O
utside the gates, Mara, the Spirit of Evil, barred his way and tried to deter Prince Siddhattha
from leaving to seek Enlightenment in the solitude of the wilderness. The prince wanted to take one last look at the city of Kapilavatthu but thought he should resist such a desire, whereupon the whole earth turned, like a potter’s wheel, before his eyes. In a single day the prince passed through three kingdoms and came to the great river Anoma, some thirty yojana, or leagues, distant from his father’s palace. The prince crossed the river with one leap of his horse and dismounted on its bank of silvery sand. Then, taking his long topknot of hair in his left hand and his sword in his right, the Bodhisatta cut off his hair with one stroke. Casting it upward, he said, “If I am truly to become a Buddha, let this hair ascend into the sky, and, if not, let it fall to the ground,” and the hair was caught by the god Sakka in a gold-flowered casket and enshrined in Tavatimsa heaven. At that time the Brahma named Ghatikara appeared and offered to the Bodhisatta the eight things necessary for a monk (the three robes, an alms bowl, a razor, a needle, a water strainer, and a girdle). The Bodhisatta put on the robes of a monk and ordered Channa and the horse to return to the palace. Kanthaka the horse was so distressed to be sent back that he died of grief on the spot, and Channa, sobbing, set out alone to give news of the prince to his family.
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