Then one minister recommended Purana Kassapa, another Makkhali Gosala, and others again Ajita Kesakambala, Kakudha Kaccayana, Sanjaya Belatthiputta, or Nigantha Nataputta. All these names the King heard in silence, waiting for his chief minister, Jivaka, to speak. But Jivaka, suspecting that the King's real object was to make him speak, kept silence in order to make sure. At last the King said, "Well, my good Jivaka, why have you nothing to say?" At the word Jivaka arose from his seat, and with hands clasped in adoration towards the Blessed One, cried, "Sire, yonder in my mango-grove dwells the All-Enlightened Buddha with thirteen hundred and fifty Brethren. This is the high fame that has arisen concerning him." And here he proceeded to recite the nine titles of honour ascribed to him, beginning with 'Venerable .' When he had further shewn how from his birth onwards the Buddha's powers had surpassed all the earlier presages and expectations, Jivaka said, "Unto him, the Blessed One, let the King repair, to hear the truth and to put questions."

His object thus attained, the King asked Jivaka to have the elephants got ready and went in royal state to Jivaka's mango-grove, where he found in the perfumed pavilion the Buddha amid the Brotherhood which was tranquil as the ocean in perfect repose. Look where he would, the King's eye saw only the endless ranks of the Brethren, exceeding in numbers any following he had ever seen. Pleased with the demeanour of the Brethren, the King bowed low and spoke words of praise. Then saluting the Buddha, he seated himself, and asked him the question, 'What is the fruit of the religious life?' And the Blessed One gave utterance to the Samannaphala Sutta in two sections . Glad at heart, the King made his peace with the Buddha at the close of the Sutta, and rising up departed with solemn obeisance. Soon after the King had gone,

the Master addressed the Brethren and said, "Brethren, this King is uprooted; [510] had not this King slain in lust for dominion that righteous ruler his father, he would have won the Arahat's clear vision of the Truth, ere he rose from his seat. But for his sinful favouring of Devadatta he has missed the fruit of the first path ."

Next day the Brethren talked together of all this and said that Ajatasattu's crime of parricide, which was due to that wicked and sinful Devadatta whom he had favoured, had lost him salvation; and that Devadatta had been the King's ruin. At this point the Master entered the Hall of Truth and asked the subject of their converse. Being told, the Master said, "This is not the first time, Brethren, that Ajatasattu has suffered for favouring the sinful; like conduct in the past cost him his life." So saying, he told this story of the past.

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