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THE QUESTIONS OF KING MILINDA. IV, 4, 44.
One, all the five hundred Arahats forsook the Conqueror and Aed, one only excepted, Ananda the Elder'. Now how was it, Nagasena? Did those Arahats run away from fear-or did they run away willing to let the Blessed One be destroyed, and thinking : "(Our condact) will be clear (to him) from the way in which he himself will act ?," [208] or did they run away with the hope of watching the immense and unequalled mighty power which the Tathagata would exhibit? If, Nagasena, what the
? Here again we have a variation between our author's words and those of the Pitakas. In the Kullavagga VII, 3, 11, 12 (translated in pp. 247-250 of vol. iii of the Vinaya Texts' in the * Sacred Books of the East '), we have the oldest versions of this story; and there the elephant is called, not Dhana-palaka, but Nålågirl, and the number of attendant disciples (who are not called Arahats) is not given as five hundred. The Buddha is simply said to have entered Râgagaha with a number of Bhikkhus.' Nothing also is said, either of their running away, or of Ânanda's remaining behind. It is, no doubt, an easily explicable and very pretty alteration of the story, which exhibits Ananda, the beloved disciple, as acting in this way. But it is none the less an alteration.
It should be added that Nålagiri (it should be Nålâgiri) in the Vinaya text is a personal name of the elephant, but may be derived from its place of origin. (See the references to a famous elephant named Nalâ giri in the Megha Data and Nadagiri in the Katha Sarit Sagara XI, 42, XII, 10, XIII, 7, 29. But Panini VI, 3, 117, gives the latter as the name of a mountain.) So while there may be a variation in the legend, it may also be that we have only two names for the same elephant, just as one might speak of the Shetland pony (named) Brownie. And the stanza quoted below (p. 410 of the Pali text) shows that the name Dhana-pâlaka was given already in older texts to the Nalagiri elephant.
• Paññayissati sakena kammena, 'It will be plain to the Buddha (that is, he will be able to judge of our motives) from his own kindness and goodness,' according to the Simhalese (p. 287). But the expression is a very strange one, and perhaps, after all, it merely means, 'The matter will turn out according to his Karma.'
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