104. The four Guardians of tIm world offer a bowl

Then thought theTathagata: ' It would not be right for me to take this with my hands. In what way did former Tathagata's, who had achieved perfect Wisdom, accept it ? ". "In a bowl" he remembered. Then, having noticed that it was time for the Tathagata to partake of food, the four Great Kings came from the four points of the compass with four golden bowls and offered them to the Tathagata: '`Bhagavan, accept these golden bowls out of friendliness to us." But the Tathagata, considering that these were not suitable for a graman. a, would not accept them. The same with four silver bowls etc. Then thought the Tathagata "In what kind of bowl was it received by the former Tathagata's, the arhat's who had attained perfect Wisdom?" "In stone bowls" he remembered.

The four Great Kings, each with his followers round trim, offs red these bowls filled with divine flowers to the Tathagata. Then he thought: "These four Great Kings, devout and pure, offer me four stone bowls, yet I can not make use of four. If I take one from one of them, the other three would be displeased. Therefore I shall take the. four and make them into one." Then the Tathagata accepted the bowls from the Great Kings Vaicravana, Dhrtaras.tra, Virudhaka and VirupakSa out of friendliness and made them into one, by the power of his friendly disposition. (382: 15; 383: 5, 18,21 ;384: 10, 15,20;385:3).

On each side of the Buddha who sits in varada-mudra on a plain throne under the tree, stand two Guardians of the world, each with his stone bowl in the hand; this is the usual arrangement for this scene also in Gandhara 1), where as was mentioned, the offering of the bowls is often substituted for the attainment of the Buddha-ship. There is still more public present, sitting right and left, with some trees in the background. Among the much-damaged group on the left, probably the gods here also present, one strangely enough is holding a fifth bowl. The persons on the right with plain headdress will be the merchants, two of them ready with a dish of food.