Satyakama, the Boy Who Told the Truth

A boy named Satyakama wanted, more than anything in the world, to learn. In those days, to study with a great teacher, you went to live at his forest school, and the teacher took you on almost as his own. And the wisest teacher anywhere nearby was a sage named Gautama.

So Satyakama went to his mother, a hardworking woman named Jabala, and told her his wish. “I want to go and study with the sage Gautama,” he said. “But Mother, when I ask to be his student, he is sure to ask which family I come from, the name of my father’s line. What should I tell him?”

His mother was quiet for a moment. Then she answered him with the truth.

“I do not know it, my son,” she said gently. “When I was young I worked hard in many houses, and then I had you, and I never learned the name of the family you spring from. I only know that I am Jabala, and you are Satyakama. So that is all you can honestly say. Tell him that. Tell him exactly what I have told you.”

It would have been so easy to make something up. A grander answer would have sounded much better. But Satyakama walked all the way to the sage’s school, stood before the great teacher, and when Gautama asked, just as expected, “And what family are you from, my boy?”, Satyakama told him the plain and simple truth.

“I asked my mother,” he said, “and she told me she does not know. She worked in many homes when she was young, and never learned it. She is Jabala, and I am Satyakama, and that is the only honest answer I can give you.”

The sage looked at the boy for a long, long moment. Most people would have been ashamed to say such a thing aloud. This boy had said it plainly, hiding none of it, when a small lie would have been so much easier.

“Only one who truly loves the truth could speak so honestly,” the sage said warmly, “and that is exactly the kind of person worth teaching. Come, child. You shall be my student. There is no finer beginning than an honest tongue.”