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KAPILA
A short story
Kapila before the King
Tears used to roll down from her eyes as Kapila's mother beheld the royal priest of Kausambi moving in a palanquin.
Seeing this one day Kapila asked his mother why she was weeping.
"It is you who should be moving in that palanquin," she said, but as you have not learnt anything someone else in moving in that. When I see this I cannot hold my tears back."
Kapila felt remorse in his heart.
"From this day", he said, "I will try to read and write."
"That's something good", she said, "I cannot bear when they flung insult at you."
So Kapila went to Sravasti to take his lessons from Acarya Indradatta, a close friend of his late father.
Kapila took his lessons from Indradatta but lived in the family of merchant Salibhadra.
For sometime he progressed with his studies but a time came when he had to give it up.
Kapila with all the restlessness of his early youth fell in love with one of the maidens of the merchant's household. So when he had to sit with his preceptor after that, though apparently his eyes were on the page of his book of grammar, his mind was not.
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