法苑珠林 94.47

94.47

At that time there was a king named Sujātu, who made offerings to the śarīra and erected a seven-jeweled stūpa one yojana high. All sentient beings lit lamps, burned incense, and made offerings of fragrant flowers and silk banners in reverent worship. At that time, many women wished to make offerings to the stūpa, so they gathered together to sweep the grounds of the stūpa. At that time, there was dog excrement defiling the stūpa ground. One woman scooped it up with her hand and discarded it. Another person saw her removing the dog excrement from the ground with her hand, spat, and laughed at her, saying: 'Your hand is already defiled; you must not approach [the stūpa] again.' That woman retorted with an insult: 'You wicked, licentious creature! If I wash my hand with water, it will be clean again. My reverence for the Buddha, the Teacher of Gods and Men, is boundless.' Having removed the impurity with her hand, she washed her hands, circumambulated the stūpa, and made a vow: 'Now, by sweeping the stūpa ground so that defilement is removed, may the dust and defilement [of my afflictions] be extinguished and eradicated throughout all my lives, leaving me pure and undefiled.' The women who swept the stūpa ground at that time are the women in this present assembly. At that time, they swept the ground and vowed to extinguish worldly toil and drink the taste of ambrosia. The woman who removed the dog excrement with her hand at that time is the present courtesan Āmrapālī. At that time, she made a vow that she would not meet with defilement and would be born pure. By the karmic reward of this blessing, she was not born through the foul and stinking place of a womb, but was always born from a flower. Because at that time she uttered one evil word, reviling [the other] as a 'licentious woman', she now received the name of a courtesan. Because she met the Buddha and heard the Dharma, she attained the fruit of a srotāpanna.