radiance is made manifest in the world, passing the glory of the gods, This, in such a case, is the rule.e. Lan for

31. [18] When the boy Vipassi, brethren, was born, Chum they brought word to Bandhuman the râja saying:"A son, my lord, is born to you! May it please you to the see him?" Now when Bandhuman the râja had seen the Phi babe, he sent for the brahmin soothsayers1, saying: "Let the reverend brahmin soothsayers see the child." 1 Then, brethren, when the brahmin soothsayers had a seen the child, they said to Bandhuman the râja :"Rejoice, lord, for one of the Mighty Ones is born thy son! Fortune is thine, my lord, good fortune is thine, in that in thy family such a son has come to birth! For this babe, my lord, is endowed with the thirty-two marks of the Great Man; and to one so endowed two careers lie open, and none other. If he live the life of the House, he becomes Lord of the Wheel, a righteous Lord of the Right ruler of the four quarters, conqueror, guardian of the people's good, owner of the T. Seven Treasures. His do those seven treasures become, to wit, the Wheel treasure, the Elephant treasure, the d

Horse treasure, the Gem treasure, the Woman treasure, the Steward treasure, the Eldest Son treasure making seven. More than a thousand sons will be his, heroes, vigorous of frame, crushers of the hosts of the enemy. He, when he has conquered this earth to its ocean bounds, is established not by the scourge, not by the sword, but by righteousness. But if such a boy go forth from the life of the House into the Homeless state he becomes an Arahant, a Buddha Supreme, rolling back the veil from the world.

1 Literally, mark-men, or augurs. See 'Dialogues,' I, 16, n. 1.

2 Turner of the Wheel, the now well-known Indian symbol of empire.

3

• Dhamma-râjâ.

4 For details of each of these see below in the Mahâ-Sudassana Suttanta, No. XVII.

5 This vigorous and picturesque idiom-agârasmâ anagâriyam pabbajati-has been here and elsewhere rendered as literally as possible.

the

小

32. "And what, my lord, are the thirty-two marks of the Great Man1,' wherewith endowed this child hath two careers open to him, and only two):—that of -the Lord of the Wheel... that of Buddha Supreme? [17] This babe, my lord, has feet with level tread 2. That this is so counts to him as one of the marks of a Great Man.

"On the soles of the babe's feet wheels appear with a thousand spokes, with tyre and hub, in every way complete. That this is so counts to him as one of the marks of a Great Man..

This babe has projecting (heels

wa
He is long in the fingers and long in the toes,
Soft and tender in hands and feet,
With hands and feet like a net".

His ankles are like rounded shells;
His legs are like an antelope's

Standing and without bending he can touch and rub his knees with either hand.

His male organs are concealed in a sheath.

His complexion is like bronze, the colour of gold. [18] His skin is so delicately smooth that no dust cleaves to his body 8.

1 Given also at M. II, 136, 137. Comp. the note above Vol. I,

LIO. The whole theory is pre-Buddhistic.

Suppatthita-pâdo: literally, well-planted feet.' The traditional meaning is, that the whole under-surface touched the ground at once. The Great Man was 'flat-footed,' and did not toe or heel the ground in walking.

3 If the foot of a Great Man' be measured in four parts, two are taken up by the sole and toes, one is under the leg, and one is the heel projecting rearward.

And all four, fingers and toes, are of equal length, like a monkey's. Cy.

Like a lattice, says the Cy., and explains this to mean that there is no webbing' between fingers and toes, but that these are set in right lines, like the meshes of a net.

6

Ensuring the maximum of flexibility. Cy. This is desirable in sitting cross-legged.

7 With protuberant well-modelled joints, like an ear of rice or barley. Cy.

Hence the Buddhas only wash as an example to their followers. Cy.

The down on it grows in single hairs, one to each

pore,

The small hairs on his body turn upward, every hair of it, blue-black in colour like eye-paint, in little curling rings, curling to the right.

This babe has a frame divinely straight:

He has the seven convex surfaces 2

don's hit The front half of his body is like a lion's 3. Strup, to

There is no furrow between his shoulders +.

His proportions have the symmetry of the banyantree: The length of his body is equal to the compass of his arms, and the compass of his arms is equal to his height.

His bust is equally rounded ".
His taste is supremely acute 7.
His jaw is as a lion's 8.

He has forty teeth 9,

Regular teeth.

Continuous,

lustrous. His tongue is very

The eye-teeth very lustrous.

long 10.

1 He will not stoop, nor lean backward, as if catching at the stars, nor have a crooked spine, but tower up symmetrically like a golden tower-gate in a city of the gods. Cy.

2 The backs of the four limbs, the shoulders and the trunk are well fleshed. Cy.

ie. proportionately broad and full.

Citantaramso, lit. he has the shoulder-interval filled up. The Cy. explains, the two sides of the back have no depression in the middle, nor look separated, but from the small of the back upwards the fleshy covering is as a level golden slab.

Literally, he has the banyan circumference. It was believed that a banyan always measured the same, like the diameter of a circle, in height as in width.

Samavattakkhandho. According to the Cy. the exterior of the whole vocal apparatus is here meant, rather than the trunk or shoulders only.

Rasaggasaggi.

That is, with the lower jaw relatively fuller than the upper. Cy. That is, the Great Man at a more adult stage has eight more than the normal thirty-two. How the learned brahmins saw these signs in the babe is not explained.

10 See 'Dialogues,' I, 131.

to End

is nits with

He has a divine voice like the karavika-bird's 1.
His eyes are intensely blue 2,

He has the eyelashes of a cow 3.

Between the eyebrows appears a hairy mole, white and like soft cotton down.

トマン This too counts to him as one of the marks of a Great Man 5.

His [18] head is like a royal turban 1.

33. "Endowed, my lord, as is this babe with these two-and-thirty marks of the Great Man, two careers and none other are open to him . . ." [as above, § 31]...

Thereupon Bandhuman the râja, brethren, let the brahmin soothsayers be invested with new robes and gratified their every desire

34. And Bandhuman the râja, brethren, engaged nurses for the babe Vipassi. Some suckled him, some washed him, some nursed him, some carried him about on their hip. And a white canopy was held over him day and night, for it was commanded:-"Let not cold or heat or straws or dust or dew annoy him!" And the boy Vipassi, brethren, became the darling and the beloved of the people, [20] even as a blue or red or white lotus is dear to and beloved of all, so that he was literally carried about from lap to lap.

35. And when the boy Vipassi was born, brethren, he had a lovely voice, well modulated and sweet and

1 According to Childers, the Indian cuckoo. The Great Man's voice is very clear and pure-toned, neither worn nor broken nor harsh. Cy. Yoga-culture is to-day held to yield, as one result, a pleasant musical voice.

3

2 Like flax-blossom. Cy. Perhaps a tradition of Aryan origin. Completely surrounding the eyes, thick like a black cow's; bright and soft like a new-born red calf's. Cy.

Unhîsa-sîso. This expression, says the Cy., refers to the fullness either of the forehead or of the cranium. In either case the rounded highly-developed appearance is meant, giving to the unadorned head the decorative dignified effect of a crested turban, and the smooth symmetry of a water-bubble.

6

5 In the text this refrain occurs after the naming of each mark. Literally by hip to hip; women passing him from arm to arm, men from one shoulder to another, explains the Cy.

charming, just as the voice of the karavika-bird in the mountains of Himâlaya is lovely and sweetly modulated and charming 1.

36. And when the boy Vipassi was born, brethren, there was manifested in him the Heavenly Eye born. of the result of his karma 2, by the which verily he could see as far as a league by day and(eke by night.)

37. And when the boy Vipassi was born, brethren, he looked forward with unblinking eyes, like the gods in the heaven of Delight. Now it was because of this, people exclaiming "Vipassi, Vipassi"-a Seer, a Seer! -that this became his name 3. And again, brethren, ' while Bandhuman râja was sitting as judge, he would take the boy on his hip and so lay down the law as to the cases arising till verily the boy, thus [21] seated on his father's hip, and continually considering, would also determine the points of the matter according to justice*. Then at the thought "It is the babe who is judging cases aright ever more and more did that word "a" Seer, a Seer" become used as his name.

38. 'Now Bandhuman râja, brethren, had three palaces built for the boy Vipassi, one for the rains, one for the winter and one for the summer, and he had them fitted with every kind of gratification for the five senses. Thus it came to pass that Vipassi spent

the

ないた 1 The Cy. relates of the bird that it sings a flute-like song after pecking at honey and mangoes, and that the song exercises a sort of Orpheus-spell over every beast that hears it. Asandhimittâ, the consort of Asoka, was converted by it. She had inquired of the Order, if it were known what the Buddha's voice was like; and on its being compared to the karavîka's song, wished to hear that. Asoka sent for one, which would not sing in its cage, till a mirror was placed by it. Fancying it saw a kinsman, it sang, throwing every one into ecstasies, and so exalting the queen's idea of the Buddha's voice, that she attained the fruit of sotâ patti.'

2

That is, not by special practice, but as the result of action in former births, as with the fairies' power of vision. Cy.

Vipassî refers rather to the inward vision of the seer. Vipassanâ is insight or intuition.

Namely by giving signs of dissatisfaction when a decision was

wrong.