THE GREAT CHRONICLE OF BUDDHAS
884
I have done anything wrong.‛ Thus muttering and weeping, she went back to her residence.
King BimbisÈra’s Death
From that time on, the King had no food to eat. Walking to and fro, he stayed alive only
by means of the bliss of
SotÈpatti
-Fruition that he had attained. His mind being thus always
absorbed in that Fruition, the King’s body became very splendid.
The wicked AjÈtasattu asked his men how his father managed to survive. His men said
that the King kept himself alive by walking to and fro and that he had become more
splendid than before in his physical appearance. Then King AjÈtasattu decided to put an
end to the walking exercise of his father and told the barbers to gash the soles of his
father's feet, smear them with oil and salt and broil them before red-hot cutch-embers.
When he saw the barbers, King BimbisÈra thought that someone had certainly brought his
son to his senses and that the barbers therefore had come to remove his beard.
The barbers approached the king and stood paying respect to him. The king asked them
about the object of their visit, and they informed him of their purpose. Then the king told
them to do according to the desire of their master. The barbers requested the king to sit and
after making obeisance to him, they said: ‚O Great King! We will have to carry out the
order of King AjÈtasattu. Do not be angry with us. What we have to do is most
inappropriate to a good king like you.‛ Then holding firmly the soles of his feet with their
left hands and sharp razors with their right hands, they gashed the soles, smeared and
rubbed them with oil and salt and then broiled them before the red-hot cutch-embers.
(In a previous life the King walked on the stupa platform with his footwear and
trod on a mat with his uncleaned feet. The suffering that he now underwent was
the lingering effect of that unwholesome act in the past, according to
Commentaries.)
King BimbisÈra had to endure excruciating pain. Without harbouring any ill will, he
contemplated the wonderful attributes of the Buddha, the. Dhamma and the Sangha. Then
withering away like a flower dumped on the stupa-platform, he became an attendant of
Vessavana Deva King in CatumahÈrÈja deva-world, and the supreme commander of deva
ogres by the name of Janavasabha.
(Herein he was called Janavasabha because as King BimbisÈra he was a
sotÈpanna-
ariya
and the chief of one hundred and ten thousand brahmin merchants. ‚
Jana
‛
meaning ‚of 110,000 brahmin merchants‛, and ‚
vasabha
‛ meaning ‚chief‛.
(Why did he become a low-class in CatumahÈrÈja deva-world although he was a
great
sotÈpanna-ariya
? The answer was given by Janavasabha Deva-yakkha
himself.
(According to his answer, he passed through seven lifetimes as king on earth after
his demise in CatumahÈrÈjÈ deva-world and seven lifetimes in CatumahÈrÈjÈ after
his demise on earth. Now as a
sotÈpanna-ariya
and by virtue of his many good
deeds in respect of the Buddha, the Dhamma and the Sangha, he could have
attained a higher deva-world. But because he had spent seven lifetimes successively
in CatumahÈrÈjÈ world, his attachment to life (
bhava-nikanti
) in that deva-world
was powerful and because of that powerful attachment he landed in the
CatumahÈrÈjÈ deva-world. This was the confessions of the Deva-yakkha
Janavasabha in the Janavasabha Sutta in DÊgha NikÈya. His confessions in verse
read as follows:
Ito satta tato satta, saÑsÈrani catuddasa
NivÈsam abhijÈnÈmi, yattha me vusitaÑ pure.)
Belated Remorse of The Fool
On the very day of King BimbisÈra's death, the wife of the foolish King AjÈtasattu gave
birth to a son, later called Udayabhadda. So the two messages, one reporting the birth of a
son from the chief of the palace and the other reporting the death of the King's father,