If I wished it I might this day destroy within me all human passions.
65. But why should I in disguise arrive at the knowledge of the Truth?
I will attain omniscience and become a Buddha, and (save) men and angels.
66. Why should I cross the ocean resolute but alone?
I will attain omniscience, and enable men and angels to cross.
67. By this resolution of mine, I a man of resolution
Will attain omniscience, and save men and angels,
68. Cutting off the stream of transmigration, annihilating the three forms of existence,
Embarking in the ship of the Truth, I will carry across with me men and angels.[131]
And the blessed Dīpankara having reached the spot stood close by the hermit Sumedha’s head. And opening his eyes possessed of the five kinds of grace as one opens a jewelled window, and beholding the hermit Sumedha lying in the mire, thought to himself, “This hermit who lies here has formed the resolution to be a Buddha; will his prayer be fulfilled or not?” And casting forward his prescient gaze into the future, and considering, he perceived that four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles from that time he would become a Buddha named Gotama. And standing there in the midst of the assembly he delivered this prophecy, “Behold ye this austere hermit lying in the mire?” “Yes, Lord,” they answered. “This man lies here having made the resolution to become a Buddha, his prayer will be answered; at the end of four asankheyyas and a hundred thousand cycles hence he will become a Buddha named Gotama, and in that birth the city Kapilavatthu will be his residence, Queen Māyā will be his mother, King Suddhodana his father, his chief disciple will be the thera Upatissa, his second disciple the thera Kolita, the Buddha’s servitor will be Ānanda, his chief female disciple the nun Khemā, the second the nun Uppalavannā. When he attains to years of ripe knowledge, having retired from the world and made the great exertion, having received at the foot of a banyan-tree a meal of rice milk, and partaken of it by the banks of the Neranjarā, having ascended the throne of Knowledge, he will, at the foot of an Indian fig-tree, attain Supreme Buddhahood. Therefore it is said,