Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Aśvaghoṣa and his School – 49
legends are known to us of old e.g., that of Dīrghāyus or prince
Long-Life and of king Śibi. Others already show more of the spirit
of the Mahāyāna or at least a reverence for the Buddha which is
more Mahāyānistic in its tendency. An illustration is furnished by
story No. 57, which happens also to be one of the most charming in
the collection. [37]
A man comes to the monastery and desires to be initiated into the
Order. The disciple Śāriputra examines him and finds that the
candidate in none of his previous existences for aeons had done the
smallest good deed and pronounces him unworthy of admittance.
The man leaves the monastery in tears. Then the Buddha himself
meets him and the Buddha’s heart being full of compassion he strives
to convert all mankind with the love that a mother bears to her son.
He lays his hand on the head of the rejected one and asks “Why dost
thou cry”? And the latter relates to him how Śāriputra had dismissed
him. Thereupon the Buddha consoles him “in a voice that resounded
like distant thunder” and adds that Śāriputra was not omniscient.
The Buddha himself then brings the man back to the monastery and
relates before all the monks the karma, which was a good act
whereby the man had acquired right to emancipation. Once upon a
time in his previous birth this person was a poor man who was
wandering in a hill forest to collect wood, when a tiger rushed at
him. Filled with terror he cried out “adoration to the Buddha”. On
account of these words the man must partake of deliverance from
sorrow. The Buddha himself initiated him and presently he became
an Arhat.