"Sir," replied he, "I do not wish my son to enter Nirvana. Admit him to the religious order; this done, come with him to my house to-morrow."

The Blessed One accepted this invitation; he took the young gentleman to the monastery, admitted him to the brotherhood, and afterward to the lesser and greater orders. For a week the youth's parents showed generous hospitality to him.

After remaining these seven days, the Master went on alms-pilgrimage, taking the young man with him, and arrived at a village called Koti. The villagers of Koti gave generously to the Buddha and his followers. At the end of this meal, the Master began to express his thanks. While this was being done, the young gentleman went outside the village, and by a landing-place of the Ganges he sat down under a tree, and plunged in a trance, thinking that he would rise as soon as the Master should come. When the Elders of greatest age approached, he did not rise, but he rose as soon as the Master came. The unconverted folk were angry because he behaved as though he were a Brother of old standing, not rising up even when he saw the eldest Brethren approach.

The villagers constructed rafts. This done, [333] the Master asked where Bhaddaji was. "There he is, Sir." "Come, Bhaddaji, come aboard my raft." The Elder rose, and followed him to his raft. When they were in mid-river, the Master asked him a question.

"Bhaddaji, where is the palace you lived in when Great Panada was king?" "Here, under the water," was the reply. The unconverted said one to the other, "Elder Bhaddaji is showing that he is a saint!" Then the Master bade him disperse the doubt of his fellow-students.

In a moment, the Elder, with a bow to his Master, moving by his mysterious power , took the whole pile of the palace on his finger, and rose in the air bearing the palace with him (it covered a space of twenty-five leagues); then he made a hole in it and showed himself to the present inhabitants of the palace below, and tossed the building above the water first one league, then two, then three. Then those who had been his kinsfolk in this former existence, who had now become fish or tortoises, water-snakes or frogs, because they loved the palace so much, and had come to life in the very same place, wriggled out of it when it rose up, and tumbled over and over into the water again. When the Master saw this, he said, "Bhaddaji, your relations are in trouble." At his Master's words the Elder let the palace go, and it sank to the place where it had been before.

The Master passed to the further side of the Ganges. Then they prepared