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CHAPTER THREE
After staying for a time, the Lord went to a village named Haridruka, and stood outside in statuesque posture under a sandal (haridru) tree. A large caravan on its way to Śrāvasti camped under the same tree which served as an umbrella from the shade of its leaves. The caravan, afraid of the cold as well as terrified of tigers, kept a fire burning during the night. At daybreak the caravan got up and went ahead. The fire, which had not been put out from carelessness spread gradually like a disease and went near Mahāvīra, like the submarine fire in the ocean. Saying, “The fire is coming, Blessed One. Run! run!” Gośāla fled elsewhere speedily like a flight of crows. Even though he had heard his speech, the Master remained motionless, considering the fire to be a fire of meditation for burning the fuel of karma. The Master's feet were turned very dark by the fire, like the calyxes of lotuses by the frost of winter.
After the fire had gone out, the Master and Gośāla went to the village Lāngala; and the Master stood in statuesque posture in a temple of Vāsudeva. Gośāla, out of curiosity, changed his figure to look like a ghost and thoroughly terrified the village-boys who had gone there to play. The boys fled with stumbling gait to the village, some losing their clothes, some bursting their noses, from fear. Their fathers came and saw Gośāla such as he was (a preta) and saying, “Why did you scare the boys ? ” beat him very hard. Their elders saw the Master and said to their men: “Let him.go.. He is probably a disciple of this holy man.” They turned Gośāla loose and he said: “Master, why did you look on with indifference just now when I was beaten ? You are cruel as a thunderbolt indeed !” Siddhārtha said, “You were beaten just now deservedly because of your own nature which is like a disease that has developed in your body.”
After he had completed kāyotsarga, the Master went to the village Āvarta and stood in statuesque posture in a temple of Baladeva. There also Gośāla scared the boys as before and was beaten by their fathers like an unruly donkey. After
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