looking at. Whichever limb of Bhagavat the painters looked at they could not leave off contemplating it. So they could not seize the moment to paint him. Bhagavat then said to the king—'The painters will have trouble, O great king; it is impossible for them to seize the moment to [paint the] Tathâgata, but bring the canvass.' The king having brought it, Bhagavat projected his shadow on it, and said to the painters—'Fill that outline with colors; and then write over it the formulas of refuge as well as the precepts of instruction; you will have to trace both in the direct order, and in the inverse order the production of the [successive] causes [of existence], which is composed of twelve terms; and on it will be written these two verses:
"'Begin, go out [of the house]; apply yourself to the law of Buddha; annihilate the army of death, as an elephant upsets a hut of reeds.
"'He who shall walk without distraction under the discipline of this law, escaping birth and the revolution of the world, will put an end to sorrow.[1]
"'If any one asks what these verses are, you must answer: The first is the introduction; the second, the instruction; the third, the revolution of the world; and the fourth, the effort.'" (H. B. I., p. 341).
Bimbisâra, acting under Bhagavat's dictation, then wrote to
Rudrayana that he was about to send him the most precious
object in the three worlds, and that he must adorn the way by
which it would arrive for two and a half yojanas. Rudrayana
was rather irritated by this message, and proposed immediate
war, but was dissuaded by his ministers. The picture therefore
was received with all honor, and not uncovered till after it had
been duly adored. Certain foreign merchants who happened to
be on the spot, on seeing the portrait, cried out altogether:
"Adoration to Buddha." At this name the king felt his hair
stand on end, and inquired who Buddha was. His position, and
the meaning of the inscription, was explained to him by the
merchants. The consequence, as may be supposed, was his conversion
to Buddhism. He reflected on the causes of existence,
and attained the degree of Srotâpatti (H. B. I., p. )
Very little allusion is made in these legends to the immediate subject of the Vinaya-pitaka, namely, Discipline. But a
- ↑ These two verses are a standing formula by which the Buddha of the Canon summons the world to receive his law.
