The Bodhisatta hearing her words was silent. She was deceiving the Bodhisatta, and was anxious to take the religious life before him: so she said, "Husband, I am going to the water-tank, do you look after the children," and taking a pot as if she had been going there, she went away and coming to the ascetics outside the town she was ordained by them. The Bodhisatta finding that she did not return attended to the children himself. Afterwards when they grew up a little and could understand for themselves, in order to teach them [383], when cooking rice he would cook one day a little hard and raw, one day a little underdone, one day well-cooked, one day sodden, one day without salt, another with too much. The children said, "Father, the rice to-day is not-boiled, to-day it is sodden, to-day well cooked: to-day it is without salt, to-day it has too much salt." The Bodhisatta said, "Yes, dears," and thought, "These children now know what is raw and what is cooked, what has salt and what has none: they will be able to live in their own way: I ought to become ordained." Then showing them to their kinsfolk he was ordained to the religious life, and dwelt outside the city. Then one day the female ascetic begging in Benares saw him and saluted him, saying, "Sir, I believe you killed the children." The Bodhisatta said, "I don't kill children: when they could understand for themselves I became ordained: you were careless of them and pleased yourself by being ordained": and so he spoke the last stanza:--

Having seen they could distinguish salt from saltless, boiled from raw,
I became a Brother: leave me, we can follow each the law.

So exhorting the female ascetic he took leave of her. She taking the exhortation saluted the Bodhisatta and went to a place that pleased her. After that day they never saw each other. The Bodhisatta reaching supernatural knowledge became destined to the Brahma heaven.

After the lesson, the Master declared the Truths, and identified the Birth: --After the Truths five hundred Brothers were established in Sainthood:--"At that time the daughter was Uppalavanna, the son was Rahula, the female ascetic Rahula's mother, and the ascetic was myself."

Footnotes

^228:1 No. 459, vol. iv.

^229:1 Impermanence, suffering, unreality.