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him and stood on one side, The Buddha spoke to them words of enlightenment, and both the guards had their pure, spiritual eyes opened at once. With folded palms, they took shelter with him. In the same manner, the four, eight and sixteen guards came to him, heard his inspiring words and with their folded palms, all of them took refuge with him. For each party, the Buddha changed the route of their return (in the same manner as he had done to the first man). Meanwhile, the first man returned to Devadatta and narrated his experience adding in the end,
"Bhante ! I could not kill the Buddha. He is a great soul with great powers".
In a fit of absent-mindedness, Devadatta said,
"All right. If you have failed to kill Sýamaya Gautama, I must do it with my own hands.
The Buddha was now pacing on the shady side of the Grdhrakūta mountain. Devadatta reached the peak of t mountain and rolled a rock down to crush the Buddha. But the rock was held between two (minor) peaks. But a small portion of the rock fragmented out and hit the Buddha's leg which started bleeding at once. The Buddha turned his gaze upward and said to Deva datta,
"Notorious man! You have acquired a great sin by making the Buddha bleed". (1)
Then addressing the monks he said,
"Devadatta has erected the first rock to his own liberation".
When the monks came to know about the mean conspiracy by Devadatta, they started a strict vigil of the place (where the Buddha was lodged) and read aloud their sacred texts. The Buddha asked Ananda to send the monks to him. To the monks he said,
"Bhiksus! It is not possible that the Tathagata can be killed by the conspiracies of any one. The Tatha - gata never courts death from another's hand; he passes away only when it is time for him to enter into
