[525] Then this occurred to the bandit Aṅgulimāla: "These ascetics, sons of the Sakyan, are speakers of truth, professing truth; and yet this ascetic, even while walking, says: 'I have stopped, Aṅgulimāla; you too, stop.' Suppose I were to question this ascetic."
Then the bandit Aṅgulimāla addressed the Blessed One in verse:
"While walking, ascetic, you say, 'I have stopped';
and to me, who have stopped, you say I have not stopped.
I ask you, ascetic, about this matter:
how is it that you have stopped and I have not stopped?"
[The Blessed One:]
"I have stopped, Aṅgulimāla, for all time,
having laid down the rod toward all beings;
but you are unrestrained toward living creatures—
therefore I have stopped, and you have not stopped."
[Aṅgulimāla:]
"At long last, indeed, this great seer, honored by me,
has come, O ascetic, to the great forest.
Having heard your verse endowed with Dhamma,
I shall live on, abandoning evil."
Having spoken thus, the bandit hurled his sword and weapons
down into a chasm, a precipice, a pit.
The bandit venerated the feet of the Sublime One (Sugata),
and right there asked him for the going forth.
And the Buddha, the compassionate great seer,
he who is the Teacher of the world with its devas,
then said to him, "Come, bhikkhu!"—
that itself was his becoming a bhikkhu.
Then the Blessed One, with the venerable Aṅgulimāla as his attendant ascetic (pacchāsamaṇa), set out on tour toward Sāvatthī. Wandering on tour by stages, he arrived at Sāvatthī.
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.