The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology c6.s1.14

c6.s1.14

XXIII. But, as I have told you, it is especially when the Bodhisattva is born again as a Kshatriya that his acts foretell the great renunciation of which he is to offer a perfect model in the course of his last existence. Once, at a time when human life was exceedingly long, he renounces the throne and the world from the moment of the appearance of his first white hair (*Jât.* 9). His barber is ordered to show it to him as soon as he perceives it : and it is for that reason that, on pl. VI, 6, he interrupts the combing of his master’s long hair. King Makhâdêva, although he still has 84.000 years to live, abdicates at once in favour of his son — apparently the third person in the scene — and retires to lead in his own park of mango-trees the ascetic life.