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He mentions that ninety-six varieties of erroneous views are found among the Buddhists, which points to the existence of numerous but not acutely hostile sects and says that there still existed, apparently in Kośala, followers of Devadatta who recognized three previous Buddhas but not Śâkyamuni. He visited the birth-places of these three Buddhas which contained topes erected in their honour.
And so it was that the prince laid down his sword, and secluded his mother in a palace. Certain is it that Ananda with Vaidehi, Devadatta and yet others, bearing their part in this great sorrow of the royal palace of Magadha, must needs so suffer that they might know the infinite pity of the Blessed One, that Lord who in this world made manifest the true teaching.
Nor is there any shade even of 'implication' in the judgment, 'This person is that Devadatta'; for there is absolutely no contradiction between the past Devadatta, who was connected with some distant place, and the present Devadatta, who is connected with the place before us.
As you leave the old city on the north, and go down east for three li, there is the rock dwelling of Devadatta, and at a distance of fifty paces from it there is a large, square, black rock. Formerly there was a bhikshu, who, as he walked backwards and forwards upon it, thought with himself: "This body is impermanent, a thing of bitterness and vanity, and which cannot be looked on as pure.
And, O son, when thou art in the field, Bhishma and Drona and Kripa and Karna and Sakuni together with other Kshatriyas shall not amount unto one-sixteenth part of thee." And the lord Maghavan granted me this golden garland and this shell, Devadatta, of mighty roars, and also his celestial mail impenetrable and capable of protecting the body.
When lists of attainments are given, iddhi does not receive the first place and it may be possessed by bad men: Devadatta for instance was proficient in it. It is even denounced in the story of Pindola Bhâradvâja and in the Kevaddha sutta . In this curious dialogue the Buddha is asked to authorize the performance of miracles as an advertisement of the true faith.
Thus, and in no other fashion, did Buddha sit in the-old days when Ananda asked questions and the dreamer began to dream of the lives that lay behind him ere the lips moved, and as the Chronicles say: 'He told a tale. This would be the way he began, for dreamers in the East tell something the same sort of tales to-day: 'Long ago when Devadatta was King of Benares, there lived a virtuous elephant, a reprobate ox, and a King without understanding. And the tale would end, after the moral had been drawn for Ananda's benefit: 'Now, the reprobate ox was such an one, and the King was such another, but the virtuous elephant was I, myself, Ananda. Thus, then, he told the tales in the bamboo grove, and the bamboo grove is there to-day.
And wheeling round, the intrepid and mighty son of Virata at last approached the car of Kripa, and stood confronting him. Then announcing his own name, Arjuna powerfully blew that best of conchs called Devadatta, of loud blare. And blown on the field of battle by the mighty Jishnu, the blare of that conch was heard like the splitting of a mountain.
There that mighty-armed one, endued with might that knows no decay, also obtained his terrible car unto which are yoked those white steeds, as also his two great celestial and inexhaustible quivers, and many celestial weapons, from the God of Fire. In the region of Indra he obtained his conch Devadatta and slew innumerable Daityas, and all the Kalakeyas.
But, in the same way as the word 'Devadatta' conventionally denotes some particular man, so some particular stroke apprehended by the eye may conventionally symbolise some particular letter to be apprehended by the ear, and thus a particular stroke may be the cause of the idea of a particular letter!
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