Then they went forth leaving all their household gear, and taking their children by the hand they repaired to the Bodhisatta, and with them went their parents and young children and sixteen thousand dancing girls. The whole city had the appearance of a deserted place, and behind them followed the country folk. The Bodhisatta with a company covering twelve leagues set out in the direction of the Himalayas. Then Sakka, taking note of his Renunciation of the World, addressing Vissakamma said, "Friend Vissakamma, king Sutasoma is retiring from the world. [191] He ought to have a place to dwell in: there will be a huge gathering of them." And he sent him, saying, "Go and have a hermitage erected, thirty leagues long and five leagues broad, on the banks of the Ganges in the Himalayan country." He did so, and, providing in this hermitage all that was requisite for the ascetic life, he made a foot-path straight to it and then returned to the angel-world. The Great Being entered the hermitage by this path, and, after he himself was first of all ordained, he admitted the rest to orders, and by and bye a great number was ordained, insomuch that a space of thirty leagues was filled with them Now how the hermitage was built by Vissakamma, and how a great number took orders and how the Bodhisatta's hermitage was arranged--all this is to be understood in the way related in the Hatthipala Birth. In this case if a thought of desire or any other false thought sprang up in the mind of any one whatsoever, the Great Being approached him through the air, and sitting cross-legged in space he by way of admonition addressed him in a couple of stanzas:

Call not to mind love's sports of yore
While still a smiling face you wore,
Lest that Fair City of Delight
Should waken lust and slay you quite.

Indulge without or stint or stay
Good will to men by night and day,
So shall ye win the angel home
Where all that do good deeds shall come.

[192] And this company of saints abiding by his admonition became destined to the Brahma world, and the story is to be told exactly as it is in the Hatthipala Birth.

The Master having concluded this discourse said, "Not only now, Brethren, but formerly also the Tathagata made the Great Renunciation," and he identified the Birth. "At that time the father and mother were members of the Great King's Court, Canda was the mother of Rahula, the elder son was Sariputta, the younger son was Rahula, the nurse was Khujjuttara, Kulavaddhana, the rich merchant, was Kassapa, the commander-in-chief was Moggallana, prince Somadatta was Ananda, King Sutasoma was myself."

Footnotes

^91:1 apannaka, cf. vol. I. p. 95, Apannaka-Jataka.

^91:2 Vol. VI. No. 544.

^92:1 abhumma, out of one's range or sphere, unfit, improper.