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THE GREAT CHRONICLE OF BUDDHAS

532

Chapter 22

FOUNDING OF VESALI

ong time ago, the Chief Queen of King of BÈrÈÓasÊ conceived a child. The Queen

brought this news to the King and he appointed sufficient number of maids of honour to

attend on the Queen for the duration of her pregnancy. The Queen lived with ease and

comfort, carefully tending the embryo in her womb, and entered the maternity chamber in

due time of time.

It is taken to be a natural fact that ladies of high social status, enjoying the fruits of

past meritorious deeds, usually give birth to children at early dawn of the morning.

The Queen, being one of such ladies of elite class, gave birth at early dawn, to a lump of

flesh as red as hibiscus rosa sinensis flower or lac. The queen thought to herself: ‚The king

would surely remark: ‘Other queens give birth to children who resemble golden statues; but

this Chief Queen of mine gave birth to a lump of flesh’ and I shall fall down in disgrace

before the King.‛ Wishing to avoid disgrace of losing favour and dignity, she had the lump

of flesh put into a cup covered by another cup and caused it to be thrown into the current

of the river Ganges.

Miraculous events took place, the moment the cup containing the lump of flesh left the

human hands, it was taken charge by the devas who placed it securely in the cup, a gold

plate, on which were inscribed in vermillion the words: ‚These are the sons born of the

Chief Queen of the King of BÈrÈÓasÊ.‛ Protected by the guardian devas, the cup floated

along smoothly with the current, undisturbed by billows and swelling tides.

At that time, a hermit was residing close by the river Ganges depending on a village of

cowherds for alms-food. When he went to the river early one morning, he saw a cup

floating down the stream and recovered it as an object discarded by someone up stream. He

saw the royal insignia stamped on the covering cup and discovered the gold lettered plate

and the lump of flesh on opening the cup. As soon as the hermit saw the lump of flesh, he

opined that the the lump of flesh must be in embryo stage since it raised no foul odour. He

brought it to his hut and kept it in a clean corner.

After a lapse of fifteen days, the lump of flesh was seen to have divided into two

separate units. The hermit took greater care of the object on seeing these strange

developments. In another fortnight's time, each lump was found to have bulged in five

places where the head, two arms and two legs would appear. The hermit attended to them

with greater care than before. In another fifteen days time, one was transformed into a boy

with golden body and the other into a girl with a golden body.

The love developed by the hermit for the infant boy and girl was so intense that it was

like that of a parent for his own offsprings. The two thumbs of the hermit turned into

fountains from which milk gushed out. From then onwards, the hermit received gruel

cooked with milk from the village of the cowherds (by virtue of the babies' merit). The

hermit ate the solid portion of gruel and fed the babies with the fluid that remained.

Whatever went inside their bodies could be seen like objects going through a glass vessel.

They were therefore named 'Licchavi'

after their soft, delicate, thin skin.

Having to attend to the babies, the hermit could go to the village for alms-round only

very late in the morning and he had to return to his hermitage in a hurry. When the

villagers came to know about his worries, they addressed the hermit: ‚Venerable sir,

looking after the babies is a great hindrance to the observance of the precepts and

incumbent on recluses. May you hand the babies over to our care. We will relieve you of

the burden of looking after them, then you could attend to your Dhamma practice without

LicchavÊ

, derived from

NicchaÊ

=soft, thin;

Chavi

=having skin, one having delicate thin skin.

is changed into

to form

LicchavÊ