"If I am accepted, my husband, I will take the vows this very day." "Very good," said he, "I will get you admitted to the Order." And after he had shewn lavish bounty and hospitality to the Order, he escorted her with a large following to the nunnery and had her admitted a Sister,--but of the following of Devadatta. Great was her joy at the fulfilment of her desire to become a Sister.

As her time drew near, the Sisters, noticing the change in her person, the swelling in her hands and feet and her increased size, said, "Lady, you seem about to become a mother; what does it mean?"

"I cannot tell, ladies; I only know I have led a virtuous life."

So the Sisters brought her before Devadatta, saying, "Lord, this young gentle-woman, who was admitted a Sister with the reluctant consent of her husband, has now proved to be with child; but whether this dates from before her admission to the Order or not, we cannot say. What are we to do now?"

Not being a Buddha, and not having any charity, love or pity, Devadatta thought thus: "It will be a damaging report to get abroad that one of my Sisters is with child, and that I condone the offence. My course is clear;--I must expel this woman from the Order." Without any enquiry, starting forward as if to thrust aside a mass of stone, he said, "Away, and expel this woman!"

Receiving this answer, they arose and with reverent salutation withdrew to their own nunnery. But the girl said to those Sisters, "Ladies, Devadatta the Elder is not the Buddha. My vows were taken not under Devadatta, but under

the Buddha, the Foremost of the world. Rob me not of the vocation I won so hardly; but take me before the Master at Jetavana." So they set out with her for Jetavana, and journeying over the forty-five leagues thither from Rajagaha, came in due course to their destination, where with reverent salutation to the Master, they laid the matter before him.

Thought the Master, "Albeit the child was conceived while she was still of the laity, yet it will give the heretics an occasion to say that the ascetic Gotama [148] has taken a Sister expelled by Devadatta. Therefore, to cut short such talk, this case must be heard in the presence of the king and his court." So on the morrow he sent for Pasenadi king of Kosala, the elder and the younger Anatha-pindika, the lady Visakha the great lay-disciple, and other well-known personages; and in the evening when the four classes of the faithful were all assembled--Brothers, Sisters, and lay-disciples, both male and female--he said to the Elder Upali, "Go, and clear up this matter of the young Sister in the presence of the four classes of my disciples."