47. In the region of the border districts, having invited the Buddha,
With joyful hearts they are clearing the road by which he should come.
48. And I at that time leaving my hermitage,
Rustling my barken tunic, departed through the air.
49. And seeing an excited multitude joyous and delighted,
Descending from the air I straightway asked the men,
50. The people is excited, joyous and happy,
For whom is the road being cleared, the path, the way of his coming?
And the men replied, “Lord Sumedha, dost thou not know? Dīpankara Buddha, having attained supreme Knowledge, and set on foot the reign of the glorious Law, travelling from place to place, has reached our town, and dwells at the great monastery Sudassana; we have invited the Blessed One, and are making ready for the blessed Buddha the road by which he is to come.” And the hermit Sumedha thought, “The very sound of the word Buddha is rarely met with in the world, much more the actual appearance of a Buddha; it behoves me to join those men in clearing the road.” He said therefore to the men, “If you are clearing this road for the Buddha, assign to me a piece of ground, I will clear the ground in company with you.” They consented, saying, “It is well;” and perceiving the hermit Sumedha to be possessed of supernatural power, they fixed upon a swampy piece of ground, and assigned it to him, saying, “Do thou prepare this spot.” Sumedha, his heart filled with joy of which the Buddha was the cause, thought within himself, “I am able to prepare this piece of ground by supernatural power, but if so prepared it will give me no satisfaction; this day it behoves me to perform menial duties;” and fetching earth he threw it upon the spot.
But ere the ground could be cleared by him,—with a train of a hundred thousand miracle-working saints endowed with the six supernatural faculties, while angels offered celestial wreaths and perfumes, while celestial hymns rang forth, and men paid their homage with earthly perfumes and with flowers and other offerings, Dīpankara endowed with the ten Forces, with all a Buddha’s transcendant majesty, like a lion rousing himself to seek his prey on the Vermilion plain, came down into the road all decked and made ready for him. Then the hermit Sumedha—as the Buddha with unblenching eyes approached along the road prepared for him, beholding that form endowed with the perfection of beauty, adorned with the thirty-two characteristics of a great man, and marked with the eighty minor beauties, attended by a halo of a fathom’s depth, and sending forth in streams the six-hued Buddha-rays, linked in pairs of different colours, and wreathed like the varied lightnings that flash in the gem-studded vault of heaven—exclaimed, “This day it behoves me to make sacrifice of my life for the Buddha: let not the Blessed one walk in the mire—nay, let him advance with his four hundred thousand saints trampling on my body as if walking upon a bridge of jewelled planks, this deed will long be for my good and my happiness.” So saying, he loosed his hair, and spreading in the inky mire his hermit’s skin mantle, roll of matted hair and garment of bark, he lay down in the mire like a bridge of jewelled planks. Therefore it is said,