A Sketch of the Buddha's Life
Readings from the Pali Canon
13,055 words
This modest selection of excerpts from the Pali Canon provides a rough sketch of the life of the Buddha. I hope you will find enough in this rather sparse selection to gain at least an inkling both of the range of the Buddhas teachings and of the sweeping trajectory of his extraordinary life....
The Wheel Of The Dhamma Begins To Turn
And when the Blessed One had set the Wheel of Dhamma in motion, the earth deities cried out: "At Varanasi, in the Game Refuge at Isipatana, the Blessed One has set in motion the unexcelled Wheel of Dhamma that cannot be stopped by priest or contemplative, deity, Mara or God or anyone in the cosmos." On hearing the earth deities cry, the deities of the Four Kings Heaven took up the cry...the deities of the Thirty three...the Yama deities...the Tusita deities...the Nimmanarati deities...the Paranimmita vasavatti deities...the deities of Brahmas retinue took up the cry: "At Varanasi, in the Game Refuge at Isipatana, the Blessed One has set in motion the unexcelled Wheel of Dhamma that cannot be stopped by priest or contemplative, deity, Mara, or God or anyone at all in the cosmos."
So in that moment, that instant, the cry shot right up to the Brahma worlds. And this ten thousand fold cosmos shivered and quivered and quaked, while a great, measureless radiance appeared in the cosmos, surpassing the effulgence of the deities.
Then the Blessed One exclaimed: "So you really know, Kondanna? So you really know?" And that is how Ven. Kondanna acquired the name Anna Kondanna -- Kondanna who knows.
[SN LVI.11]