經律異相 8.58

8.58

Countless kalpas ago in the past, there was a Buddha named Sarvatāra, who went begging for alms together with his retinue. There were three sons of elders who, splendidly attired, were playing together. Seeing the Buddha and the bodhisattvas with their majestic light, they pointed with their hands to one another and said, "We should make an offering together." Two boys answered, "Since we have neither flowers nor incense, what should we use?" One boy took off a white pearl from his head and placed it in his hand, whereupon he said to the two boys, "We can use this to make an offering to the Buddha." The other two boys followed his example, took off the white pearls from their heads, placed them in their hands, and then went to the Buddha's place. The one boy then asked the other two, "Using this merit, what do you seek?" One boy said, "I vow to become like the venerable monk on the Buddha's right side." The other boy said, "I vow to become like the monk of supernatural powers on his left side." They jointly asked the first boy, who replied, "I wish to become like the Buddha." Eight thousand sons of the gods all said, "Excellent! If it is as you say, all above heaven and below heaven will receive your grace." When the three little boys arrived before the Buddha, each scattered his white pearl over the Buddha. For the two boys who gave rise to the aspiration for the śrāvaka [vehicle], their pearls rested on the Buddha's shoulders. For the one boy who generated the bodhicitta, his pearl rested above the Buddha's head and transformed into a canopy of pearl-flowers and intertwined dew, within which was a Buddha. The Buddha told Śāriputra: "The boy in the middle was myself; the boy on the right was you, Śāriputra; and the boy on the left was Maudgalyāyana. Śāriputra, because you originally feared birth and death, you did not generate the bodhisattva mind and wished for a swift nirvāṇa. Behold this one boy who gave rise to anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhi!" (From the Ajātaśatru-rāja-sūtra, fascicle 1).