Once upon a time, Brahmin Upasalhaka with his son lived at Rajagaha. At that period the Bodhisatta had been born in a brahmin family of Magadha; and when his education was finished, he embraced a religious life, cultivated the Faculties and the Attainments, and lived a long time in the region of Himalayas, plunged in mystic exaltation.

Once he left his hermitage on Vulture Peak to go buy salt and vinegar. While he was away, Brahmin Upasalhaka and his son went up the hill to find a proper place. They have spotted a place and as he was descending, with his son, he observed the Bodhisatta. He approached him, and told the Bodhisatta that they have spotted the place. The Bodhisatta said, “we’ll see whether this place which your father has shown you is contaminated or not,” and made them go with him up the hill again. The lad said, “The space between these three hills is pure.” “My lad,” the Bodhisatta replied, “there is no end to the people who have been burned in this very spot. Your own father, born a Brahmin, as now, in Rajagaha, and bearing the name of Upasalhaka, has been burnt on this hill in fourteen thousand births. On the whole of the earth, there’s not a spot to be found where a corpse has not been burnt, which has not been a cemetery, which has not been covered with skulls.” This he discerned by the faculty of knowing all previous lives: and then he said:-

“Fourteen thousand Upasalhas have been burnt upon spot,

Nor is there the wide world over any place where death is not .

“Where is kindness, truth, and justice, temperance and self control,

There no death can find an entrance; thither hies each saintly soul.”

When the Bodhisatta had thus discoursed to father and son, he cultivated the Four Excellences and went his way to Brahma’s heaven.