________________
370
KULLAVAGGA.
ELEVENTH KHANDHAKA.
ON THE COUNCIL OF RAGAGAHA.
11.
XI, I, I.
1. Now the venerable Mahâ Kassapa addressed the Bhikkhus, and said: "Once I was travelling along the road from Pâvâ to Kusinârâ with a great company of the Bhikkhus, with about five hundred Bhikkhus. And I left the high road and sat myself down at the foot of a certain tree.
'Just at that time a certain naked ascetic (âgivaka), who had picked up a Mandarava flower in Kusinârâ, was coming along the road towards Pâvâ. And I saw him coming in the distance, and on seeing I said to him:
"O, friend! surely thou knowest our Master?"
6.66
'Yea, friend, I know him. This day the Samana Gotama has been dead a week. That is how I obtained this Mandârava flower.'
"""
'Then, Sirs, of those of the Bhikkhus who were not yet free from their passions, some stretched out
1 The following section differs from the corresponding passage in the 'Book of the Great Decease' (VI, 36-41) in the very curious and instructive way pointed out by H. O. in the Introduction to his edition of the text, p. xxvi, on which see the remarks of Rh. D. at p. xiii of the General Introduction to his 'Buddhist Suttas.'
This was a flower which was supposed to grow only in heaven, and its appearance on earth showed that the devas, on some special occasion, had been casting down heavenly flowers upon the earth.
Digitized by Google
