“How comes it that your face is so beautiful, shining like the full moon reflected in water, your form so stately? And whence the peace that surrounds you? What is your noble tribe, and who your master? Here, in this country, where each man struggles to find the Way, what is your way?” And, glad at heart, the Perfect One answered: “Happy the solitude of him who is full of joy, who has seen the truth. Happy he who in all the wide world has no ill-will, self-restrained and guided, Happy—happiest is freedom from lusts and desires. And highest is the bliss of freedom from the pride of the thought _I am I_. No honourable tribe have I,—no Teacher. I go alone and content.” And the Brahman heard in great astonishment, for much as he had heard of religion it was not this. And he said, hesitating: “And where, sir, are you bound?” And the World-Honoured replied: “I desire to set revolving the Wheel of the Excellent Law, and therefore I go to the great and ancient city of Benares, to give light to them that sit in darkness and to open the gate of true Immortality to men.” And when the Brahman Upaka heard this his pride was revolted and he was angry that a man should assume to himself such mastership, and he replied curtly: “Reverend person, your way lies onward,” and struck into the opposite path, yet as he went, he stopped, proceeded, stopped again, lost in thought, for there was that in the occurrence which startled him from his equanimity. So the moment goes by us, and we do not know it! But the Blessed One, proceeding quietly day by day, came at last to Benares, to the Deer Park of Isipatana where now dwelt the five ascetics who had scorned him. And there they sat practising the weary round of their austerities, not knowing that the Perfect One who approached them had discovered the way that leads from the world of sorrowful becoming and the flowing stream of transiency into the world of happy being where all is beheld as it is. For to the man who knows not the way all things flow and pass in unreality and nothing abides; but the foot of him who has thus attained is set on the Eternal and in That is no motion nor any change. So when they saw him coming the five ascetics were angry, and they said to one another: “Friends, here comes the ascetic Gotama [using in contempt his family name] he who eats rich food, who lives in self-indulgence and has given up his quest. Let us show him no respect nor rise up to meet him, nor take his alms-bowl nor cloak from him. Let us only give him a seat as we would to any person, and he can sit down if he likes.” But the nearer the Exalted One came to the five the more did the majesty of his presence precede him, and the less could they abide by their resolution. Slowly they rose, and went forward, and one took the cloak and alms-bowl—another brought a seat, a third brought water, and accepting the water the Blessed One sat down and bathed his weary feet.