Part 6: Candraprabha’s initiation

The Lord, though knowing himself the right time for initiation, was informed by the Dokāntika-gods like appointed astrologers. The Master began to give gifts for a year, wishing very much to become a mendicant, like a rich man wishing to go on a journey. At the end of the year the Indras, whose thrones had shaken, came there and held the Master’s initiation-ceremony, like servants. Then the Master, attended by kings and Indras of the gods and asuras, got into the palanquin named Manoramā, delightful with its beauty. Being praised, hymned, and looked at joyfully by the people, the Blessed One went to the grove named Sahasrāmravaṇa. After descending from the palanquin, the Supreme Lord, who wished to attain the three jewels, removed jewels, ornaments, etc. On the thirteenth of the black half of Pauṣa, (the moon) in the constellation Maitreya, in the afternoon, observing a two days’ fast, the Lord together with a thousand kings became a mendicant. Then the Lord’s fourth kind of knowledge, mind-reading knowledge, illuminating the mind-substance of creatures of the human world, arose. On the next day the Lord broke his fast with rice-pudding at the house of King Somadatta in Padmakhaṇḍapura. The five divine things—the stream of treasure, etc., were made by the gods, and a jeweled platform was made by the king on the ground marked by the Arhat’s feet.

Undefeated by the mass of snow that had defeated the heat of the sun; unshaken by the winds and bad weather with hoar-frost; his meditation, which was unequaled, unbroken by the winter night which turned the water of the pools into ice; making no distinction between going into the forest terrifying from its evil wild animals, such as lions, tigers, etc., and staying in the city filled with laymen; solitary, free from affection, silent, free from all possessions, devoted to meditation, the Supreme Lord wandered over the earth for three months as an (ordinary) ascetic.