Then did the Great Being grant holy orders to their armies and dismissing the band of ascetics repeated this stanza:

Due honour lo! to Kisavaccha came;
So now depart, ye saints of goodly fame,
In ecstasy delighting calmly rest;
This joy of holiness is far the best.

[151] The saints, assenting to his words by bowing to him, flew up into the air and departed to their own places of abode. And Sakka rising

from his seat and raising his folded hands and making obeisance to the Great Being, as though he were worshipping the sun, departed together with his company.

The Master on seeing this repeated these stanzas:--

Hearing these strains that Highest Truth did teach
Set forth by holy sage in goodly speech,
The glorious Beings to their heavenly home
Once more with joy and gratitude did come.

The holy sage's strains strike on the ear
Pregnant with meaning and in accents clear;
Who gives good heed and concentrates his mind
Upon their special thought will surely find
The path to every stage of ecstasy,
And from the range of tyrant Death is free.

Thus did the Master bring his teaching to a climax in Arhatship and saying, "Not now only, but formerly also, there was a rain of flowers at the burning of the body of Mogallana," he revealed the Truths and identified the Birth: "Salissara was Sariputta, Mendissara was Kassapa, Pabbata Anuruddha, Devala Kaccayana, Anusissa was Ananda, Kisavaccha Kolita, Sarabhanga the Bodhisatta: thus are ye to understand the Birth."

Footnotes

^64:1 Here follow nine similar couplets already given in vol. IV. No. 501, Rohantamiga-Jataka, p. 263, English version; see also Senart's Mahavastu, vol. I. p. 282.

^64:2 For the death of Moggallana, see Fausboll's Dhammapada, p. 298, and Bigandet's Legend of the Burmese Buddha, vol. 2, ch. I. p. 26.

^64:3 For Sariputta's death, see vol. I. No. 95, Mahasudassana-Jataka, p. 230, English version, and Bigandet, op. cit. p. 19.

^65:1 Nanda and Upananda were two kings of the Nagas, Vejayanta was the palace of Indra. Jataka Index, vol. VII. p. 66, gives corrected reading Nandopananda-damana.

^65:2 But cf. Anguttara Nikaya, Pt. I. p. 114, ed. by R. Morris, 1883, Mil. I. 277. Translation with note by R. Davids.

^66:1 Compare vol. III. No. 423, Indriya Jataka.

^66:2 khiramulam, i.e. trofeia.

^67:1 akkhanavedhi, R. Morris, P. T. S. J. for 1885, p. 29. Kern takes it as "target cleaving," Bodhicaryavatara comm. ed. Poussin (B. Ind.), p. 124 note.

^67:2 Perhaps this refers to a feat like that of Locksley ("Robin Hood") in Ivanhoe.

^68:1 Cf. Mahabharata, VI. 58. 2 and 101. 32, koshthaki-kritya, surrounding, enclosing.

^68:2 This is taken from a reading of one MS. and is required to make up the twelve examples of his skill.