So the king said to him, “Friend Kāḷa Udāyin, as I wanted to see my son, I sent nine times a thousand men; but there is not one of them who has either come back or sent a message. Now the end of my life is not far off, and I desire to see my son before I die. Can you help me to see my son?”
“I can, O king!” was the reply, “if I am allowed to become a recluse.”
“My friend,” said the king, “become a recluse or not as you will, but help me to see my son!”
And he respectfully received the king’s message, with the words, “So be it, O king!” and went to Rājagaha; and stood at the edge of the disciples at the time of the Master’s instruction, and heard the gospel, and attained Arahatship with his followers, and was received into the Order.
The Master spent the first Lent after he had become Buddha at Isipatana; and when it was over went to Uruvela and stayed there three months and overcame the three brothers, ascetics. And on the full-moon day of the month of January, he went to Rājagaha with a retinue of a thousand mendicants, and there he dwelt two months. Thus five months had elapsed since he left Benāres, the cold season was past, and seven or eight days since the arrival of Udāyin, the Elder.
And on the full-moon day of March Udāyin thought, “The cold season is past; the spring has come; men raise their crops and set out on their journeys; the earth is covered with fresh grass; the woods are full of flowers; the roads are fit to walk on; now is the time for the Sage to show favour to his family.” And going to the Blessed One, he praised travelling in about sixty stanzas, that the Sage might revisit his native town.
289. Red are the trees with blossoms bright,
They give no shade to him who seeks for fruit;
Brilliant they seem as glowing fires.
The very season’s full, O Great One, of delights.