Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v1.c6.3384

v1.c6.3384

Here is evidently a confusion of his story with that of Asita Devala. In the Mahāvastu version⁷ he is spoken of as the son of a brahmin of Ujjeni, and he lives in a hermitage in the Vindhyā mountains. It is noteworthy that in the Jātaka version he is called, not an isi, but a tāpasa, an ascetic practising austerities. And there we are told that when the king brought the boy, the future Buddha, and prepared to make him do reverence to the ascetic, the babe’s feet turned up and placed themselves on the ascetic’s head. For there is no one fit to be reverenced by a Bodhisatta, and had they put the babe’s head at the feet of the ascetic, the ascetic’s head would have split into seven pieces.