Page:Buddhist Birth Stories, or, Jātaka Tales.djvu/246

130 Third Path. And so the Blessed One established his father in the Three Fruits; and he returned to Rājagaha attended by the company of the brethren, and resided at the Grove of Sitā.

At that time the householder Anātha Piṇḍika, bringing merchandise in five hundred carts, went to the house of a trader in Rājagaha, his intimate friend, and there heard that a Blessed Buddha had arisen. And very early in the morning he went to the Teacher, the door being opened by the power of an angel, and heard the Truth and became converted. And on the next day he gave a great donation to the Order, with the Buddha at their head, and received a promise from the Teacher that he would come to Sāvatthi.

Then along the road, forty-five leagues in length, he built resting-places at every league, at an expenditure of a hundred thousand for each. And he bought the Grove called Jetavana for eighteen koṭis of gold pieces, laying them side by side over the ground, and erected there a new building. In the midst thereof he made a pleasant room for the Sage, and around it separately constructed dwellings for the eighty Elders, and other residences with single and double walls, and long halls and open roofs, ornamented with ducks and quails; and ponds also he made, and terraces to walk on by day and by night.

And so having constructed a delightful residence on a pleasant spot, at an expense of eighteen koṭis, he sent a message to the Sage that he should come.

The Master, hearing the messenger's words, left Rājagaha attended by a great multitude of monks, and in due course arrived at the city of Sāvatthi. Then the wealthy merchant decorated the monastery; and on the day on which the Buddha should arrive at Jetavana he arrayed his son in splendour, and sent him on with five hundred youths in festival attire. And he and his retinue, holding five hundred flags resplendent with cloth of five different