________________
MAHAVAGGA.
196
down to :), thus addressed the Bhikkhus: 'Let no one, O Bhikkhus, who is in the royal service, receive the pabbaggâ ordination. He who confers the pabbaggâ ordination (on such a person), is guilty of a dukkata offence.'
I, 41.
41.
At that time the robber Angulimâla1 had embraced religious life among the Bhikkhus. When the people saw that, they became alarmed and terrified; they fled away, went elsewhere, turned away their heads, and shut their doors. The people were annoyed, murmured, and became angry: 'How can the Sakyaputtiya Samanas ordain a robber who openly wears the emblems (of his deeds)?'
Some Bhikkhus heard those people that were annoyed, murmured, and had become angry; these Bhikkhus told the thing to the Blessed One.
The Blessed One thus addressed the Bhikkhus: 'Let no robber, O Bhikkhus, who wears the emblems (of his deeds), receive the pabbaggâ ordination. He who confers the pabbaggâ ordination (on such a person), is guilty of a dukkata offence.'
1 The robber Angulimâla (i. e. he who wears a necklace of fingers), whose original name was Ahimsaka, had received this surname from his habit of cutting off the fingers of his victims and wearing them as a necklace. See Spence Hardy, Manual, p. 249 seq.
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