Part 6: Dharmanātha’s initiation

Reminded by the Laukāntika-gods, “Found a congregation, O Master,” the Lord gave gifts for a year, the mouth of the river of initiation. Consecrated by the gods, the Lord got into a palanquin named Nāgadattā and went to a beautiful garden Vaprakāñcana. The Lord entered the garden which had the beauty of the cool season; where there was a swarm of buzzing bees intoxicated by the mass of priyaṅgu-blossoms; where the women-gardeners were busy with wreathing ornaments of Alexandrian laurel; whose face had been rubbed with rodhra-powder by the townswomen; adorned with armories of Love, as it were, with blooming jasmines; with girl-gardeners engaged in cutting flowers of the lavalī; its ground wet with drops of water from the juice of the mucukunda; its surface paved with emeralds, as it were, by the sweet marjoram.

On the thirteenth day of the bright half of Māgha, in the constellation Puṣpa, in the afternoon, the Lord became a mendicant with a thousand kings, with a two-day fast. On the next day in the house of Dharmasiṃha in Saumanasa, the Lord broke his fast with rice-pudding. The five divine things, the rain of treasure, et cetera, took place there and Dharmasiṃha made a jeweled platform where the Master had stood. Indifferent to his own body, unstumbling like the wind, the Teacher of the World set out from that place to wander over the earth.