ལས་བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་པ 1.15

1.15

keep their promises,” said Venerable Śāriputra. Having spoken thus, Venerable Śāriputra departed.

After nine or ten months had passed, the householder’s wife gave birth to a child who was well proportioned, pleasing to the eye, and beautiful, though his eyes were small. At the elaborate feast celebrating his birth they asked, “What name should we give this child?” And they named him, saying, “Since the child’s eyes are small, his name will be Little Eyes.”

They reared young Little Eyes on milk, yogurt, butter, ghee, and milk solids, and he flourished like a lotus in a lake. As he grew up he studied letters, tallying, and arithmetic; the study of seals, lending, deposits, and commerce;³¹ and the examination of cloth, jewels, gems, incense, medicine, elephants, horses, and arms and armor. He became skilled in writing, skilled at reading, learned, decisive, industrious, a master of the eight types of examination.

One day Venerable Śāriputra saw that the time had come for Little Eyes to go forth. In the morning he donned his lower garment and Dharma robes, and, carrying his alms bowl, he went for alms in Śrāvastī. As he went for alms, he eventually came to the householder’s home, and there sat on the seat prepared for him.

After he had taken his seat, Venerable Śāriputra reminded the householder, “Householder, before this child was born you granted him to me as an attendant. The virtuous keep their promises, do they not? Didn’t you yourself make such a promise?”

“Yes, noble one, I did make just such a promise,” the householder replied, and he took the child by his two hands, offered him to Venerable Śāriputra, and told him, “Child, before you were born, I offered you to the noble one.