釋氏要覽 1.19

1.19

A sūtra states: Formerly there was a wheel-turning king named Mahāsammata. Descendants succeeded one another, totaling 84,000 kings. The last king was named Great Thatch Grass. In his advanced age he had no son, so he entrusted the government to his great ministers, shaved his hair himself, and undertook pravrajyā. The multitude called him the Royal Ṛṣi. Being extremely old, he was unable to walk. When his disciples went out to beg for food at that time, they placed the Royal Ṛṣi in a grass basket and hung it from a tree, fearing harm from tigers and wolves. A hunter saw him from afar, thought he was a white bird, shot him, and killed him, his blood dripping onto the ground. The disciples returned, saw that their master had been murdered, and buried the corpse together. Later, at the place where his blood had dripped, two stalks of sugarcane suddenly sprouted. Warmed and split open by the sun, one produced a boy and the other produced a girl. The ministers heard of this, welcomed them back to the palace, and raised them to adulthood. Because they were of royal stock, they established [the boy] as king. The clan was named Ikṣvāku, which was the beginning. (Or in Sanskrit, Gautama or Gautamī; both surnames mean 'Supreme' in Chinese. A commentary on the sūtra's sounds says: 'Both are of King Sugarcane's lineage.' The Nyāyānusāra states: 'The Gautama lineage was born from sunlight.')