Princesses

The consort of the king of Vārāṇasī bore a daughter whose body was the color of yellow gold and whose hair was dark blue. When she was sixteen her parents, seeing that she had grown, wished to find her a husband. The girl said: I have no use for a husband. If you wish to find me one, he must have a body the color of yellow gold and hair of dark blue — one such as that, and only then will it do. Her parents sought one for her and could not find him at all.

The Buddha was at that time in Śrāvastī, and a man of Śrāvastī came on business to the kingdom of Vārāṇasī. The king summoned the merchant, received him, and asked after him, and showed him his daughter, saying: I am seeking a husband for this girl. Is there anywhere under heaven a man fine enough? The merchant answered: in my country there is one who surpasses even this girl. The king was delighted, and sent the merchant to fetch the Buddha.

The merchant then wrote a letter to the Buddha, and in the letter described how the girl was beautiful beyond compare, and that he wished to take her for the Buddha. The Buddha was in the Jetavana teaching the sūtras to several thousand monks. The man carrying the letter went straight up to where the Buddha was; and the Buddha, knowing in advance what the letter said, took it and tore it up.

He wrote a reply to the golden-colored girl, saying: the sufferings of people all arise from love and affection. Whatever is born must grow old; growing old, it must fall sick; from sickness comes death; and from death, grief and weeping. All the sufferings under heaven arise from love and affection.

The girl received the letter, reflected on it, and at once attained the five supernormal knowledges: first, the eye that sees through; second, the ear that hears through; third, knowledge of the thoughts of others; fourth, knowledge of where one has come from; fifth, the power of flight. She took leave of her parents and flew to where the Buddha was.

The Buddha smiled, and a light of five colors came from his mouth. Ānanda came forward and asked about it. The Buddha said: Ānanda, do you see how strong this girl is? If you would know why, then hear this.

In the time of the Buddha Kāśyapa, this golden-colored girl was the wife of a poor household, and her husband’s hands and feet were crippled so that he could not walk. At that time there was a king named Jīlì who had a daughter, beautiful, her body hung with necklaces of gold and silver, who went to the Buddha Kāśyapa to receive the sūtras and the precepts. The poor man’s wife, wearing only a single coarse cotton wrap, followed her there to where the Buddha was; and the people outside would not let her come forward.

The poor man’s wife thought to herself: why is it that I alone may not come forward, and the king’s daughter alone may? The Buddha knew this, and had her called forward. She made obeisance and said: why is this king’s daughter alone so noble and rich, while I alone am poor?

The Buddha said to the woman: this king’s daughter, in a former life, delighted in reading the sūtras and gave clothing to śramaṇas, and so in this life she has obtained nobility, honor, dignity, and beauty. You, in a former life, took no pleasure in the teaching of the sūtras; you were miserly and would not give, and when you saw a śramaṇa you would not serve him. This is what has made you poor as you are now.

The poor woman said: I ask the Buddha to have pity on my foolishness and teach me the teaching of the sūtras. The Buddha Kāśyapa then taught her; and beneath a tree she read the sūtras, and sitting there she reflected, and then took the leaves of the tree and sewed them together into a garment to cover her body, wishing to offer to the Buddha the coarse cotton wrap she had been wearing.

Śakra, king of the gods, seeing that her heart was wholly sincere, brought her heavenly clothing, gold coins, and food. The woman, having received the clothing, gave it away and set out offerings, and when her life ended she was born in heaven. When that lifespan was exhausted she came back to be born in this world as a king’s daughter; and because she had delighted in reading the sūtras and in giving, her body is the color of yellow gold and her hair is dark blue (Source: Sūtra of the Golden-Colored Woman).

The Buddha was in Śrāvastī. At that time King Prasenajit’s chief consort was named Mallikā, and she bore a daughter named Vajrā (which in the language of Liang means “diamond”). The girl’s face was ugly and her skin coarse and rough, like a camel’s hide, and her hair like a horse’s mane. The king looked upon this daughter without a single glad thought, and ordered that within the palace she be diligently guarded and no outsider allowed to see her.

When the girl grew older and it was time she was married, the king told his officials: go and search out a man of noble lineage who is poor, and bring him here. The officials did as instructed and found a poor man of noble family and brought him to the king; and the king said to him: I have a daughter whose face is ugly and who has no match. I shall provide for you. I expect you will not refuse, and will take her.

The elder’s son knelt and said: I shall obey the king’s command. The king then gave his daughter to this poor man as wife, and built them a palace with a gate of seven doors, and instructed his son-in-law: hold the door-bar yourself, and when you wish to go out, close it after you, and let no one see the girl’s face. The king provided for his son-in-law so that he lacked nothing, and appointed him a great minister besides.

The man being now wealthy, he held gatherings together with the noble clans, and each month in turn they held them; and when they gathered, husbands and wives came together, and everyone brought his wife — only this minister always came alone. The company wondered at it: perhaps this man’s wife is beautiful, or perhaps she is exceedingly ugly, and that is why he does not bring her. They spoke of it privately, and urged wine on him until he was drunk, and took the door-bar from him and opened his gate.

The girl at that time was distressed in her heart and reproached herself for her faults: what offense did I commit, that my husband should so detest me, and I be kept shut away always and never see anyone? And then she thought: the Buddha is present in the world, benefiting living beings; all who are in bitterness and distress he delivers. And with all her heart she bowed toward the World-Honored One from afar: I ask only that you take pity, and come before me and instruct me for a moment.

The girl’s sincerity being genuine, the Buddha knew her mind, and came to the house and rose up out of the ground before her. The girl, seeing the Buddha, was glad at heart, and her ugly marks were extinguished at once, and her body became grave and beautiful, like a heavenly maiden, of a rare grace surpassing the world. The Buddha, out of pity for her, taught her the subtle Dharma, and she exhausted all her evils and attained the fruit of stream-entry.

Then those five men opened the door and went in, and saw the wife beautiful, and wondered that he had not brought her; and they shut the door again and tied the key back on his belt. The man sobered, and when the gathering broke up he came home and saw his wife’s appearance to be such as is hard to find among people. Delighted, he asked: who is this? The girl answered her husband: I am your wife. Her husband said: before you were exceedingly ugly, and now you are beautiful. And his wife told him the whole of the above.

Her husband then went and told the king: today, by the Buddha’s divine grace, she has become beautiful, no different from a heavenly maiden. The king ordered her brought, and welcomed his daughter into the palace, and the king, seeing her, rejoiced. The king, his consort, the daughter, and the daughter’s husband went together to where the Buddha was, and made obeisance, and said: we do not know what merit this girl planted in a former life, that she should be born to wealth and rank and yet receive an ugly form.

The Buddha told the king: in a past age there was a country named Vārāṇasī, in which there was a great elder of measureless wealth, whose whole household constantly made offerings to a certain pratyekabuddha whose body was coarse and whose form was ugly. That elder had a young daughter who, seeing that pratyekabuddha, gave rise to an evil mind and to contempt, and scolded and reviled him: how ugly his face, how coarse his skin — how detestable he is.

This pratyekabuddha, having received their offerings, was about to enter nirvāṇa, and for the sake of his donors performed the eighteen transformations, then came down out of the air and returned to their house. The elder’s joy was doubled, and the girl at once repented of her fault: I ask only that the venerable one forgive me. And the pratyekabuddha accepted her repentance.

The Buddha told the great king: the girl of that time is the king’s daughter now. Because she reviled that sage she received an ugly form; and because she afterward saw his spiritual transformations and repented of herself, she has recovered her beauty. And because she made offerings to a buddha, she is wealthy and noble life after life, and by that condition attains liberation (Source: Sūtra of the Wise and the Foolish, fascicle 2).

The Buddha went to a householder’s house to eat, and going in did not shut the door; and to all who came in after him he gave food until they were full. A younger brother gave rise to an evil thought: I would not have let them in. If I could have my way, when the monks come I shall break their legs.

The two brothers then went their separate ways, and both lay down beneath trees. The younger brother, who had given rise to the evil thought, had an ox bolt in fright and run him down, breaking his legs. The elder brother, who had given rise to a good thought — though the sun moved west, the shade of the tree stayed where it was and remained over him.

King Prasenajit’s son-in-law had died, and the king, who loved his daughter dearly, summoned brahmins for her and had them find a man of merit to be her husband. A brahmin went out to look about and saw a man lying beneath a tree with the sun in the west and the tree’s shade still covering him. The brahmin said: this is a man of merit — and reported it to the king. The king said: how do you know? — and he told him all of the above. He was summoned and bathed and dressed in fine clothes, and the king’s daughter was married to him (Source: Ten-Fascicle Parables Sūtra, fascicle 4).

Long ago there was a city in a foreign land named Tóujiāluó, in which there was a layman who every day invited a śramaṇa back to his house to eat. The śramaṇa was an arhat. While the śramaṇa sat at his meal there was a dog in the house, and whenever the śramaṇa ate he would always set aside a lump of rice for the dog. The dog, getting the rice to eat, gave rise to a good heart toward the śramaṇa. As the śramaṇa came day after day the dog grew used to waiting for him, and while the śramaṇa ate the dog would long to see him, and when the śramaṇa came he would again take a lump of rice and give it to the dog. The dog held this good heart toward the śramaṇa for years, and when its life ended it became the daughter of the king of Parthia.

From birth she remembered her past lives and knew that she had been a dog, and said: I have cast off a dog’s body and obtained the body of a king’s daughter. But in that country there were no Buddhist temples and no śramaṇas at all.

At that time the king of the Yuèzhī sent an envoy to that king; and, seeing that the envoy was wise and able, the king wished to give him his daughter as a wife. The envoy took the girl away, and when the girl saw śramaṇas she was greatly delighted at heart, remembering that she had been a dog and that a śramaṇa had given her rice, and that by a good heart toward a śramaṇa she had now obtained a human body: now I shall make great offerings to śramaṇas.

In the country of the Yuèzhī there were a great many śramaṇas, and the wife would feed three or five hundred of them every day, ladling out the food with her own hands and not letting servants do it; and when the meal was over she swept the floor with her own hands.

The women and servants of the household all gave rise to a good heart, saying: this woman is a king’s daughter, and having come here she constantly sweeps and makes offerings to śramaṇas; we too should put our hearts into it. So the servants hid the broom away, meaning to sweep the floor themselves. The mistress looked for the broom and could not find it anywhere, so she took from a hamper the clothing she had first arrived in and rolled it up and swept the floor with it.

Her husband, seeing his wife sweeping the floor with new clothing, said: even if you revere the Buddha’s teaching, why should you sweep the floor with new clothing? You should look for the broom. His wife said: I gave a good heart to a single śramaṇa, and two years later I received these clothes. What harm is there in sweeping with them? In a former life I had nothing at all to give away; I had only a good heart and faith in the Buddha’s teaching, and so obtained this blessing. I did not earn these clothes by any trade.

Her husband said to her: though you have faith in the Buddha’s teaching and make offerings to śramaṇas, no śramaṇa has ever given you a single coin or two. The clothes are all the fruit of my own sinew and strength.

His wife then told her husband of her former life, saying: in a former life I was born among dogs. My master often invited a śramaṇa, and the śramaṇa gave me lumps of rice; and because I held a good heart toward the śramaṇa, I left that dog’s body and was born a daughter of a royal house.

Her husband, hearing it, was delighted, and said to his wife: you gave a good heart to a single śramaṇa, and the blessing was as great as this. Her husband had been miserly before; hearing what his wife told him he at once gave greatly, holding nothing back, kept the fast and the precepts with vigor, and founded a Buddhist temple.

Her husband thought to himself: with only a good heart she obtained this merit. And his wife replied: the mind can make a person attain buddhahood, be born in heaven, become a pratyekabuddha, or become an arhat — all of it is the power of the mind. And if the mind thinks evil, it makes a person fall into hell (Source: Sūtra Explaining How a Dog, at the End of Its Life, Became a King’s Daughter and Knew Her Own Past Lives; also the Sūtra of the Reward of Merit).

At the place of practice in the kingdom of Vārāṇasī, the ground from its foundation upward was the color of yellow gold, laid course upon course like the scales of a fish and the plates of a turtle’s shell; and the buddhas of ancient times had all sat upon it. The king was named Zhīxúnní. He was a lay follower, clear in the way of the sūtras, and he built a monastery for the Buddha, adorned on the greatest scale.

The king had seven daughters, all of them beautiful, all keeping the five precepts and holding to their principle of not marrying. The first was named Gentle-Tempered; the second, Rare-Wonder; the third, Greed-Removed; the fourth, Pure-Keeping; the fifth, Mind-Stilled; the sixth, Quiet-Friend; the seventh, Saṅgha-Servant.

They always, on the eighth, fourteenth, fifteenth, twenty-third, twenty-ninth, and thirtieth days of the month, carefully received the eight precepts and kept the fast of the true Dharma, cultivating the practices they had faith in — the keeping of precepts, giving, good repute, and wisdom.

When their fast was over, the seven daughters asked to go outside the city to walk among the graves. The king told them: the graveyard is loathsome; there is nothing there but dead people, their bones scattered about, foxes and owls eating their flesh, and the place full of people weeping. What is there to look at? Within my palace there are gardens and bathing pools with lotuses of five colors, where herons, mandarin ducks, and birds of every kind gather and wheel; the ground is set with grasses of layered and shining aspect, fine trees give cool shade, and sweet fruits are there for the mouth. You may go and enjoy yourselves there.

The seven daughters answered: great king, of what use to us are sweet fruit and the many delights? We see that people of the world live no great span; their days go toward death, their forms are conjuring-tricks, and none can last long. We have been spared husbands from our childhood, and are not deluded by sweetness. We wish only to look upon the law of impermanence. Let the king put aside his desire for us. We ask the king’s compassionate consent. And the king consented.

The seven daughters went out of the city together and came to the graveyard, to a place of great stench, and heard the sound of weeping, and their hair stood on end. Then together they went straight forward to look at the dead. They saw some with heads severed and arms severed, hands and feet in different places; some lying stiff, covered with grass or wrapped in matting; some laid out on the ground under sentence, tied with green grass, and among them those under sentence not yet dead, with their families weeping and begging for their release; and others carrying the dead out from the city.

Looking left and right into the distance, the seven daughters saw that the dead were very many, and that the flying birds and running beasts contended over their flesh, some of them dragging bodies out of the earth, swollen and breeding worms, the stench of them hard to approach. At this the seven daughters circled the place once and said to one another: our bodies too, before long, will be just like these. And each spoke a verse.

The first daughter said:

“People of the world value their bodies, / adding fine clothes, jewels, and scent; / an elegant look, a refined bearing and step, / posture arranged for others to admire. / At death all is thrown away in the graveyard — / of what use then is all that adornment?”

The second daughter said:

“It is like a body dwelling in a house: / the person leaves and the house falls into ruin. / The spirit wanders and the body is discarded, / and none can command that form. / In folly and greed we say it can be kept — / how should we know it must perish hereafter?”

The third daughter said:

“Watch the spirit while it carries the body — / like a horse harnessed to a moving cart. / The cart breaks and the horse goes off; / by this you may know that it is impermanent.”

The fourth daughter said:

“Once we saw the city whole and fine, / its people happy and settled in peace. / What they sought was not yet had in full — / how has it suddenly become empty?”

The fifth daughter said:

“If you take a boat to cross the water, / on arriving you must leave the boat behind. / The form is not the spirit’s permanent house — / how could one dwell in it for long?”

The sixth daughter said:

“The dead lie propped on brick, / their bodies still fresh and whole, / stiff and unmoving — / and where has that spirit gone?”

The seventh daughter said:

“Like a sparrow inside a jar / with fine silk covering its mouth: / the silk is pierced and the sparrow flies off, / and the spirit likewise runs on its own way.”

Then Śakra, lord of the gods, heard them and came down to praise them: excellent, excellent. What do you wish? I shall grant it to you now. The seven daughters asked: are you Brahmā? Or an earth spirit? Could you be Śakra? He answered: it is so. I am Śakra, lord of the Trāyastriṃśa heaven.

The first daughter said: I wish for a tree with no root, no branch, and no leaf, and to be born in the midst of it — that would be a fine thing. The second daughter said: I wish that the ground I am born on be pure, without desire, without male and female, still and without anything to be dependent on. The third daughter said: I wish to be like the echo of a call in the mountains, neither going nor returning, naturally without form. The fourth daughter said: I wish to be like empty space, without beginning or end, with nothing born from it, penetrating through to the Way.

Śakra said: stop, stop. What you ladies wish for is exceedingly subtle. If you wished to be king among the sun and the moon, that could be had; but as for the void, the signless — that is not in my power to grant.

The seven daughters said: lord of the gods, your divine virtue is lofty and great; how is it you cannot bring this about? The Buddha said that one who eats merit, when the merit is exhausted, is not spared from fear. It is like an old ox that can no longer be used by anyone. What good is that to us?

Śakra, lord of the gods, said: you ladies cultivate the fast and the precepts, and I too serve the Buddha; let us be brothers and sisters in the Dharma. Delightful, these excellent wishes. And when he had spoken he was no longer seen (Source: Sūtra of the Seven Daughters, spoken by the Buddha).

King Prasenajit had a widowed daughter named Vajrā. She came home in her finery, and her father the king, out of pity, established a separate palace for her and gave her five hundred entertainers to divert her.

There was an old servant woman named Dùshèng who used to go to the market for cosmetics, incense, and flowers. Suddenly she saw a countless crowd of men and women each carrying incense and flowers out of the city, and asked: where are you going? The crowd answered: we are going to pay our respects to the Buddha. The Buddha has appeared in the world, the honored one of the three realms; he delivers living beings, and all attain nirvāṇa.

Dùshèng, hearing this, was glad and pleased at heart, and thought to herself: to meet the Buddha in my old age is the merit of former lives. And she took part of the money for incense and bought fine incense and flowers, and went with the crowd to where the Buddha was, made obeisance, stood to one side, scattered flowers and burned incense, and listened to the Dharma with one mind.

She had bought one item of incense at the market and had then stayed to hear the Dharma; and the fragrance she obtained by the merit of that former practice was many times stronger than before. They complained of her lateness and pressed her about it, and Dùshèng said: there is in the world a holy teacher, the honored one of the three realms, who teaches the unsurpassed Dharma, and people receive it as they listen. That is why I was late.

Vajrā, hearing this, was delighted, and sighed to herself: what offense have we committed, that we alone are cut off and do not hear it? And she said to Dùshèng: try teaching it to me. Dùshèng received the charge, and first sent [messengers] out to receive the full form of the ceremony.

Before Dùshèng returned, Vajrā and her attendant women waited anxiously in the courtyard, as children wait for their mother. The Buddha told Dùshèng: go back and give the form for the teaching of the Dharma — first lay out a high seat. Dùshèng received the instruction, and when she declared the sage’s intention in full they were all greatly delighted, and each took off a garment and piled them up to make a high seat.

Dùshèng bathed, and, receiving the Buddha’s majestic power, taught the Dharma as was fitting; and Vajrā and the rest, more than five hundred of them, had their doubts resolved, broke through evil, and attained the fruit of stream-entry.

The teaching of the Dharma was so beautiful that they did not notice a fire had broken out; and all at once they were burned to death, and were reborn in heaven. The king provided coffins and shrouds, and when the burial was finished he went to where the Buddha was.

The Buddha asked where the king had come from. The king said: Vajrā, by misfortune, did not notice a fire break out; young and old were all burned up, and I have just come from the coffining and burial. I do not know what offense met with this harm by fire. I ask only that the World-Honored One make known what I have not heard.

The Buddha told the great king: in a past age there was a city named Vārāṇasī, in which an elder’s wife took five hundred serving women outside the city to a great sacrificial rite. The rule of that rite was strict, and no person of another clan might come near it; and whoever came, kin or stranger, was thrown into the fire.

At that time there was in the world a pratyekabuddha named Jiāluó, who dwelt in the mountains, came down at dawn to beg, and returned to the mountains at dusk. Jiāluó, begging, came upon the suburban sacrifice. The elder’s wife, seeing him, was suddenly seized with rage, and together they took hold of Jiāluó and threw him into the fire, and his whole body was scorched and burned.

He then manifested his spiritual power and rose flying into the open sky. The women were terrified and wept and repented of their fault, and knelt at length and raised their heads and declared: we women are foolish and dull and do not recognize the truly real; a mob of evil and deluded creatures, we have insulted a divine being. Reflecting that our faults are piled up like a mountain, we ask you to send down your honored virtue and dissolve this heavy calamity. At the sound of their voices he came down at once and entered final nirvāṇa, and the women raised a stūpa and made offerings to his relics.

The Buddha then spoke a verse for the great king:

“The foolish and dull do evil / and cannot free themselves; / calamity follows and burns them, / and the offense, once made, blazes up. / Where the foolish set their hopes, / they do not think it will come to suffering; / and only when about to fall into that hard place / do they know what was not good.”

The Buddha told the great king: the elder’s wife of that time is the king’s daughter Vajrā now; and the five hundred serving women are Dùshèng and the five hundred attendant women now (Source: Dharmapada Sūtra, “Folly and Darkness,” fascicle 2).

Long ago there was a king’s daughter whom the king loved and never let out of his sight. Once when rain fell from the sky there were bubbles on the water, and the girl, seeing the bubbles on the water, took a great liking to them, and said to the king: I wish to have the bubbles on the water to make a flower-garland for my head.

The king told his daughter: the bubbles on the water cannot be taken hold of; how could they be got and made into a garland? The girl said: if I cannot have them I shall kill myself.

The king, hearing his daughter’s words, told the master craftsmen: your skill is extraordinary and there is nothing you cannot manage. Quickly take the bubbles on the water and make a garland for my daughter. If you do not, I shall have you beheaded. They answered: we are not equal to taking bubbles and making a garland.

But one old craftsman said: I can take the bubbles. The king was greatly delighted, and told his daughter: there is now a man capable of making the garland; you may go yourself and watch him do it. The girl, following the king’s word, went out to watch.

Then that old craftsman said to the king’s daughter: I have never been able to tell a good bubble from a bad one. I ask that the king’s daughter take the bubbles herself, and I shall make the garland. The girl reached for the bubbles, and they broke apart at the touch of her hand and she could not get them; and so it went all day and she got no bubble at all. The girl wearied of it herself and left off and went away.

The girl said to the king: bubbles on the water are false and cannot stay for long. I ask the king to make me a garland of purple-gold, which will not wither all day or all night. Bubbles on the water deceive the eye: though they have shape and substance, they perish as soon as they arise. So too the mirage in the blazing heat: thirsting after it wearies a person and costs him his life. The human body is false; its pleasure is little and its suffering much. It is a thing that wears away and cannot stay for long, shifting and altering, with no great while in the world (Source: Sūtra of the Bubble on the Water).

In the past there was a king named Jìnmèi, who had a daughter born wearing a garland of golden flowers that had come of itself, and she was named Mālinī. The king summoned five hundred girls born in the kingdom on the same day to serve her. When Mālinī had grown, she made offerings day after day, without fail, to five hundred brahmins.

At that time the Buddha Kāśyapa dwelt in a certain park. She was out on a regular excursion and came to the park where the Buddha dwelt, and her driver would not go in. The girl asked: there is no park I do not enter — why avoid this one? He answered: this park has nothing in it but a bald-headed śramaṇa named Kāśyapa; it is not fitting to see him, and that is why I do not go in. The girl said: we may go in.

Seeing the Buddha’s golden color she was greatly delighted at heart, bowed her head and face in obeisance; and the Buddha taught the subtle Dharma, and she received the three refuges and the five precepts and departed with reverence. The girl reflected to herself: the brahmins are not a good field of merit and ought not to receive offerings — and she turned her offerings instead to the Buddha.

When the brahmins heard that Mālinī had become a disciple of Kāśyapa, [the king] made offerings to them with still finer dishes; but jealousy arose in their hearts.

Jìnmèi, one night, had eleven dreams. In the morning he gathered his ministers and told them what he had dreamed, and the ministers had him ask the physiognomist brahmins. The brahmins said: these dreams are inauspicious. Either you will lose your kingdom, or you may lose your life. The king said: can it be avoided? The physiognomists answered: you must take oxen, sheep, elephants, and horses of every kind, together with the king’s daughter Mālinī and her five hundred attendants, and after seven days kill them at the crossroads of the four ways as a sacrifice to the gods; then this disaster may be dissolved.

The king heard this and gave the order, and had it prepared, and summoned Mālinī and told her the matter: within these six days, do as you wish. She answered: I do not begrudge my death at all. I ask that on the first day I may go with the men and women of the city to where the Buddha Kāśyapa is, and that they all receive the three refuges and the five precepts. The king consented at once.

I ask that on the second day I may go to the Buddha together with the king’s assembled ministers. I ask that on the third day I may go to the Buddha together with the princes. I ask that on the fourth day I may go to the Buddha together with the princesses. I ask that on the fifth day I may go to the Buddha together with the king’s consort and the palace women. I ask that on the sixth day I may go to the Buddha together with the king. And the king consented to all of it.

And so, going with all these people to where the Buddha was, the Buddha taught the Dharma for them and they attained the fruit, and all received the three refuges and the five precepts.

The king told the Buddha Kāśyapa his eleven dreams. The Buddha said: what these dreams concern is the future, not the present.

Dreaming of small trees putting out flowers: in a time to come there will be a buddha named Śākyamuni, and the people of that age, at twenty years of age, will already have white hair and already have borne children.

Dreaming of a calf plowing: children of ten will take charge of the household, and their parents will have no say in it.

Dreaming of three cauldrons cooking rice together, the food in the outer cauldrons leaping into one another but never falling into the middle one: the rich will give gifts to one another, and the poor will get nothing.

Dreaming of a camel with two heads eating grass: the ministers, having already eaten the king’s stipend, will take the people’s goods besides.

Dreaming of a mare drinking the milk of her own foal: mothers of that time will marry off their daughters and then turn round and beg food from them.

Dreaming of a golden bowl moving through the empty air: rain and moisture will not come in season.

Dreaming of a fox urinating into a golden bowl: the people will marry into wealth and take no account of clan or lineage.

Dreaming of a monkey sitting on a couch: the kings of that age will act against the Dharma, cruel and without principle.

Dreaming of an ox’s head wearing a sandalwood headcloth and priced the same as rotten grass: the Śākya clan will covet gain and teach the Dharma to people for it.

Dreaming of water turbid in the middle and clear at the four edges: within the Dharma of the Buddha, the central countries will decline first while the border countries flourish instead.

As for the king’s own person, there is nothing inauspicious in it.

The king then, from his seat, gave orders to his ministers: the sacrificial victims for the gods are now all safe from fear. From this day I would sooner lose my own life than deliberately kill a living creature — how much more than kill a human being (Source: Mahīśāsaka Vinaya, fascicle 40).

A king had a daughter named Dog-Head. There was a fisherman named Shùpójiā who, travelling along the road, saw the king’s daughter from a distance high up in a tower, and, seeing her face in the window, formed a picture of her and was seized with attachment. His mind would not let go of it for a moment; days and months went by and he could not eat or drink.

His mother asked the reason, and he told her the truth: I have seen the king’s daughter, and my mind cannot forget her. His mother tried to check him: you are a lowly man, and a king’s daughter is of high rank; she cannot be had. Her son said: my heart’s wish and delight cannot be forgotten for a moment. If I do not have my way I cannot live.

His mother, for her son’s sake, went into the palace and regularly brought fat fish and fat meat as gifts for the king’s daughter, and would take no payment for them. The king’s daughter, wondering at it, asked her: what is it you want? The mother said to the king’s daughter: I ask that your attendants withdraw, and I shall tell you the truth. I have only one son. In reverent longing for the king’s daughter his feelings have knotted into an illness, and his life will not be long. I ask you to bend your pity on him and grant him his life.

The king’s daughter said: on the fifteenth day of the month, be in a certain temple of the gods, behind the image. The mother went back and told her son: your wish is granted — and told him as above. He bathed and put on new clothes and stood behind the image of the god.

When the time came, the king’s daughter said to her father the king: I have an inauspicious matter and must go to the temple of the gods to pray for good fortune. The king said: very good. So she set out with five hundred carriages in full array and went to the temple. On arriving she ordered her attendants to stop at the gate, and went into the temple alone.

The god considered: this ought not to be. The king is my donor, and this lowly man must not be allowed to disgrace the king’s daughter. And he pressed down on this man so that he slept and did not wake.

The king’s daughter went in and, seeing him deep in sleep, pushed at him and he did not rouse; so she left him a necklace worth a hundred thousand taels of gold and went away.

After she had gone this man woke and saw the necklace, and, asking the people, learned that the king’s daughter had come. His wish being unfulfilled, in grief, resentment, and anguish, the fire of lust broke out within him and burned him to death.

By this testimony one may know that a woman’s heart does not choose between the noble and the base, but follows only desire. Again, long ago there was a king’s daughter who pursued a caṇḍāla and did impure things with him; and there was also a sage’s daughter who followed after a lion (Source: Treatise on the Great Perfection of Wisdom, fascicle 14).