After Shakyamuni left the palace for the life of religion, the royal family took great pleasure in the upbringing of Shakyamuni’s own son, Rahula, and of Nanda. When Nanda turned twenty, he acceded to the position of crown prince and would, it was believed, someday succeed to the throne of the aging Suddhodana. Simultaneous with the ceremony to mark his becoming crown prince, he was to marry Sundari, the most beautiful girl in the kingdom. As the wedding was about to take place, Shakyamuni went to beg food at the new home of these two young people. Nanda himself filled the beggar’s bowl with food. But when he went to the house entrance to return it, the Buddha was nowhere to be seen. Nanda thereupon prepared to go in search of him. When she heard Nanda’s footsteps, Sundari realized that he was going to find Shakyamuni and said, “Please come home before my makeup dries.”
But, having followed Shakyamuni to the Nigrodha Garden, Nanda peremptorily had his head shaved and abandoned the ordinary world for the life of religion. Because he joined the Order in this sudden, careless way, however, he did not have the true heart of faith. All he could think of was Sundari, whom he had left behind. He could not turn his thoughts to religious training. Although he waited for a chance to run away and join his beloved, no opportunity presented itself. He could take no part in the joys or the disciplines of the other members of the Order. Sundari was always on his mind, and he is even said to have made a picture of her for consolation.
All of this finally reached the ears of Shakyamuni, who used his mystical powers to transport himself and Nanda to the Himalayas. In a part of the mountains where there had been a fire sat a wounded, burned female monkey. Shakyamuni asked Nanda, “Who is more beautiful, this monkey or Sundari?”
“There can be no comparison between Sundari’s beauty and this wretched female monkey.”
Then Shakyamuni took him still higher in the Himalayas to the abode of the Thirty-three Devas. There he saw five hundred nymphs of unworldly loveliness playing and amusing themselves. They were all unmarried, and no men were in the place.
Shakyamuni asked, “Who is more beautiful, Sundari or these nymphs?”
“Just as there can be no comparison between the female monkey and Sundari, so there can be none between Sundari and these nymphs.”
“Then shall I see to it that these nymphs become yours?”
“If you would do that, I would devote myself entirely to religious training.”
Thereafter Nanda forgot Sundari and, thinking only of the nymphs who would someday be his, gave himself over to religious discipline. The other members of the Order were at first moved by the change in Nanda’s attitude. But when they learned that it had come about as a consequence of his desire to be reborn in heaven and possess the beautiful women, they regarded him as a hireling. They felt that devotion to religious training because of a wish to possess women was identical to working for money or to engaging in disciplines for the sake of profit. And that is not the way to conduct true Buddhist discipline.
Nanda found it hard to put up with the contempt he saw in the eyes of the people around him. But, after reflecting that the fault was his and that the shame was only his due, for the first time he experienced the true spirit of religion and began to dedicate himself to serious discipline along with the other members of the Order. In this way, he attained the enlightenment of an arhat and, it is said, requested the Buddha to dissolve the agreement they had made about the nymphs. (Page 91-93)
(See also this quote.)
The Beginnings of Buddhism
