3. Ambattha Sutta
The Buddha was sojourning at Icchanangala, a village of Brahmans in Kosala country. At that time, there was a highly honoured Brahmana in that village named Pokkharasati. He sent a learned young disciple, Ambattha, to the Buddha in order to ascertain whether or not there were superior signs, thirty-two in number, in the body of the Buddha. Accompanied by his companions, Ambattha went to the Buddha. But, full of haughtiness stemming from his high caste status, he was not only impolite towards the Buddha, but he also disparaged the Shakyas as being inferior in caste and disrespectful to the Brahmanas, who are naturally higher.
When the Buddha found out that the Brahmana disciple belonged to the Vedic Gotra (descent) Kanhayana, he recounted a bit of vedic lore which indicated that Ambattha was descended from someone who had been a slave of the Shakyas. Kanha, according to this lore, was a bastard son of a slave girl belonging to King Okkaka, the ancestor of the Shakyas. This revelation put Ambattha to shame and he sat there crest-fallen. From another customary point of view, the Buddha also showed that the caste of the Shakyas was superior to that of the Brahmanas. In support of this, he quoted the saying of Sanatakumara, the Brahma of the Brahma-loka. The purport of the saying was that whoever was possessed of superior knowledge and right conduct would be the best among human and heavenly beings. read more
After the interview with the Buddha, Ambattha returned to his teacher, Pokkharasati Brahmana, and reported to him all that he had heard and seen, including the thirty-two signs present in the body of the Buddha. Overjoyed with devotion, the Brahmana Pokkharasati went to the Buddha, the Blessed One, and, besides asking his pardon for the impolite behaviour of his disciple, was initiated into household discipleship at the hand of the Buddha.
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