經律異相 7.11

7.11

The Buddha returned to the kingdom of Kapilavastu. Mahāprajāpatī (in the language of Liang, 'Great Love') of the Gautama clan implored the Buddha to let her go forth, beseeching him thrice, but the Buddha did not grant it. She withdrew and stood outside the gate, clad in soiled and tattered robes, standing barefoot, weeping and sobbing bitterly. Ānanda asked, 'Why are you weeping?' She replied, 'Because women are not permitted to go forth, I am grieving for myself.' Ānanda stopped her and addressed the Buddha: 'I have heard from the Buddha that through diligence a woman can attain the four fruits. Now Mahāprajāpatī with sincere heart aspires and rejoices [in the Dharma].' The Buddha said, 'Do not cause women to enter my Dharma and Vinaya to become śramaṇas. For example, when a household has many women and few men, that family will surely decline and weaken. If women go forth, the pure religious life (brahmacarya) cannot long endure. Furthermore, it is like weeds mingling with grain crops, damaging the fine harvest; women entering the Dharma are just like this.' Ānanda said, 'Mahāprajāpatī has many wholesome intentions. When the Buddha was first born, she raised and nurtured him herself until he reached adulthood.' The Buddha said, 'She has much faith and wholesome intention, and has been benevolent to me. I too have been benevolent to Gautami. Through me, she has taken refuge in the Three Jewels, has no doubts regarding the Four Noble Truths, is established in the five faculties of faith, and upholds the five precepts. Even if someone were to offer their own body in worship, it would not equal this. If a woman wishes to become a śramaṇa, she must never transgress the Eight Rules of Respect (garudharmas), but practice them for the rest of her life. It is like holding back water by skillfully constructing dikes and ponds so that nothing leaks away. If she is capable of this, she may enter the Dharma and Vinaya.' Ānanda reported this fully to Gautami. Gautami rejoiced and was thus able to go forth, becoming a great nun (bhikṣuṇī). Upholding the Dharma and Vinaya, she eventually attained arhatship. Later, together with various elder nuns, she went to Ānanda's dwelling: '[We] have long cultivated the pure religious life and have already seen the Truths; how can it be that we must pay homage to young bhikṣus?' Ānanda addressed the Buddha. The Buddha said, 'Stop, stop, do not speak of this! Had women not gone forth, all the virtuous ones among the non-Buddhists and diverse practitioners would have made the four kinds of offerings, spreading their hair on the ground and bowing down to invite [the monks] to step on it. My True Dharma would have lasted a thousand years, but because women have been delivered, it will now last only five hundred.' Gautami heard this, rejoiced, and faithfully practiced it (from the *Sūtra of the Buddha Ascending to the Trāyastriṃśa Heaven to Preach the Dharma to His Mother*). Staying in the Royal Garden Vihāra, she was about to cast off her life and said, 'I cannot bear to see the world without the Tathāgata and the arhats passing into extinction. I shall first rest my spirit in original non-being.' The Buddha perceived this thought and told Ānanda. Ānanda's body grew limp, and his mind was so stifled that he lost awareness. The Buddha said, 'Do you think she will take away the fivefold Dharma body, the four bases of mindfulness, or the practice of the eightfold path?' He replied, 'No, but I only reflect that seven days after the Buddha was born, the queen mother died; as a loving mother, she showed great benevolence to the World-Honoured One.' The Buddha said, 'You speak of the great kindness of nursing, a grace difficult to repay. Yet I have revealed the way to her: she took refuge in the Three Honoured Ones, heard the truths of suffering, origination, and cessation, the eye of wisdom was illuminated in her, all fetters of existence were exhausted, and she attained the state of non-attachment. This benevolence surpasses even Mount Sumeru.' Gautami, together with five hundred nuns, arrived at the Buddha's dwelling. She fully stated her intention, rubbed the Buddha's feet with her hands, and said, 'From now on, I shall never again see the Supreme, Perfectly Awakened One.' She circumambulated the Buddha three times and returned to the vihāra. Together with the five hundred nuns, she displayed eighteen transformations, illuminating the heavens above, and entered nirvāṇa at the same time. The Buddha told Ānanda, 'Go into the city to the house of the lay practitioner (one who receives the precepts and stays at home is called a lay practitioner, that is, an upāsaka) Yayou, and tell him that the Buddha's mother and five hundred elders have passed into extinction.' At dawn Ānanda entered the city, came to the door of the lay practitioner, and recounted the matter in full. Those who heard it cried out in grief, threw themselves to the ground, and with tears in their eyes said, 'From now on we shall no longer look upon their spiritual powers—how deeply sorrowful!' Ānanda said, 'The Buddha said that although heaven and earth endure for long, what has a beginning must have an end. The three realms are impermanent, just like an illusion or a dream. To be born and seek not to die, to meet and hope never to part, can never be attained.' The mind of the lay practitioner became enlightened. [Ānanda] then went to the homes of various brahmacārin lay practitioners and said to them, 'The Buddha encourages you virtuous ones to prepare five hundred sets of funerary implements to offer to the five hundred nuns.' The brahmacārin lay practitioners prepared them and brought them into the vihāra. The inner gate of the vihāra was closed; they opened it by climbing in and were about to proceed to the lecture hall when a novice nun told them, 'My teacher has entered samādhi. Be careful not to disturb her.' They answered, 'She is dead, not in samādhi.' The novice threw herself to the ground and fainted; after a long while she revived, wailing and lamenting, 'Who will teach and transform us now? The holy instructions have been cut off!' The lay practitioner said to the novice, 'Though there is meeting through affection and love, there must ultimately be separation. You need only resolve your will and strive to attain arhatship.' When the cremation was completed, they held the relics and came to the Buddha's dwelling. The Buddha said to Ānanda, 'Face east, clasp your hands, kneel on your right knee, and say: "Let all those who possess upright faith, upright karma, the three knowledges, and the six spiritual powers, whose spiritual path is fully perfected, come here. The five hundred nuns have now all well-gone (attained nirvāṇa). It is fitting that a Dharma assembly be held."' The same was done in all four directions. From each of the four directions, two hundred and fifty arhats came flying. The Buddha told Ānanda, 'Fill a bowl with the relics and place it in my hands.' Ānanda handed it to the Buddha, who received it with both hands. He addressed the monks and the lay practitioners: 'This was originally a defiled body, foolish, violent, urgent, and wrathful, full of jealousy and deceit, undermining the path and destroying virtue. Yet they were able to eradicate folly and cruelty, carry out the conduct of a great man, attain the path of arhatship, and transfer their spirits to original non-being. How heroic indeed! We should together erect a shrine and make offerings.' All said, 'Indeed so.' (The Saṃyuktāgama states that she was the birth mother of Nanda. The Ekottarikāgama states: The Buddha told Ānanda and Rāhula, 'You all raise the lamentation; I shall tend to the remains myself.' Śakra Devānām Indra and Vaiśravaṇa said, 'May you not tire your spirit; we shall make the offerings.' The Buddha said, 'Stop, stop.' The Buddha himself, along with Nanda, went to the sandalwood grove, took fragrant wood with his own hands, and placed it upon her body, proclaiming, 'Four kinds of persons ought to have stūpas erected for offerings: first, Buddhas; second, pratyekabuddhas; third, arhats; fourth, wheel-turning sage kings—all because they transform living beings through the ten wholesome deeds.') Thereupon the four assemblies, devas, humans, nāgas, and spirits, each erected stūpas and shrines and made various offerings (from the *Sūtra on the Buddha's Mother Entering Nirvāṇa*).