Page:History of India Vol 1.djvu/351

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BUDDHA'S RETURN TO HIS NATIVE TOWN
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duced to establish an order of female mendicants, she was one of the first to become a Buddhist nun. Gautama's son, Rahula, also became a convert later. The king, his grandfather, was much aggrieved at this, because the celibate tendencies of the religion threatened the royal line with extinction, and asked Gautama to establish a rule that no one should be admitted to the Order without his parents' consent. Gautama consented to this and made a rule accordingly.

On his way back to Rajagriha, Gautama stopped for some time at Anupiya, "a town belonging to the Mallas," and while he was stopping there, he made many converts both from the Koliyan and from the Sakya tribe, some of whom deserve special mention. Anuruddha, the Sakya, went to his mother and asked to be allowed to enter the houseless state. His mother did not know how to stop him, and so told him, "If, beloved Anuruddha, Bhaddiya, the Sakya Raja, will renounce the world, thou also mayest go forth into the houseless state."

Anuruddha accordingly went to Bhaddiya, and it was decided that they would embrace the Order in seven days. "So Bhaddiya, the Sakya Raja, and Anuruddha and Ananda and Bhagu and Kimbila and Devadatta, just as they had so often previously gone out to the pleasure-ground with fourfold array, even so did they now go out with fourfold array, and Upali the barber went with them, making seven in all.

"And when they had gone some distance, they sent their retinue back and crossed over to the neighbour-