Up to the seventh day [8] seeing no diminution in his wealth, he thought, "What is wealth to me? While I am yet unmastered by old age, I will even now take the ascetic vow, I will cultivate the Faculties and the Attainments, I will become destined for Brahma's heaven!" So he caused all the doors of his dwelling to be set open, and bade them take it all as freely given; and spurning it as a thing unclean, he forsook all desire of the eyes, and amid the lamentations and tears of a great multitude, went forth from the city, even unto the Himalaya region. There he embraced the solitary life; and seeking out for a pleasant place to dwell in, he found this place, and there he resolved to dwell; and choosing a gourd tree for his place of feeding, there he did abide, and lived at the root of that tree; lodging never within a village he became a dweller in the woods, never a hut of leaves he made, but abode at the foot of this tree, in the open air, sitting ever, or if he desired to lie, lying upon the ground, not a pestle but only teeth to grind his food with, eating only things uncooked by the fire, and never even a grain in the husk passed his lips, eating once in the day, and at one sitting. On the ground, as though he were one with the four elements, he lived,

taking upon him the ascetic virtues . In that Birth the Bodhisatta, as we learn, had very few wants.

Thus ere long he attained the Faculties and the Attainments, and lived in that spot in the ecstasy of ecstatic meditation. For wild fruits he went no further afield; when fruit grew upon the tree, he ate the fruit; in time of flowers, he ate flowers; when the leaves grew, he ate leaves; when leaves there were none, he ate the bark of trees. Thus in the highest contentment he lived a long time in that place. As in the morning he used to pick up the fruits of that tree, never once even did he from greediness rise up and pick fruit in any other place. In the place where he sat, he stretched out his hand, and gathered all the fruit there was within the handsweep; these he would eat as they came, making no distinction between nice and nasty. As he continued to take pleasure in this, by the power of his virtue the yellowstone throne of Sakka grew hot. (This throne, they say, grows hot when Sakka's life draws towards its end, or when his merit is exhausted and worked out, [9] or when some mighty Being prays, or through the efficacy of virtue in priests or brahmins full of potency .)