saluted the king. And they provided barbers and when his hair and beard had been shorn and he had taken a bath and put on goodly raiment, they placed him on a pile of precious stones and besprinkled him and then conducted him into the city. The man-eating king paid great honour to the hundred and more kshatriyas and the Great Being, and there was great excitement throughout all India at the report that Sutasoma, lord of men, had converted the man-eater and re-established him on the throne. And the inhabitants of the city Indapatta sent a message bidding the kings return. The Great Being stayed there just a month and admonished the king, saying, "Friend, we will be going; see that you are zealous in good works and have five alms-halls erected at the city gates and at your palace door, and observe the ten royal virtues and guard against evil courses." And from a hundred and more royal cities a numerous army [511] assembled together, and with this escort he went forth from Benares. The man-eater too going forth with him halted midway on the road. The Great Being presented horses to ride to such as had them not and then dismissed them all. And they exchanged friendly greetings with him, and then after fitting salutations and embraces they returned each to his own people. The Great Being too on reaching Indapatta with great majesty entered the city, which its inhabitants had decorated like as it were a city of the gods. After paying his respects to his parents and expressing his pleasure at seeing them he ascended the palace tower. While exercising just rule in his kingdom the thought occurred to him, "The tree-spirit was very helpful to me; I will see that it receives a religious offering." So he had a vast lake constructed near the banyan tree and transported thither many families and founded a village. It grew into a big place supplied with eighty thousand shops. And starting from the farthest limits of its branches he levelled the ground about the roots of the tree and surrounded it with a balustrade furnished with arches and gates; and the spirit of the tree was propitiated. And owing to the fact of the village having been settled on the spot where the ogre was converted, the place grew into the town of Kammasadamma. And all the kings, abiding in the admonition of the Great Being, performed good works such as alms-giving and the like, and attained to heaven.

The Master here ended his religious instruction and said, "Not now only, Brethren, do I convert Angulimala, in former times too was he converted by me and he identified the Birth": "At that time the man-eating king was Angulimala, Kalahatthi was Sariputta, the brahmin Nanda was Ananda, the tree-sprite was Kassapa, Sakka was Anuruddha, the rest of the kings were the followers of Buddha, the king's father and mother were members of the great king's household, and king Sutasoma, it is said, was I myself."

Footnotes