The young prince distinguished himself by his personal and intellectual qualities, but still more by his early piety.

It appears from the laws of Manu that it was not unusual, in the earliest periods of Brahmanism, for those seeking a superior piety to turn hermits, and to live alone in the forest, engaged in acts of prayer, meditation, abstinence, and the study of the Vedas.

This practice, however, seems to have been confined to the Brahmans.

It was, therefore, a grief to the king, when his son, in the flower of his youth and highly accomplished in every kingly faculty of body and mind, began to turn his thoughts toward the life of an anchorite.

In fact, the young Siddartha seems to have gone through that deep experience out of which the great prophets of mankind have always been born.