Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/124

8 hermitage the ascetic life of a Rishi, casting off the cloak with its nine disadvantages, and wearing the garment of bark with its twelve advantages. And when he had thus given up the world, forsaking this hut, crowded with eight drawbacks, he repaired to the foot of a tree with its ten advantages, and rejecting all sorts of grain lived constantly upon wild fruits. And strenuously exerting himself both in sitting and in standing and in walking, within a week he became the possessor of the eight Attainments, and of the five Supernatural Faculties; and so, in accordance with his prayer, he attained the might of supernatural knowledge. Therefore it is said,

Now while the hermit Sumedha, having thus attained the strength of supernatural knowledge, was living in the bliss of the (eight) Attainments, the Teacher Dīpankara appeared in the world. At the moment of his conception, of his birth, of his attainment of Buddhahood, of his preaching his first discourse, the whole universe