Page:Gospel of Buddha.djvu/138

 XXXIX.

DEVADATTA.

When Devadatta, the son of Suprabuddha and a brother of Yasodharā, became a disciple, he cherished the hope of attaining the same distinctions and honors as Gotama Siddhattha. Being disappointed in his ambitions, he conceived in his heart a jealous hatred, and art tempting to excel the Perfect One in virtue, he found fault with his regulations and reproved them as too lenient.

Devadatta went to Rājagaha and gained the ear of Ajātasattu, the son of King Bimbisāra. And Ajātasattu built a new vihāra for Devadatta, and founded a sect whose disciples were pledged to severe rules and self-mortification. Soon afterwards the Blessed One himself came to Rājagaha and stayed at the Veluvana vihāra.

Devadatta called on the Blessed One, requesting him to sanction his rules of greater stringency, by which a greater holiness might be procured. "The body," he said, "consists of its thirty-two parts and has no divine attributes. It is conceived in sin and born in corruption. Its attributes are liability to pain and dissolution, for it is impermanent. It is the receptacle of karma which is the curse of our former existences; it is the dwelling-place of sin and diseases and its organs constantly discharge disgusting secretions. Its end is death and its goal the charnel house. Such being the condition of the body it behooves us to treat it as a carcass full of abomination and to clothe it in such rags only as have been gathered in cemeteries or upon dung-hills." The Blessed One said: "Truly, the body is full of impurity and its end is the charnel house, for it is impermanent and destined to be dissolved into its elements. But being the receptacle of karma, it lies in our power to make 110