re monks residing. The families of
their people around supply the societies of these monks with an abundant
sufficiency of what they require, so that there is no lack or stint. The
disciplinary rules are strictly observed by them. The laws regulating
their demeanor in sitting, rising, and entering when the others are
assembled, are those which have been practised by all the saints since
Buddha was in the world down to the present day. The places of the four
great topes have been fixed, and handed down without break, since Buddha
attained to nirvana. Those four great topes are those at the places
where Buddha was born; where he attained to Wisdom; where he began to
move the wheel of his Law; and where he attained to pari-nirvana.

[Footnote 1: Called also Maha, or the Great Muchilinda. Eitel says: "A
naga king, the tutelary deity of a lake near which Sakyamuni once sat
for seven days absorbed in meditation, whilst the king guarded him." The
account in "The Life of the Buddha" is:--"Buddha went to where
lived the naga king Muchilinda, and he, wishing to preserve him from the
sun and rain, wrapped his body seven times round him, and spread out his
hood over his head; and there he remained seven days in thought."]

CHAPTER XXXII

~Legend of King Asoka in a Former Birth~

When king Asoka, in a former birth, was a little boy and playing on the
road, he met Kasyapa Buddha walking. The stranger begged food, and the
boy pleasantly took a handful of earth and gave it to him. The Buddha
took the earth, and returned it to the ground on which he was walking;
but because of this the boy received the recompense of becoming a king
of the iron wheel, to rule over Jambudvipa. Once when he was making a
judicial tour of inspection through Jambudvipa, he saw, between the iron
circuit of the two hills, a naraka for the punishment of wicked men.
Having thereupon asked his ministers what sort of a thing it was, they
replied, "It belongs to Yama, [1] king of demons, for punishing wicked
people." The king thought within himself:--"Even the king of demons is
able to make a naraka in which to deal with wicked men; why should not
I, who am the lord of men, make a naraka in which to deal with wicked
men?" He forthwith asked his ministers who could make for him a naraka
and preside over the punishment of wicked people in it. They replied
that it was only a man of extreme wickedness who could make it; and the
king thereupon sent officers to