Part 2: Beginning of attacks (upasargas)

Then a certain herdsman, who had herded the bulls for the day, reached the border of the village near the Master and thought to himself, “The bulls may graze just here on the border of the village, but I shall go to the village and milk the cows.” With this thought he entered the village, but his bulls went into the forest, as they grazed. For they do not stay in one place without a herdsman. The herdsman came from the village and asked the Master, “Where are my bulls?” and the Master made no reply at all. Thinking, “Since the Lord is silent, he knows nothing about it,” the herdsman spent the night searching for the bulls. After the bulls had roamed around, they came again near the Lord and lay down, chewing their cud, contented. The herdsman too came after roaming about and, when he had seen the bulls, he thought, “He has taken the cattle with the intention of taking them away at day-break.” With this thought, the basest of herdsmen picked up the tying-rope impetuously and ran forward angrily to kill the Lord.

At that time Śakra thought, “What is the Master doing on the first day?” and he saw the herdsman ready to kill him. Śakra transfixed him, went there, and scolded him, “Villain, do you not know him, the son of King Siddhārtha?” Then, after he had circumambulated him three times and bowed with his head (touching the ground), Prācīnabarhis announced to the Lord: “For twelve years there will be a succession of attacks. I wish to become your attendant and ward then off.” When the Blessed One had completed his meditation, he said to Indra: “The Arhats have never required the assistance of others. This certainly never has been, is not, and never will be: that the Arhats attain omniscience from the assistance of others. The Lord Jinas attain omniscience only by their own power; by their own power alone they attain emancipation.”

Maghavan instructed Siddhārtha, the son of the Lord’s maternal aunt, who then was a god of the Vyantaras because of penance based on wrong belief, “You, as the Master’s attendant, must prevent anyone who makes an attack that would result in the master’s death.” With these instructions, Had departed. Siddhārtha acknowledged the order and remained.

The Master went to the hamlet Kollāka to break his two-day fast. There in the house of a Brāhman, named Bahula, the Lord broke his fast with rice pudding mixed with sugar, et cetera. The five divine things, the stream of treasure, et cetera, produced by hosts of gods, appeared in the Brāhman’s house.

Then the Teacher of the World, whose soul-color was as white as the moon, difficult to look at from the brilliance of penance like the sun; bold as an elephant; immovable as Sumeru; enduring the touch of all like the earth; deep as the ocean; fearless as a lion; difficult for wrong-believers to look at like a fire with good sacrifices; solitary as the horn of a rhinoceros; strong as a great bull; his senses protected, like a tortoise; his gaze directed on one object like a serpent; spotless as a conch; his color like gold; free as a bird; his course unstumbling like a soul;^[1] vigilant as a bhāraṇḍa;^[2] unsupported like the sky; his body free from unguents like a lotus-leaf from slime; his mind indifferent to friend or foe, straw or women, gold or a stone, a gem or a clod, this world or the next one, pleasure or pain, existence or emancipation; wishing to lift up this foolish world submerged in the ocean of existence by intelligence devoted solely to disinterested compassion; unhindered like the wind, the Lord wandered over the earth which is girdled by the ocean and (covered) with various villages, cities, and forests.

Bees, attracted by the fragrance of the Lord’s ointment which was made by the gods at the time of his initiation, flew to him as he approached. The young men of the villages asked the Lord about the preparation of perfume and the young women asked to touch his body as a remedy for excessive love-fever.

From the day of his initiation for more than four months, the Lord of the World, firm as a mountain, endured attacks.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

I.e., a soul is unhindered in its movements.

[2]:

A fabulous bird. It has 3 legs and 2 faces, and is ever vigilant. Mahāvīra is vigilant from lack of sleep, etc. KS 118; KSK p. 112 a.