the Law, and he had become familiar with world-renunciation.
6. His former behaviour had wholly cleared his mind, he saw the many kinds of sin which beset (worldly) pleasures. So he shook off the householder's state, as if it were an illness, and retired to some plateau, which he adorned by his presence.
7. There, both by his detachment from the world and by his wisdom-brightened tranquillity, he confounded, as it were, the people in the world, who by attachment to bad occupations are disinclined for the calmness of the wise.
8. His calmness full of friendliness spread about, it seems, and penetrated into the hearts of the ferocious animals so as to make them cease injuring one another and live like ascetics.
9. By dint of the pureness of his conduct, his self-control, his contentment, and his compassion, he was no less a friend even to the people in the world, who were unknown to him, than all creatures were friends to him.
10. As he wanted little, he did not know the art of hypocrisy, and he had abandoned the desire for gain, glory, and pleasures. So he caused even the deities to be propitious and worshipful towards him.
11. On the other hand, those whose affection he had gained (in his former state) by his virtues, hearing of his ascetic life, left their families and their relations and went up to him as to the embodied Salvation, in order to become his disciples.
12. He taught his disciples, as best he could, good conduct (sîla), chastity, purification of the organs of sense, constant attentiveness, detachment from the world, and the concentration of the mind to the meditation on friendliness (maitrî) and the rest[1].
Most of his numerous disciples attained perfection in consequence of his teaching, by which this holy road (to salvation) was established and people were put on
- ↑ The four, or five, bhâvanâs or 'meditative rites' are meant.
