[424] From the delightful city of the Kosalans a brahmin who had mastered the mantras, aspiring to the state of owning nothing, went to the Southern Land (Dakkhiṇāpatha).
In the domain of Assaka, hard by Muḷaka, he dwelt on the bank of the Godhāvarī, living on gleanings and fruit.
In dependence upon him a village grew up in abundance; with the revenue arising therefrom he prepared a great sacrifice. Having offered the great sacrifice, he entered his hermitage again.
When he had re-entered it, another brahmin arrived — his feet chafed and blistered, parched with thirst, his teeth grimy, his head covered with dust — and, approaching him, he begged of him five hundred [coins].
Seeing him, Bāvarī invited him to a seat, asked after his ease and his health, and spoke these words: "Whatever gift was mine to give has all been given away by me. Grant me your leave, brahmin: I have no five hundred."
"If, when I beg of you, your honor will not hand it over, then on the seventh day may your head burst into seven pieces!" Having wrought his contrivance, the fraud pronounced this terror.
Hearing that utterance of his, Bāvarī became wretched. He withered away, taking no food, transfixed by the dart of sorrow; and moreover, his mind (citta) being in such a state, his heart found no delight in meditation (jhāna).
Seeing him terrified and wretched, a deity desiring his welfare approached Bāvarī and said this: "He does not understand the head; he is a fraud who is after wealth. Of the head, and of the head-splitting, he has no knowledge (ñāṇa)."
[Bāvarī:] "Then the good lady herself must know it. Being asked, declare it to me — the head, and the head-splitting; let us hear your word."
[The deity:] "I too do not know this; knowledge of it is not found in me. The head and the head-splitting — this indeed is the vision of the Victors (Jinas)."
[Bāvarī:] "Then who upon this circle of the earth does know the head and the head-splitting? Declare him to me, O deity."
[The deity:] "From the city of Kapilavatthu the Leader of the World has gone forth, a descendant of King Okkāka, the son of the Sakyans, the maker of light.
"He, brahmin, is the Fully Awakened One, gone to the far shore of all dhammas, attained to the power of all the direct knowledges (abhiññā), possessed of vision with regard to all dhammas; he has attained the destruction of all kamma, liberated in the extinction of the acquisitions (upadhi). He, the Buddha, the Blessed One, the One with Vision, teaches the Dhamma in the world. Go to him and ask: he will answer it for you."
Hearing the word "Fully Awakened One" (sambuddho), Bāvarī was uplifted; his sorrow grew slight, and he gained abundant rapture (pīti).
Bāvarī, delighted, uplifted, thrilled, asked that deity: "In what village or town, or in what country, is the Protector of the World, where we may go and pay homage to the Fully Awakened One, supreme among two-footed beings?"
[The deity:] "In Sāvatthī, in the royal seat of the Kosalans, dwells the Victor of abundant wisdom, of excellent, vast intelligence — that son of the Sakyans, peerless, free of taints (āsava), the knower of head-splitting, the bull of men."
Then he addressed his pupils, brahmins who had mastered the mantras: "Come, young men (māṇavā), I shall declare it; hear my word. He whose appearance in the world is hard to come by and but seldom occurs — today he has arisen in the world, renowned as 'the Fully Awakened One.' Go quickly to Sāvatthī and behold the supreme among two-footed beings."
[The pupils:] "How then, brahmin, when we have seen him, are we to know him as 'the Buddha'? Tell us, who do not know, how we may recognize him."
[Bāvarī:] "In the mantras there have come down the marks of a Great Man — thirty-two, expounded complete and in due order. For him on whose limbs these marks of a Great Man are found, only two destinies exist; a third is not found. If he dwells in a house, having conquered this earth he will govern it by Dhamma, without rod, without sword. But if he goes forth from home into homelessness, he becomes the one with the veil drawn away, the Fully Awakened One, the arahant unsurpassed.
"Ask, in your minds alone, about my birth and clan, my marks, my mantras and my pupils besides, and about the head and the head-splitting. If he is a Buddha, a seer without obstruction, he will answer with speech the questions asked in the mind."
Having heard Bāvarī's word, sixteen brahmin pupils — Ajita, Tissametteyya, Puṇṇaka, and Mettagū; Dhotaka and Upasīva, Nanda and then Hemaka; the pair Todeyya and Kappa, and Jatukaṇṇī the wise; Bhadrāvudha and Udaya, and Posāla the brahmin; Mogharājā the intelligent, and Piṅgiya the great seer —
all of them leaders each of his own following, renowned to all the world, meditators delighting in jhāna, steadfast sages imbued with the impressions of the past —
having saluted Bāvarī and circumambulated him rightwise, all of them, wearing matted hair and antelope hide, set out with faces turned to the north:
to Patiṭṭhāna of Muḷaka, and then to the city Māhissatī, to Ujjenī and Gonaddha, to Vedisa and the place called Vanasa, to Kosambī too and Sāketa, and Sāvatthī, supreme of cities, to Setabya, Kapilavatthu, and the city of Kusinārā, to Pāvā and Bhoganagara, to Vesālī and the Magadhan city, and to the Pāsāṇaka Shrine, delightful and charming.
As a man athirst to cool water, as a merchant to great gain, as one scorched by heat to shade, so in haste they climbed the mountain.
And at that time the Blessed One, at the head of the Saṅgha of bhikkhus, was teaching the Dhamma to the bhikkhus, like a lion roaring in the forest.
Ajita saw the Fully Awakened One, like the beaming sun with rays outspread, like the moon on the fifteenth day arrived at fullness.
Then, seeing the characteristics complete upon his body, standing to one side, exultant, he asked his questions in the mind: "Declare exactly [my teacher's] birth; tell his clan together with his marks; tell of his perfection in the mantras; how many does the brahmin teach?"
[The Blessed One:] "His age is one hundred and twenty years; by clan he is Bāvarī; three marks are on his body; he is a master of the three Vedas. In the marks and the legends, together with the glossaries and the rituals, he teaches five hundred; in his own doctrine he has reached perfection."
[Ajita:] "O supreme among men, cutter of craving (taṇhā), disclose Bāvarī's marks by close scrutiny; let there be no doubting in us."
[The Blessed One:] "He covers his face with his tongue; between his brows there is a woolly tuft; what is concealed by his garment is enclosed in a sheath: know it thus, young man."
Hearing no one asking any question, yet hearing the questions answered, all the people, thrilled, with joined palms, pondered: "Who then was it — a deva, or Brahmā, or Inda, Sujā's husband? The questions were asked within the mind: to whom does he speak this reply?"
[Ajita:] "Bāvarī asks about the head and the head-splitting. Explain that, Blessed One; dispel our doubt, O seer!"
[The Blessed One:] "Know that ignorance (avijjā) is the head; true knowledge (vijjā) is the splitter of the head, conjoined with faith (saddhā), mindfulness (sati), and concentration (samādhi), together with desire (chanda) and energy (viriya)."
Then, steadying himself amid great exultation, the young man, arranging his antelope hide over one shoulder, fell with his head at [the Blessed One's] feet: "The brahmin Bāvarī, dear sir, together with his pupils, elated in mind and glad at heart, venerates your feet, O One with Vision!"
[The Blessed One:] "May the brahmin Bāvarī be happy, together with his pupils; and may you too be happy: may you live long, young man! For Bāvarī, and for you — for all — every perplexity: the opportunity is granted you; ask whatever you may wish in your minds."
Given the opportunity by the Fully Awakened One, Ajita sat down with joined palms and there asked the Tathāgata the first question.
The Introductory Verses (vatthugāthā) are concluded.
In the Suttanipāta, in the fifth chapter, the Pārāyanavagga: the first, the Questions of Ajita (Ajitapañhā).
English translation from the Pali (Siam Raṭṭha edition) — under review, not for citation.