z:\ ambedkar\vol 011\vol11 08.indd MK SJ+YS 5 10 2013/YS 18 11 2013 535
THE MEETING OF THOSE NEAR AND DEAR
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§ 3. Last Meeting between Mother and Son and between Wife and Husband
Before their death Mahaprajapati and Yeshodhara met the Blessed Lord.
It was probably their last meeting with him.
Mahaprajapati went and first worshipped him.
She thanked him for having given her the happiness of the good doctrine, for her having been spiritually born through him: for the doctrine having grown in her through him; for her having suckled him, drinking the Dhamma-milk of him; for her having plunged in and crossed over the ocean of becoming through him—what a glorious thing it has been to be known as the mother of the Buddha !
And then she uttered her plea:—
“ I desire to die finally having put away this corpse. O sorrow-ender, permit me.”
Yeshodhara, addressing the Blessed Lord, said that she was in her seventy-eighth year. The Blessed Lord replied that he was in his eighties.
She told him that she was to die that very night. Her tone was more self-reliant than that of Mahaprajapati. She did not ask his permission to die nor did she go to him to seek him as her refuge.
On the contrary, she said to him ( me saranam atthano ) , “ I am my own refuge.”
She had conquered all the cankers in her life.
She came to thank him because it was he who had shown her the way and given her the power.
§ 4. Last Meeting between Father and Son
Once when the Lord was staying at Rajagraha in the bamboo grove Rahula was staying at Ambalathika.
The Blessed One arising towards eventide from his meditation went over to Rahula, who seeing the Lord some way off, set a seat for him and water to wash his feet.
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