Part 14: Early association with Gośāla

After he had completed his kāyotsarga, wandering, the Blessed One reached the city Rājagṛha, purifying the earth by his footsteps. The Master went to the spacious shed of a certain weaver on land outside Nālandā, not far from the city. The Teacher of the World obtained permission from the weaver to live there during the rains and stayed in one corner of the shed, engaged in a month’s fast.

Now, there was a Maṅkha, named Maṅkhali, and he had a wife, Bhadrā. Both wandered over the earth, exhibiting a picture. One day, when they had reached the village Śaravaṇa, Subhadrā bore a son in the cowshed of a Brāhman, Gobahula.^[1] Because he was born in a cowshed, he was named “Gośāla.” He grew up gradually, having studied his own craft of the Maṅkhas. Quarrelsome by nature, disobedient to his parents, ill-favored from birth, he became adept in deceit. After quarreling with his parents and taking a picture, he wandered alone, begging alms, and one day went to Rājagṛha. Gośāla also lived in the corner of the shed ornamented by the Master, after obtaining permission from him, like a jackal in the vicinity of a lion.

With the intention of breaking his month’s fast, the Lord using his hand as a dish went to the house of the merchant Vijaya. With great devotion the merchant Vijaya himself, highly intelligent, gave food to the Master in accordance with rules for right food. “Oh, the gift! the good gift,” the gods proclaimed aloud and made the five divine things, the shower of jewels, et cetera, on his house. When he heard that, Gośāla thought: “This is no common ascetic, since this wealth came to the house of the man giving him food. So, abandoning this heretical painting of mine, I shall become his disciple today. Such a guru cannot be fruitless.”

Just as he was reflecting thus, the Teacher of the World, the Lord, after breaking his fast, came to the same shed and stood in statuesque posture. Gośāla bowed to the Master and said: “I, though clever, was ignorant from negligence of the power of you, an ascetic. I shall be your disciple. You alone are my refuge.” With these words, he proceeded accordingly, but the Lord remained silent. Making his living by begging, Gośāla did not leave the Master’s side day or night, having become his disciple from his own idea.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

This may be merely an adjective, of course, not his name.