[XIV. Entry into the City]
1-80 ≠ Mhv 1-65
[The Meeting]
1-15 ≠ Mhv 1-10
Over two hundred years after the Emancipation of the Perfectly Awakened One Mahinda established the Dispensation in this Island on the very day the root of the constellation of Jeṭṭha was reached. The King there had it proclaimed in the city, after assembling his ministers, saying: “Please proclaim a festival for us.”
King Devānampiyatissa, having given a water-sport for the city-dwellers, went for the sport of deer-hunting. While running on foot surrounded by forty-thousand of his men he came to mount Missaka.
The god of the mountain, wishing to show him the Elders in that place, took a form like an elk grazing in the thicket. The King, having seen him, thinking: ‘It is not proper to shoot one who is heedless,’ therefore struck his bow-string, and the elk ran to the top of Ambatthala, A plain in front of the Missika mountain, it means: Mango Plain, and perhaps gets its name from the discussion that follows. and pursuing from behind he also ascended the Ambatthala.
The King chased along, but he ran within the presence of the Elders, and with the Elders not so distant the elk himself vanished.
The Elder, thinking: ‘Seeing many people he will be afraid,’ determined: ‘Let the King see no-one other than myself,’ and having made the resolution, he showed himself immediately.
Seeing the King coming Mahinda came from afar and said: “Tissa, Tissa, come hence!” Having heard the word ‘Tissa’ the fearful King reflected: ‘Here in this island there is no man born, who, having taken it, is able to speak my name Tissa, The syntax here is very obscure. In the Mahāvaṁsa version he appears to call the name to calm him and let him know he is a friend. but this solitary shaveling, wearing his patchwork robe, a cloth died with yellow dye, called me by name Tissa. What is this: a human being or a non-human being?’
After understanding the sense of the King’s thoughts, the Elder said this: “We are ascetics, Great King, disciples of the King of the Dhamma. Having compassion on you, we have come here from the Rose-Apple Island.”
Having heard this statement of the Elder, he became without fear, and remembering his friend’s Presumably meaning Asoka. message he considered: ‘He is an ascetic’. Having put aside his bow and arrow he approached the Seer, and, greeting the Elder, he sat down in his presence.