led by it as an evil." With this he grasped a knife, and was about
to kill himself. But he thought again:--"The World-honored one laid down
a prohibition against one's killing himself." [2] Further it occurred to
him:--"Yes, he did; but I now only wish to kill three poisonous
thieves." Immediately with the knife he cut his throat. With the first
gash into the flesh he attained the state of a Srotapanna; when he had
gone half through, he attained to be an Anagamin; and when he had cut
right through, he was an Arhat, and attained to pari-nirvana, and died.

[Footnote 1: A very great place in the annals of Buddhism. The Council
in the Srataparna cave did not come together fortuitously, but appears
to have been convoked by the older members to settle the rules and
doctrines of the order. The cave was prepared for the occasion by king
Ajatasatru.]

[Footnote 2: Buddha made a law forbidding the monks to commit suicide.
He prohibited any one from discoursing on the miseries of life in such a
manner as to cause desperation.]

CHAPTER XXXI

~Sakyamuni's Attaining to the Buddhaship~

From this place, after travelling to the west for four yojanas, the
pilgrims came to the city of Gaya; but inside the city all was emptiness
and desolation. Going on again to the south for twenty li, they arrived
at the place where the Bodhisattva for six years practised with himself
painful austerities. All around was forest.

Three li west from here they came to the place where, when Buddha had
gone into the water to bathe, a deva bent down the branch of a tree, by
means of which he succeeded in getting out of the pool.

Two li north from this was the place where the Gramika girls presented
to Buddha the rice-gruel made with milk; and two li north from this was
the place where, seated on a rock under a great tree, and facing the
east, he ate the gruel. The tree and the rock are there at the present
day. The rock may be six cubits in breadth and length, and rather more
than two cubits in height. In Central India the cold and heat are so
equally tempered that trees live for several thousand and even for ten
thousand years.

Half a yojana from this place to the northeast there was a cavern in the
rocks, into which the Bodhisattva entered, and sat cross-legged with his
face to the west. As he did so, he said to himself, "If I am to attain
to perfect wisdom and become Buddha, let there be a supernatural
attestation of it." On the wall o