諸經要集 20.67

20.67

Furthermore, the Sūtra on Dispelling Calamities and Disasters states: The Buddha told Ānanda, 'In a past life during the time of Kāśyapa Buddha, when the human lifespan was twenty thousand years, after the Buddha’s deeds were completed, he relinquished his lifespan. At that time, there was a king named Good Neck (Subhakaṇṭha) who made offerings to the relics and erected a seven-jeweled stūpa one yojana high. All sentient beings lit lamps, burned incense, and made offerings and obeisance with fragrant flowers and patterned silks. At that time, a group of women wished to make offerings to the stūpa, so they led one another to sweep the ground of the stūpa. Then dog dung defiled the ground of the stūpa. One woman picked it up with her hand and discarded it. Another person saw her removing the dog dung from the ground with her hand, spat, and laughed at her, saying: “Your hand is already defiled; you may not come near again!” The woman retorted with an insult: “You wretched harlot! When I wash my hand with water, it will be clean again. The Buddha is the teacher of gods and humans; my reverence has no end.” Having removed the impurity with her hand, she washed her hands, circumambulated the stūpa, and made a vow: “May sweeping the stūpa grounds and removing the defilements cause the defilements of toil in my lifetimes to be eradicated, remaining pure and unstained.” The women who swept the ground of the stūpa at that time are the women now in this assembly. In sweeping the ground back then, they vowed to extinguish the dust of toil and partake of the taste of amṛta. The woman who removed the dog dung with her hand at that time is now Āmrapālī. Because she made the vow back then not to meet with defilement and to be born pure, by the karmic reward of this merit, she was not born from the foul womb, but was always born from a flower. And because back then she uttered one harsh word, scolding her as a harlot, she now received this name of harlot. Encountering the Buddha and hearing the Dharma, she attained the fruit of srotāpanna.'