The Buddha’s first exclamations, as well as the account of his subsequent sayings and doings, are the more worthy of credit as taken from the Southern Canon.
The Mahā-vagga (I. 1) tells us that after attaining complete intelligence, the Buddha sat cross-legged on the ground under the Bodhi-tree for seven days, absorbed in meditation and enjoying the bliss of enlightenment. At the end of that period, during the first three watches of the night, he fixed his mind on the causes of existence. Then having thought out the law of causation ([p. 102]), he exclaimed: ‘When the laws of being become manifest to the earnest thinker, his doubts vanish, and, like the Sun, he dispels the hosts of Māra.’
Next he meditated for another seven days under a banyan tree, called the tree of goat-herds (aja-pāla). It was there that a haughty Brāhman accosted him with the question, ‘Who is a true Brāhman?’ and was told, ‘One free from evil and pride; self-restrained, learned, and pure.’
Then he meditated under another tree for a third period of seven days. There the serpent (Nāga) Mućalinda (or Mućilinda) coiled his body round the Buddha, and formed a canopy to protect him from the raging of a storm—this being one of the trials he had to go through. When it was over the Buddha exclaimed, ‘Happy is the seclusion of the satisfied man (tushṭa) who has learned and seen the truth.’
A fourth period of meditation was passed under the tree Rājāyatana, making four times seven days. May not these symbolize the four stages of meditation ([p. 209])? Later legends, however, reckon seven times seven days.
During the whole of the interval between the first acquisition of knowledge and the setting forth to proclaim it, the Buddha fasted, being too elated to seek food, and only once receiving it from two merchants, named Tapussa (Trapusha) and Bhallika. These became his first lay-reverers ([p. 89]) by repeating the double formula of reverence for the Buddha and for his doctrine (the Saṅgha not being then instituted, Mahā-v° I. 4. 5). A later legend relates that they received in return eight of his hairs which they preserved as relics.
In connexion with the legend of a forty-nine days’ fast, I may mention that an ancient carving of Gautama was pointed out to me at Buddha-Gayā, which represents him as holding a bowl of rice-milk divided into forty-nine portions, one for each day.
With these legends we may contrast the simple Gospel narrative of Christ’s forty days’ fast in the wilderness.
The Buddha’s first resolution to come forth from his seclusion and proclaim his gospel to mankind is of course a great epoch with all Buddhists.
And here it should be observed, that, strictly, according to Gautama’s own teaching he ought to have ceased from all action on arriving at perfect enlightenment. For had he not attained the great object of his ambition—the end of all his struggles—the goal of all his efforts—carried on through hundreds of existences? He had, therefore, no more lives to lead, no more misery to undergo. In short he had achieved the summum bonum of all true Buddhists—the extinction of the fires of passions and desires—and had only to enjoy the well-earned peace (nirvṛiti) of complete Nirvāṇa. Yet the love of his fellow-men impelled him to action (pravṛitti). In fact it was characteristic of a supreme Buddha that he should belie, by his own activity and compassionate feelings, the utter apathy and indifference to which his own doctrines logically led ([p. 128]).