesson of the highest wisdom.

As Satyakama led the herd homeward, the teaching continued, given by the creatures and elements of the world one after another. That night he tended the fire, and the fire spoke and taught him the second quarter of Brahman: 'The earth, the sky, the heaven, and the ocean are one foot of Brahman, the Endless; he who knows this as the Endless becomes endless in this world. A swan will teach you the next.'

The next day, as he journeyed on, a swan flew down and taught him the third quarter: 'Fire, the sun, the moon, and the lightning are one foot of Brahman, the Luminous; he who knows this as the Luminous becomes luminous in this world. A diver-bird will teach you the next.' And on the following day a water-bird, a diver, flew down and taught him the fourth quarter: 'The breath, the eye, the ear, and the mind are one foot of Brahman, the Abode; he who knows this as the Abode becomes possessed of an abode in this world.' So the four quarters of the divine were taught to Satyakama not by any sage but by a bull, a fire, a swan, and a water-bird - by the very world itself, which became his teacher because his heart was pure and true.

At last Satyakama came back to the house of his teacher, leading the thousand cattle. And when he came before the sage Gautama, the teacher looked at him and saw that his face was shining with the radiance of one who has known the truth. 'Satyakama!' he said. 'Yes, revered sir,' answered the boy. 'My dear, your face shines like one who knows the supreme reality. Who has taught you?'

Satyakama answered truthfully that it was not human beings who had taught him, but others - the bull, the fire, the swan, and the diver-bird, who in the solitude of the forest had revealed to him the four quarters of Brahman. 'Yet,' he said, 'I wish that you, my teacher, would teach it to me also; for I have heard from those worthy of honor that knowledge learned from one's own teacher leads best to the goal.' And the teacher, pleased with his humility no less than with his truthfulness, then taught him the same knowledge himself, leaving out nothing; and Satyakama was made whole and perfect in the wisdom of Brahman. The boy of no known family had become a knower of the highest truth.

The sages drew the lessons of the tale for the Pandavas.

'See, first, the power of truth. Satyakama did not know his father, and his birth was humble and uncertain; by the rules of the world he might have been turned away from the teacher's door. But he spoke the plain truth about himself, without shame and without invention, even when the truth was hard to tell; and it was precisely his truthfulness that won him his teacher, for the sage saw that only a child of truth could speak so. Truth, the tale teaches, is the noblest lineage of all; the one who will not swerve from it, whatever it costs, shows a nobility deeper than any birth, and worthier of the highest knowledge.

'And see how the pure and faithful heart finds wisdom everywhere. Satyakama was set to the humble task of tending cattle, alone in the forest, with no human teacher; and yet because his heart was true, the very creatures and elements of the world became his teachers, and the bull and the fire and the birds taught him the knowledge of the divine. To the pure and patient soul, all the world is a teacher; faithful service in a humble task is no obstacle to wisdom but a path to it. Be true, then, and be faithful in small things, and the truth will find you.'

And the Pandavas took to heart the tale of the boy whose honesty outweighed his birth and won him the highest knowledge.