used the tooth-cleanser, and bathed his face, and sat him down there at the foot of the tree.
At that time two merchants, Tapassu and Bhalluka by name, were travelling from Orissa to Central India[1] with five hundred carts. And an angel, a blood relation of theirs, stopped their carts, and moved their hearts to offer food to the Master. And they took a rice cake, and a honey cake, and went up to the Master, and said, "O, Blessed One! have mercy upon us, and accept this food."
Now, on the day when he had received the sweet rice-milk, his bowl had disappeared;[2] so the Blessed One thought, "The Buddhas never receive food in their hands. How shall I take it?" Then the four Guardian Angels knew his thought, and, coming from the four corners of heaven, they brought bowls made of sapphire. And the Blessed One accepted them. Then they brought four other bowls, made of jet; and the Blessed One, out of kindness to the four angels, received the four, and, placing them one above another, commanded, saying, "Let them become one." And the four closed up into one of medium size, becoming visible only as lines round the mouth of it. The Blessed One received the food into that new-created bowl, and ate it, and gave thanks.
The two brothers took refuge in the Buddha, the Truth, and the Order, and became professed disciples. Then, when they asked him, saying, "Lord, bestow upon us something to which we may pay reverence," with his own right hand he tore from his head, and gave to them, the Hair-relics. And they built a Dāgaba in their own city, and placed the relics within it.[3]
- ↑ Ukkala to Majjhima-desa. The latter included all the Buddhist Holy Land, from the modern Pātnā to Allahabād. See above, p. 61, note.
- ↑ See above, p. 93.
- ↑ We have here an interesting instance of the growth of legend to authenticate and add glory to local relics, of which other instances will be found in "Buddhism," p. 195. The ancient form of this legend, as found here, must
