CHAPTER II. SĪLAVAGGA.
No. 11.
LAKKHAṆA JĀTAKA.
The Story of 'Beauty.'
"The advantage is to the good." — This the Master told while at the Bambu-grove near Rājagaha, about Deva-datta.[1] For on one occasion, when Deva-datta asked for the Five Rules,[2] and could not get what he wanted, he made a schism in the Order, and taking four hundred of the mendicants with him, went and dwelt at the rock called Gayā-sīsa.
Afterwards the minds of these mendicants became open to conviction. And the Master, knowing it, said to his two chief disciples, "Sāriputta! those five hundred pupils of yours adopted the heresy of Deva-datta, and went away with him, but now their minds have become open to conviction. Do you go there with a number of the brethren, and preach to them, and instruct them in the Fruits of the Path of Holiness, and bring them back with you!"
- ↑ "The story of Deva-datta," adds a gloss, "as far as his appointment as Abhimāra, will be related in the Khaṇḍahāla Jātaka, as far as his rejection as Treasurer, in the Culla-haŋsa Jātaka, and as far as his sinking into the earth, in the Samudda-vānija Jātaka in the 12th Book."
- ↑ See the translator's 'Buddhism,' p. 76.