Note 5 — V. SUDHANA AVADĀNA.1

When eight or nine months had gone by, a boy was born of noble form and lovely aspect, fair and gleaming like unto gold in colour, with a head like a canopy, long arms, a brow of great width, interlacing eyebrows, a high-arched nose, and provided with the full complement of limbs and joints. When the joy-drum was beaten at the birth, the king heard it, and asked what that meant. His wives said, “Be of good cheer, your majesty; unto thee a son is born.” Thereupon the king ordered all stones, gravel, and rubble to be cast forth from the city, the streets to be swept and sprinkled with sandal-water, standards and banners to be set up, extremely fragrant incense to be provided, flowers to be strewed, as though he had been delighted by various dreams, gifts to be bestowed upon the Śramaṇas, the Brahmans, the poor and the needy, and freedom to be given to all prisoners. After thrice seven days, on the twenty-first day, he appointed a great birth-feast. When the question was raised as to what name should be given to the boy, the ministers said, “As this boy is the son of King Dhana, he must be named Sudhana;” and so the name of Sudhana was given to him. The boy Sudhana was handed over to eight nurses, two to carry him, two to suckle him, two to cleanse him, and two to play with him. As these eight nurses fed him and brought him up on milk, both sweet and curdled, on butter, both fresh and clarified, on butter-foam,5 and on the best of other things, he shot up rapidly like a lotus in a tank. By the time he was grown up he was acquainted with reading and writing, expert at the eight testings and distinguishings, and adroit in his manners; and he was skilled in the five arts, like a king who, coming of the Kshatriya caste and wearing the crown, zealously exercises over men power and might, and, if he rules over this orb, ought to be versed in the various divisions of knowledge and action, as was above mentioned.