[12] This was not the night when he finally fled from Kapilavastu, and as he was leaving the palace, perceiving his sleeping father, and said, ‘Father, though I love thee, yet a fear possesses me, and I may not stay;’—The Life of the Buddha, p. 25. Most probably it was that related in M. B., pp. 199–204. See ‘Buddhist Birth Stories,’ pp. 120–127.
[13] They did this, I suppose, to show their humility, for Upâli was only a Śûdra by birth, and had been a barber; so from the first did Buddhism assert its superiority to the conditions of rank and caste. Upâli was distinguished by his knowledge of the rules of discipline, and praised on that account by Buddha. He was one of the three leaders of the first synod, and the principal compiler of the original Vinaya books.
[14] I have not met with the particulars of this preaching.
[15] Meaning, as explained in Chinese, ‘a tree without knots;’ the ficus Indica. See Rhys Davids’ note, Manual, p. 39, where he says that a branch of one of these trees was taken from Buddha Gayâ to Anurâdhapura in Ceylon in the middle of the third century B.C, and is still growing there, the oldest historical tree in the world.
[16] See [chap. xiii, note 11]. I have not met with the account of this presentation. See the long account of Prajâpatî in M. B., pp. 306–315.
[17] See [chap. xx, note 10]. The Śrotâpannas are the first class of saints, who are not to be reborn in a lower sphere, but attain to nirvâṇa after having been reborn seven times consecutively as men or devas. The Chinese editions state there were ‘1000’ of the Śâkya seed. The general account is that they were 500, all maidens, who refused to take their place in king Vaidûrya’s harem, and were in consequence taken to a pond, and had their hands and feet cut off. There Buddha came to them, had their wounds dressed, and preached to them the Law. They died in the faith, and were reborn in the region of the four Great Kings. Thence they came back and visited Buddha at Jetavana in the night, and there they obtained the reward of Śrotâpanna. ‘The Life of the Buddha,’ p. 121.
[18] See the account of this event in M. B., p. 150. The account of it reminds me of the ploughing by the sovereign, which has been an institution in China from the earliest times. But there we have no magic and no extravagance.
[19] ‘The place of Liberation;’ see [chap. xiii, note 7].
[20] See the accounts of this event in M. B., pp. 145, 146; ‘The Life of the Buddha,’ pp. 15, 16; and ‘Buddhist Birth Stories,’ p. 66.
[21] There is difficulty in construing the text of this last statement. Mr. Beal had, no doubt inadvertently, omitted it in his first translation. In his revised version he gives for it, I cannot say happily, ‘As well as at the pool, the water of which came down from above for washing (the child).’