Now the Bodisat, stopping at the river side, asked Channa, “What is this river called?”
“Its name, my lord, is Anomā.”
“And so also our renunciation of the world shall be called Anomā (illustrious),” said he; and signalling to his horse, by pressing it with his heel, the horse sprang over the river, five or six hundred yards in breadth, and stood on the opposite bank.
The Bodisat, getting down from the horse’s back, stood on the sandy beach, extending there like a sheet of silver, and said to Channa, “Good Channa, do thou now go back, taking my ornaments and Kanthaka. I am going to become a hermit.”
“But I also, my lord, will become a hermit.”
“You cannot be allowed to renounce the world, you must go back,” he said. Three times he refused this request of Channa’s; and he delivered over to him both the ornaments and Kanthaka.
Then he thought, “These locks of mine are not suited for a mendicant. Now it is not right for any one else to cut the hair of a future Buddha, so I will cut them off myself with my sword.” Then, taking his sword in his right hand, and holding the plaited tresses, together with the diadem on them, with his left, he cut them off. So his hair was thus reduced to two inches in length, and curling from the right, it lay close to his head. It remained that length as long as he lived, and the beard the same. There was no need at all to shave either hair or beard any more.
The Bodisat, saying to himself, “If I am to become a Buddha, let it stand in the air; if not, let it fall to the ground;” threw the hair and diadem together as he held them towards the sky. The plaited hair and the jewelled turban went a league off and stopped in the air. The archangel Sakka caught sight of it with his divine eye, and receiving it into a jewel casket, a league high, he placed it in the Tāvatiŋsa heaven, in the Dāgaba of the Diadem.
272. Cutting off his hair, with pleasant perfumes sweet,
The Lordly Being cast it to the sky.