No. 29.
KAṆHA JĀTAKA.
The Old Woman's Black Bull.
"Whene'er the load be heavy." — This the Master told while at Jetavana, about the Double Miracle. That and the Descent from Heaven will be explained in the Birth Story of the Sarabha Antelope, in the Thirteenth Book.
The Supreme Buddha performed on that occasion the Double Miracle, remained some time in heaven, and on the Great Day of the Pavāraṇā Festival[1] descended at the city of Saŋkassa, and entered Jetavana with a great retinue.
When the monks were seated in the Lecture Hall, they began to extol the virtue of the Teacher, saying, "Truly, Brethren! unequalled is the power of the Tathāgata. The yoke the Tathāgata bears none else is able to bear. Though the Six Teachers kept on saying, 'We will work wonders! We will work wonders!' they could not do even one. Ah! how unequalled is the power of the Tathāgata!"
- ↑ This was a December festival, held to celebrate the close of the season of WAS, the four (or, according to some authorities, three) months of rainy weather, during which the members of the Order had to stay in one place. The Buddha had spent WAS among the angels — not, of course, that he cared to go to heaven for his own sake, but to give the ignorantly happy and deluded angels an opportunity of learning how to forsake the error of their ways. In a subsequent form of this curious legend, whose origin is at present unknown, he is said to have descended into hell with a similar object. See Professor Cowell in the Indian Antiquary for 1879.
