"Happy, O monk, is thy shadow!" and adding many other words befitting his position. When the Blessed One had ended his meal, and had given thanks, he rose from his seat, and went away. And the child followed the Blessed One, saying, "O monk! give me my inheritance! give me my inheritance!"
And the Blessed One prevented him not. And the disciples, being with the Blessed One, ventured not to stop him. And so he went with the Blessed One even up to the grove. Then the Blessed One thought, "This wealth, this property of his father's, which he is asking for, perishes in the using, and brings vexation with it! I will give him the sevenfold wealth of the Arahats which I obtained under the Bo-tree, and make him the heir of a spiritual inheritance!" And he said to Sāriputta, "Well, then, Sāriputta, receive Rāhula into the Order."
But when the child had been taken into the Order the king grieved exceedingly. And he was unable to bear his grief, and made it known to the Blessed One, and asked of him a boon, saying, "If you so please, O Master, let not the Holy One receive a son into the Order without the leave of his father and mother." And the Blessed One granted the boon.
And the next day, as he sat in the king's house after his meal was over, the king, sitting respectfully by him, said, "Master! when you were practising austerities, an angel came to me, and said, 'Your son is dead!' And I believed him not, and rejected what he said, answering, 'My son will not die without attaining Buddhahood!'"
And he replied, saying, "Why should you now have believed? when formerly, though they showed you my bones and said your son was dead, you did not believe them." And in that connexion he told the story of his Birth as the Great Keeper of Righteousness.[1] And when the story was ended, the king attained to the Fruit of the
- ↑ Mahādhammapāla Jātaka. See above, p. 126.
