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322
KULLAVAGGA.
X, 1, 4.
'Enough, Ånanda! Let it not please thee that women should be allowed to do so.'
[And a second and a third time did Ånanda make the same request, in the same words, and receive the same reply.]
Then the venerable Ånanda thought: The Blessed One does not give his permission, let me now ask the Blessed One on another ground.' And the venerable Ânanda said to the Blessed One:
Are women, Lord, capable—when they have gone forth from the household life and entered the homeless state, under the doctrine and discipline 'proclaimed by the Blessed One—are they capable of realising the fruit of conversion, or of the second Path, or of the third Path, br of Arahatship ?' *They are capable, Ânanda.'
If then, Lord, they are capable thereof, since Mahâ-pagâpatî the Gotami has proved herself of great service to the Blessed One, when as aunt and nurse she nourished him and gave him milk, and on the death of his mother suckled the Blessed One at her own breast, it were well, Lord, that women should have permission to go forth from the household life and enter the homeless state, under the doctrine and discipline proclaimed by the Tathagata ?'
4. 'If then, Ananda, Maha-pagâpati the Gotami take upon herself the Eight Chief Rules ?, let that be reckoned to her as her initiation.'
[They are these]: (1) A Bhikkhunf, even if of
· Ânanda's conduct in this matter was afterwards charged against him as a dukķata. See below, XI, 1, 10.
2 The Altha Garudhamma, on which see further our note above on the 21st Pâkittiya, and below, X, 9.
* The whole of the following eight paragraphs recur in the
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