In the middle of the caldron there rose up a lotus flower, with the bhikshu seated on it.  The lictors at once went and reported to the king that there was a marvellous occurrence in the naraka, and wished him to go and see it; but the king said, “I formerly made such an agreement that now I dare not go to the place.”  The lictors said, “This is not a small matter.  Your Majesty ought to go quickly.  Let your former agreement be altered.”  The king thereupon followed them, and entered the naraka, when the bhikshu preached the Law to him, and he believed, and was made free.  Forthwith he demolished the naraka, and repented of all the evil which he had formerly done.  From this time he believed in and honored the Three Precious Ones, and constantly went to a patra tree, repenting under it, with self-reproach, of his errors, and accepting the eight rules of abstinence.

The queen asked where the king was constantly going to, and the ministers replied that he was constantly to be seen under such and such a patra tree.  She watched for a time when the king was not there, and then sent men to cut the tree down.  When the king came, and saw what had been done, he swooned away with sorrow, and fell to the ground.  His ministers sprinkled water on his face, and after a considerable time he revived.  He then built all round the stump with bricks, and poured a hundred pitchers of cows’ milk on the roots; and as he lay with his four limbs spread out on the ground, he took this oath, “If the tree do not live, I will never rise from this.”  When he had uttered this oath, the tree immediately began to grow from the roots, and it has continued to grow till now, when it is nearly one hundred cubits in height.

[Footnote 1:  Yama was originally the Aryan god of the dead, living in a heaven above the world, the regent of the south; but Brahmanism transferred his abode to hell.  Both views have been retained by Buddhism.  The Yama of the text is the “regent of the narakas, residing south of Jambudvipa, outside the Chakravalas (the double circuit of mountains above), in a palace built of brass and iron.  He has a sister who controls all the female culprits, as he exclusively deals with the male sex.  Three times, however, in every twenty-four hours, a demon pours boiling copper into Yama’s mouth, and squeezes it down his throat, causing him unspeakable pain.”  Such, however, is the wonderful “transrotation of births,” that when Yama’s sins have been expiated, he is to be reborn as Buddha, under the name of “The Universal King.”]

CHAPTER XXXIII

Kasyapa Buddha’s Skeleton on Mount Gurupada