A myth is a story, which had been made up in the past to explain natural events or to justify religious belief. Not only theistic religion, out also atheistic as Buddhism has a myth.
The Buddhism scriptures related that one day, the Buddha went out from the monastery where he was staying and walked towards a great forest. Seeing him going in that direction, various people working in their fields called out to warn him that in that forest dwelling the dread Angulimala.
Little is known for certain about Ahimsagha but the usual account for his life has him the son of a well - to - do family and at one time a brilliant student in the school of Tisapamoke at Taxila.
At the school, other students were jealous of him and succeeded in poisoning their teacher's mind against him, with the result that the teacher asked of him what he must have believed would be an impossible honorarium a thousand right - hand little fingers from human beings.
Unbelievably, instead of given up and slinking off home without graduating, Ahimsagha set out to collect those fingers and pay the fee. Presumably, he quickly discovered that the people were reluctant to willingly give up their little fingers so he was forced to resort to violence and killing in order to obtain them.
Then he found he had nowhere to store these fingers. He tried hanging them on a tree but the birds stole them, so his solution was to string them around his neck. For this gruesome and growing garland of bloody fingers he has nick - named Angulimala, meaning " fingers garland. "
This was the man who, peering out from his liar, spotted the Buddha coming towards him and who that had about his neck 999 little fingers. This powerful and athletic serial killer, who had already successfully resisted several attempts to apprehend him, grabbed this weapons and dash out to murder the Buddha and complete his score.
He expected to overtake his prey and finish the job quickly, but a very strange thing happened - even though the Buddha was only walking, serene and unhurried, Angulumala, despite his formidable strength and speed, found he couldn't catch up with him. Eventually, exhausted, angry, frustrated and dripping with sweat, Angulimala screamed at the Buddha stop.
Then The Buddha turn and, speaking quietly and directly, told Angulimala that he, the Buddha, had already stopped. He had stopping killing and harming and now it was time for him, Angulimala, to do likewise. Angulimala was so truck by these world that there and then he stopped, threw away his weapons and followed the Buddha back to the monastery where he become a monk.
Latter, the king, ignorant of what had happened, came by leading his troop out to arrest Angulimala. Being a very pious monarch, he called to pay his respects to the Buddha and to inform him of what he was up to discover that amongst this assembly of monk sat Angulimala.
To the king it was utterly unbelievable that such a foul and evil person could now be a Buddhist monk and seated amongst such exalted pay his respects and make offerings. Then the Buddha stretched forth his right hand and, pointing, announced that there sat Angulimala !
When he had master his fear and recovered from the shock, the king, having paid his respects, said to the Buddha how incredible it was that, " What we had tried to do by force and with the weapons, you have done with neither! "
In the course of time, after a period of some trial to himself, Angulimala did eventually succeed in purging his mind of all greed, hatred and delusion and realized the Buddhist goal of Enlightenment.
By THE BUDDHA'S Core Teachings
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