經律異相 4.4

4.4

In the distant past, during countless kalpas, when the Tathāgata was practicing the bodhisattva path, he was the king of a great country. After his parents passed away, he yielded the kingdom to his younger brother and went forth alone to seek the Way. Meeting a brāhmaṇa whose clan name was Gautama, he received instruction from him and consequently adopted the same clan name. He entered deep into the mountains to practice dhyāna contemplation and reflect on the Way. When he returned to the kingdom to beg for food, the people of the country did not recognize him and called him the Lesser Gautama. Outside the city walls, in a sugarcane grove, he established a monastery. Five hundred great thieves, having looted the royal treasury, fled past the garden. The next day, tracking their footprints, [the authorities] arrested the Bodhisattva. Piercing his body with a wooden stake, they stood him under a large tree, and his blood flowed onto the ground. The Greater Gautama flew there and asked, "What heinous crime did you commit to come to this?" An officer shot an arrow from a crossbow and killed him. The Greater Gautama wept, his tears moistening the coffin; taking the blood-soaked earth, he molded it into balls of clay, carried them back to the monastery, and placed them into two vessels on the left and right, saying: "If this man of the Way was utmost in sincerity, the heavenly gods shall cause the blood to transform into human beings." Ten months later, the vessel on the left became a boy, and the one on the right became a girl, with the clan name Gautama. The boy was named Sheyi. During the Bhadrakalpa, in the time of the Buddha Ratna, he was also called Śākya; this was he whose lifespan exceeded five million years. (Extracted from the Shier you jing)
When the Buddha was in the realm of Magadha, beneath the original auspicious tree at the auspicious bodhimanda, through the power of virtue he subdued Māra and delivered two merchants. He recalled: Dīpaṅkara Tathāgata conferred upon our Buddha his name, saying: "In a future age, after ninety-one kalpas, you shall become a Buddha, named Śākyamuni, complete with the ten epithets, just as I am now." From that time onward, I accumulated merit and piled up practice, cultivating without wearying the six perfections and the four immeasurables; my karmic rewards have been without omission, and my great vow has borne fruit. (Extracted from the upper fascicle of the Zhong benqi jing)