t is
perhaps by some error of arrangement that after committing such
unpardonable crimes Devadatta is represented as still a member of the
order and endeavouring to provoke a schism by asking for stricter rules.
The attempt failed and according to later legends he died on the spot,
but the Vinaya merely says that hot blood gushed from his mouth.

That there are historical elements in this story is shown by the
narrative of Fa Hsien, the Chinese pilgrim who travelled in India about
400 A.D. He tells us that the followers of Devadatta still existed in
Kosala and revered the three previous Buddhas but refused to recognize
Gotama. This is interesting, for it seems to show that it was possible
to accept Gotama's doctrine, or the greater part of it, as something
independent of his personality and an inheritance from earlier teachers.

The Udana and Jataka relate another plot without specifying the year.
Some heretics induced a nun called Sundari to pretend she was the
Buddha's concubine and hired assassins to murder her. They then accused
the Bhikkhus of killing her to conceal their master's sin, but the real
assassins got drunk with the money they had received and revealed the
conspiracy in their cups.

But these are isolated cases. As a whole the Buddha's long career was
marked by a peace and friendliness which are surprising if we consider
what innovations his teaching contained. Though in contending that
priestly ceremonies were useless he refrained from neither direct
condemnation nor satire, yet he is not represented as actively
attacking[364] them and we may doubt if he forbade his lay disciples to
take part in rites and sacrifices as a modern missionary might do. We
find him sitting by the sacred fire of a Brahman[365] and discoursing,
but not denouncing the worship carried on in the place. When he
converted Siha[366], the general of the Licchavis, who had been a Jain,
he bade him continue to give food and gifts as before to the Jain monks
who frequented his house--an instance of toleration in a proselytizing
teacher which is perhaps without parallel. Similarly in the
Sigalovada-sutta it is laid down that a good man ministers to monks and
to Brahmans. If it is true that Ajatasattu countenanced Devadatta's
attempts to murder him, he ignored such disagreeable details with a
sublime indifference, for he continued to frequent Rajagaha, received
the king, and preached to him one of his finest sermons without alluding
to