Some of the people paid him reverence, but the Brahman was angry and said: "O samana, it would be more fitting for thee to go to work than to beg. I plough and sow, and having ploughed and sown, I eat. If thou didst likewise, thou, too, wouldst have something to eat." 2 The Tathāgata answered him and said: "O Brahman, I, too, plough and sow, and having ploughed and sown, I eat." 3 "Dost thou profess to be a husbandman?" replied the Brahman. "Where, then, are thy bullocks? Where is the seed and the plough?" 4 The Blessed One said: "Faith is the seed I sow: good works are the rain that fertilizes it; wisdom and modesty are the plough; my mind is the guiding-rein; I lay hold of the handle of the law; earnestness is the goad I use, and exertion is my draught-ox. This ploughing is ploughed to destroy the weeds of illusion. The harvest it yields is the immortal fruit of Nirvāna, and thus all sorrow ends." 5 Then the Brahman poured rice-milk into a golden bowl and offered it to the Blessed One, saying: "Let the Teacher of mankind partake of the rice-milk, for the venerable Gotama ploughs a ploughing that bears the fruit of immortality." 6 LXXV. THE OUTCAST. When Bhagavat dwelt at Sāvatthi in the Jetavana, he went out with his alms-bowl to beg for food and approached the house of a Brahman priest while the fire of an offering was blazing upon the altar. And the priest said: "Stay there, O shaveling; stay there, O wretched samana; thou art an outcast." 1 The Blessed One replied: "Who is an outcast? 2 "An outcast is the man who is angry and bears hatred; the man who is wicked and hypocritical, he who embraces error and is full of deceit. 3 "Whosoever is a provoker and is avaricious, has evil desires, is envious, wicked, shameless, and without fear to commit wrong, let him be known as an outcast. 4 "Not by birth does one become an outcast, not by birth does one become a Brahman; by deeds one becomes an outcast, by deeds one becomes a Brahman." 5 LXXVI. THE WOMAN AT THE WELL. Ānanda, the favorite disciple of the Buddha, having been sent by the Lord on a mission, passed by a well near a village, and seeing Pakati, a girl of the Mātanga caste, he asked her for water to drink. 1 Pakati said: "O Brahman, I am too humble and mean to give thee water to drink, do not ask any service of me lest thy holiness be contaminated, for I am of low caste." 2