Kālinga, king of Dantapura, anxious to make a fight, sent his four daughters of surpassing beauty into every kingdom, offering them to any man who would fight him for them. Assaka, king of Potali, with the advice of his minister Nandisena, accepted the challenge. Kālinga thereupon came with his mighty army, and the Bodhisattva who was an ascetic declared, after consultation with Sakka, that victory would be his. But Nandisena, undaunted, instructed Assaka as to how he should kill the tutelary deity of Kālinga when this deity, in the guise of a white bull, should appear on the battlefield. Nandisena led the attack of the soldiers, the white bull was killed and Kālinga defeated. He had to provide dowries for his daughters, and thenceforth the two kings lived as friends.

The story was related in reference to Sāriputta who is identified with Nandisena. Two Jains, a man and a woman, each versed in five hundred theses, met in Vesāli and the Licchavis arranged a marriage between them. They had one son, Saccaka, and four daughters, Saccā, Lolā, Avavādakā and Patācarā. After the death of their parents, the girls wandered from city to city for purposes of disputation. They came at last to Sāvatthi, where they set up at the city gate a jambu-tree, to be pulled up by anyone accepting their challenge to a discussion. Sāriputta, seeing the branch, had it removed, and when the girls came to him with a great crowd of people, answered all their questions and defeated them in debate. There-upon they entered the Order under Uppalavannā, and the fame of Sāriputta increased. J.iii.1ff


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