法苑珠林 76.11

76.11

Furthermore, the Scripture of the Hundred Avadānas says: There was the wife of an elder who was pregnant, and her body was foul and filthy, utterly unbearable to approach. When the full term arrived, she gave birth to a child whose frame was nothing but connected bones standing, emaciated and haggard, unbearable to look upon. Moreover, he was born coated in a great quantity of human excrement. As he gradually grew older, he had no desire to stay at home; lusting after and relishing excrement and filth, he refused to abandon it. His parents and relatives loathed him and did not wish to see him, driving him far from the house so that he could not approach. He then stayed outside, constantly eating excrement and filth. People, seeing him, accordingly gave him the name Kambala. Encountering the Buddha, he left the household life and attained the fruit of arhatship. This was because in a past lifetime, when a Buddha appeared in the world named Krakucchanda, he had left the household life to become a monastery director. There were donors who, having bathed the saṃgha of monks, further anointed their bodies with fragrant oil. There was an arhat; seeing him, the monastery director became angry and reviled him: 'You are a renunciant, yet you anoint your body with fragrant oil, just as if someone were smearing human excrement upon your body!' The arhat pitied him and manifested supernatural transformations for him. Seeing this, the monastery director repented, apologized, and prayed to eradicate his transgression. Because of this evil reviling, for five hundred lifetimes his body was constantly foul and filthy, unbearable to approach. Because he had formerly left the household life and repented to that arhat, he has now been able to encounter me, leave the household life, and attain the Way. Therefore, sentient beings should guard the karma of speech and not revile one another.