One of their number, wise in sacred lore, Profoundly learned, in all the Vedas versed, With courtly grace saluting Buddha, said: "Our Brahman masters teach that many ways Lead up to Brahma Loca, Brahma's rest, As many roads from many distant lands All meet before Benares' sacred shrines. They say that he who learns the Vedas' hymns, Performs the rites and prays the many prayers That all the sages of the past have taught, In Brahma's self shall be absorbed at last-- As all the streams from mountain, hill and plain, That swell proud Gunga's broad and sacred stream, At last shall mingle with the ocean's waves, They say that Brahmans are a holy caste, Of whiter skin and higher, purer blood, From Brahma sprung, and Brahma's only heirs, While you proclaim, if rumor speaks the truth, That only one hard road to Brahma leads, That every caste is pure, of common blood, That all are brothers, all from Brahma sprung." But Buddha, full of gentleness, replied: "Ye call on Dyaus Pittar, Brahma, God,[8] One God and Father, called by many names, One God and Father, seen in many forms, Seen in the tempest, mingling sea and sky, The blinding sand-storm, changing day to night, In gentle showers refreshing thirsty fields, Seen in the sun whose rising wakes the world, Whose setting calls a weary world to rest, Seen in the deep o'erarching azure vault, By day a sea of light, shining by night With countless suns of countless worlds unseen, Making us seem so little, God so great. Ye say that Brahma dwells in purest light; Ye say that Brahma's self is perfect love; Ye pray to Brahma under many names To give you Brahma Loca's perfect rest.[9] Your prayers are vain unless your hearts are clean. For how can darkness dwell with perfect light? And how can hatred dwell with perfect love? The slandering tongue, that stirs up strife and hate, The grasping hand, that takes but never gives, The lying lips, the cold and cruel heart, Whence bitterness and wars and murders spring, Can ne'er by prayers to Brahma Loca climb.[10] The pure in heart alone with Brahma dwell. Ye say that Brahmans are a holy caste, From Brahma sprung and Brahma's only heirs; But yet in Bactria, whence our fathers came, And where their brothers and our kindred dwell, No Brahman ever wore the sacred cord. Has mighty Brahma there no son, no heir? The Brahman mother suffers all the pangs Kshatriyas, Sudras or the Vassas feel. The Brahman's body, when the soul has fled, A putrid mass, defiles the earth and air, Vile as the Sudras or the lowest beasts. The Brahman murderer, libertine or thief Ye say will be reborn in lowest beast, While some poor Sudra, full of gentleness And pity, charity and trust and love, May rise to Brahma Loca's perfect rest, Why boast of caste, that seems so little worth To raise the soul or ward off human ill? Why pray for what we do not strive to gain?