The Mahavagga proceeds to relate that many of the young nobility joined the order and that the people began to murmur saying “The Monk Gotama causes fathers to beget no sons and families to become extinct.”  And again “The Great Monk has come to Giribbaja of the Magadha people, leading with him all the followers of Sanjaya.  Whom will he lead off next?” When this was told to the Buddha he replied that the excitement would only last seven days and bade his followers answer with the following verse “It is by the true doctrine that the great heroes, the Buddhas, lead men.  Who will murmur at the wise who lead men by the power of truth?” It is possible, as Oldenburg suggests, that we have here two popular couplets which were really bandied between the friends and enemies of the Buddha.

3

It now becomes difficult to give dates but the Mahavagga[337] relates that the Buddha stopped some time at Rajagaha and then revisited his native town, Kapilavatthu.  That he should have done so is natural enough but there is little trace of sentiment in the narrative of the Vinaya.  Its object is to state the occasion on which the Buddha laid down the rules of the order.  Irrelevant incidents are ignored and those which are noticed are regarded simply as the circumstances which led to the formulation of certain regulations.  “The Lord dwelt in the Sakka country near Kapilavatthu in the Banyan Grove.  And in the forenoon having put on his robes and taken his alms bowl he went to the home of the Sakka Suddhodana[338] and sat down on a seat prepared for him.  Then the princess who was the mother of Rahula[339] said to him ’This is your father, Rahula, go and ask him for your inheritance.’  Then young Rahula went to the place where the Lord was, and standing before him said ’Your shadow, Monk, is a place of bliss.’  Then the Lord rose from his seat and went away but Rahula followed him saying ‘Give me my inheritance, Monk.’  Then the Lord said to Sariputta (who had already become his chief disciple) ’Well, Sariputta, confer the preliminary ordination on young Rahula.’  Sariputta asked how he should do so and the Buddha explained the forms.

“Then the Sakka Suddhodana went to the place where the Lord was and after respectfully saluting him asked for a boon.  ’Lord, when the Blessed One gave up the world, it was great pain to me and so it was when Nanda[340] did the same.  Great too was my pain when Rahula did it.  The love for a son, Lord, cuts into the skin, the flesh, the bones, and reaches the marrow.  Let not the preliminary ordination be conferred on a son without his parents’ permission.’  The Buddha assented.  Three or four years later Suddhodana died.”