A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s5.167

v2.c19.s5.167

The poem Anāgatavaṃsa,² "the History of the Future One," *i.e.*, the future Buddha, is, as regards its contents, a sequel to the Buddhavamsa, the story of the past Buddhas, and perhaps belongs to an earlier period. The earliest description of the paradise of the future Buddha Metteyya, where human beings will attain to the mature age of 80,000 years, and where the maidens will be marriageable at the age of 500, when India will be teeming with human beings, like a poultry-yard swarming with fowls, etc., is already to be found in the Dīghanikāya (No. 26). The Anāgatavaṃsa gives a more detailed treatment of this Metteyya and his contemporary, the Cakravartin world-ruler Saṅkha, in the form of a prophecy which is made to issue from the lips of Gotama Buddha.¹