[XIV. Entry into the City]
[The Questions]
16-28 ≠ Mhv 11-23
Then the men who had come with him surrounded them and he showed the rest of his friends, the Great Elders. Seeing them the King said: “When did these come?”
“They came with me,” said the Elder, and again the King asked this: “Are there other strivers like these in the Rose-Apple Island?”
He said: “The Rose-Apple Island shines with the dyed robe, moreover, in that place there are those with the Three Knowledges, psychic powers, skill in mind-reading, Worthy Ones with Divine Hearing, and many disciples of the Awakened One.”
He asked: “By what means did you come?”
“Neither by land nor by water did we come,” he said, so he understood: ‘They came through the air.’
Enquiring, the One with Great Wisdom asked him a wisdom question, and one question after another the Lord of the World answered in this way and that:
“This tree, King, what is its name?”
“The name of this tree is mango.”
“Aside from this, are there other mangoes?”
“There are many mango trees.”
“Aside from this mango and those mangoes, are there other trees?”
“Venerable Sir, there are many other trees, and those trees are not mangoes.”
“Aside from those mangoes and those not mangoes, are there other trees?”
“There is this mango tree, venerable Sir,”
“Lord of Men, you are wise!
Do you have relatives, King?”
“There are many, venerable Sir,”
“Are there others who are not relatives, King?”
“There are many who are not relatives,”
“Aside from these and the others, is there anyone else?”
“There would be myself,”
“It is good!” he said.
Having understood: ‘He is wise,’ the Elder taught the very wise Lord of the World the Short Discourse on the Simile of the Elephant’s Foot. MN 27. About others who come to refute the teaching of the Buddha, but end up as his disciples; and the gradual Path leading to Awakening At the end of the Teaching, together with forty-thousand of his men, he established him in the Refuges and Precepts.