ལས་བརྒྱ་ཐམ་པ་པ 6.9

6.9

king of the Śākyas, also commend me for my superlative efforts.’

“So it is, monks, now that I myself have become the very equal of the totally and completely awakened Buddha Kāśyapa—equal in strength, equal in deeds, and equal in skillful means—that she has pleased me, not displeased me, gone forth in my very doctrine, cast away all afflictive emotions, and manifested arhatship, and that I have now commended her for her superlative efforts.”

The Story of Lotus Color

Once when the Blessed One was in Śrāvastī, Venerable Upasena was making his way through the countryside in the country of Avanti, where in time he came to a mountainside hermitage.

Now at that time in the mountainside hermitage there lived a certain householder, prosperous and wealthy, a person of vast and magnificent means, endowed with the wealth of Vaiśravaṇa—with wealth to rival Vaiśravaṇa’s.

When the time came for him to marry he took a wife, and they enjoyed themselves and coupled. But even though they enjoyed themselves and coupled, they had no children. Head in hands, the householder sat and brooded, thinking, “My house may be filled with all kinds of riches, but seeing as I have no heir, after I die, all I have will become property of the king.”

The ascetics and brahmins, fortune tellers, his friends, his close family, and his other kin all told him, “You should supplicate a deity.” So, since he had no heir and desired a son, he supplicated the gods.

He prayed to Paśupati, Varuṇa, Kubera, Śakra, Brahmā, and the rest, and to the deities of the pleasure groves, the forest deities, the deities of the crossroads, the deities of forks in the road, the deities who receive strewn oblations, the deities of his inherited tradition, and the deities who are in constant attendance of righteous persons.