And peaceful was the City of Kapila, the City of Red Earth, home of the Sakya clansmen, a race strong and high, for they were of the Arya, the Noble People, and it was they who descending into India through the passes had conquered the dark men of the land and driven them before them like the shadows of night fleeing before the arrows of dawn; and having dispossessed the dark-skinned, the lawless, the godless, the fair-skinned Noble People entered in upon their lands and made them theirs. With them the Noble People brought their Gods of Heaven and Earth, and these they worshipped with sacrifice and ritual and chanting of mantra and offerings of cows and grain and ghi and all the savours dear to hovering divinity. And in peace and plenty their Maharaja ruled them. Very fair was the city on the banks of bright Rohini. As there were few men of arrogant, dominant riches, so was there no piercing poverty, and, since life was simple, all had enough. The streets were clean-swept and watered, and parks and gardens lay about them where men might shelter in the great heats and the gay, golden-skinned children played beside the river and grew sleek and round on their food of pure rice and plantains and milk from the deep-dewlapped cattle that wound home in the evenings from high pastures by running water. Nor was there fare only for the body. Wise men, the Wanderers, they whose minds are fixed on things unearthly and whose souls climb toward keen stars as the cragsmen follow the eagle to her eyry above the clouds, came in from mighty forests where the hermits and their families dwell in peace with God and man pursuing the purities of the householder’s life in the wilds;—bringing with them the dreams, the speculations, the conclusions of the hermits and themselves. And for such the Raja had made a hall of cedarwood in the city, where they might hold disputations with its wise men and the simpler folk sit and listen, bestowing applause or condemnation as they heard. For there was none in the city, gentle or simple, noble or humble, but set the things of the spirit above the chaffer of the market-place and lent a ready ear to such talk. Nor did they fear to speak, for the Arya are free peoples, coming from the north and bold and adventurous.