Then, when the king did obeisance to him, there was not a single Sākya who was able to refrain from bowing down before the Blessed One; and all of them did obeisance.
So the Blessed One, having compelled his relatives to bow down before him, descended from the sky, and sat down on the seat prepared for him. And when the Blessed One was seated, the assembly of his relatives yielded him pre-eminence; and all sat there at peace in their hearts.
Then a thunder-cloud poured forth a shower of rain, and the copper-coloured water went away rumbling beneath the earth. He who wished to get wet, did get wet; but not even a drop fell on the body of him who did not wish to get wet. And all seeing it became filled with astonishment, and said one to another, “Lo! what miracle! Lo! what wonder!”
But the Teacher said, “Not now only did a shower of rain fall upon me in the assembly of my relations, formerly also this happened.” And in this connexion he pronounced the story of his Birth as Wessantara.
When they had heard his discourse they rose up, and paid reverence to him, and went away. Not one of them, either the king or any of his ministers, asked him on leaving, “To-morrow accept your meal of us.”
So on the next day the Master, attended by twenty thousand mendicants, entered Kapilavatthu to beg. Then also no one came to him or invited him to his house, or took his bowl. The Blessed One, standing at the gate, considered, “How then did the former Buddhas go on their begging rounds in their native town? Did they go direct to the houses of the kings, or did they beg straight on from house to house?” Then, not finding that any of the Buddhas had gone direct, he thought, “I, too, must accept this descent and tradition as my own; so shall my disciples in future, learning of me, fulfil the duty of begging for their daily food.” And beginning at the first house, he begged straight on.
At the rumour that the young chief Siddhattha was begging from door to door, the windows in the two-storied and three-storied houses were thrown open, and the multitude was transfixed at the sight. And the lady, the mother of Rāhula, thought, “My lord, who used to go to and fro in this very town with gilded palanquin and every sign of royal pomp, now with a potsherd in his hand begs his food from door to door, with shaven hair and beard, and clad in yellow robes. Is this becoming?” And she opened the window, and looked at the Blessed One; and she beheld him glorious with the unequalled majesty of a Buddha, distinguished with the Thirty-two characteristic signs and the eighty lesser marks of a Great Being, and lighting up the street of the city with a halo resplendent with many colours, proceeding to a fathom’s length all round his person.
And she announced it to the king, saying, “Your son is begging his bread from door to door;” and she magnified him with the eight stanzas on “The Lion among Men,” beginning—
291. Glossy and dark and soft and curly is his hair;
Spotless and fair as the sun is his forehead;