On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c20.5

v2.c20.5

By the side of this tope, the pilgrim tells us, was another one in front of which a stone pillar had been erected where the Buddha Kāśyapa had sat in meditation, and beside it was a place with vestiges of the sites used for sitting and exercise by the Four Past Buddhas. From this, the narrative proceeds, going east across the Mo-ha river you come to a stone pillar in a large wood. It was here that the Tirthika Yü-t'ou-lan tzŭ (that is, Udra-rāma-putra) went into Samādhi and uttered his wicked vow. This man, the pilgrim explains, had led a life of ascetic seclusion in this "religious wood", and had attained supernormal powers. He was greatly reverenced by the king of Magadha, who invited him into the palace for his midday meal, and waited on him personally. When the king went away for a time he entrusted one of his daughters with the duty of attending to the holy man, and she was careful to carry out her father's desires. As she prepared a seat for the Tirthika, however, she came in contact with him, and he thereupon felt the stirrings of desire and lost his spiritual powers. Pretending to the princess that he was about to return to his hermitage, not through the air as he had always done before, but on foot for the benefit of the people, he walked to this wood. Here he tried to go into samādhi, but the chattering of the birds and the brawling (B. gambols) of the watery tribes when he went to the tank, distracted his mind and spoiled his spiritual exercises. So he became enraged, and made a vow to return into the world as a fierce animal with the body of a gigantic wild cat and the wings of a bird. His passion now gradually abated, and he regained the power of samādhi; soon afterwards he died and went to Heaven where he is to remain for 80000 kalpas. At the end of that period, according to Buddha's prediction, he is to realize his old evil desire, and there is no period fixed for his release from this bad state of existence.