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Abhinav Pandey

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Satyakāma Jābāla

A figure from the books

#SatyakamaJabala

Satyakāma Jābāla · fl. c. 8th–7th century BCE

In the books · 1 chapter

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Who this is

Upaniṣadic teacher — the boy admitted to Vedic study on honesty alone, later a master with students and a school bearing his name.

“A mother told her son the one truth that could sink him, he repeated it word for word at a stranger's door, and the door opened — and India has been arguing for over a hundred years about what, exactly, opened it.”
— The Great Indians, Ch. 16

The big idea, in the book's words:

“Truth is the credential. Asked for his lineage at a teacher's door, a boy repeated exactly the hard thing his mother had told him — that she did not know who his father was — and was admitted on the spot; then four hundred cattle, a bull, a fire and two birds taught him what the classroom was supposed to.”
— The Great Indians, Ch. 16

From the book

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