大方便佛報恩經 5.19

5.19

The Buddha told Ānanda: “The prime minister at that time who could not bear to hear of King Mahāprabhāsa giving his head in charity and forthwith abandoned his own life was none other than Śāriputra today; King Mahāprabhāsa at that time was none other than myself, the Tathāgata Śākyamuni. It was because the Bodhisattva practised austerities in this way, vowing to remember the kindness of the Buddhas for the sake of sentient beings, that he transcended [all stages] and attained anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhi. For this reason, when Śāriputra heard that the Tathāgata wished to enter nirvāṇa, his eyes could not bear to see it, and he entered extinction first, no different from how it was originally. In past lifetimes he could not bear to see me cast away my body and life. In this back garden, under this single tree, I have given away the head of a cakravartin king a full thousand times, not to speak of other body parts, trunk, hands, and feet!”