ལས་བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་པ 25.3

25.3

parasols, banners, and flags, amid a crashing of cymbals; that he had set out from Ṛṣivadana; and that he had greeted the totally and completely awakened Buddha Kāśyapa with great opulence and invited him to Vārāṇasī. After hearing all this, because he was so upset before, he sat at a distance and looked on, not wishing to approach.

“The totally and completely awakened Buddha focused his mind and, extending his arm like an elephant’s trunk, grasped him and drew him near, saying, ‘Aśoka, why don’t you wish to come meet me?’

“ ‘You promised that wherever you went, you would bring me with you,’ he replied. ‘But even after your promise, you departed alone for a forest devoted to austerities. I didn’t come because I was so upset before.’

“The totally and completely awakened Buddha Kāśyapa explained, ‘It was in reference to my passing into nirvāṇa that I spoke thus. Now the time has come to keep my promise. What use would it have been if you had already gone to nirvāṇa?’¹⁷⁰

“ ‘Lord,’ Aśoka said, ‘if permitted I wish to go forth in the Dharma and Vinaya so well spoken, complete my novitiate, and achieve full ordination. In the presence of the Blessed One, I too wish to practice the holy life.”

“With the words ‘Come, join me, monk!’ the totally and completely awakened Buddha Kāśyapa led him to go forth as a novice, conferred on him full ordination, and instructed him. But as he pondered the instructions, he became lazy, and merely lay about. Then, when the totally and completely awakened Buddha Kāśyapa spoke in praise of solitude, he took it to heart and went into solitude.

“While he was staying there, the totally and completely awakened Buddha Kāśyapa carried out all the activities of a buddha and took to his final bed. Thereupon the gods proclaimed to all, ‘This very night, in the middle of the night, the totally and completely awakened Buddha Kāśyapa will pass beyond all sorrow into the realm of nirvāṇa without any remainder of the aggregates.’