Despite having achieved a highly realized level, Nagarjuna once was completely unable to stop an epidemic. Many people died. When he met his teacher Saraha again, the latter finally said, “You don’t have any compassion!”
Struck by such harsh words Nagarjuna could not understand what his teacher meant and apologized “I did everything you taught to me but my powers where not strong enough.”
“You don’t have any compassion”, Saraha repeated.
“But why not?”, Nagarjuna asked startled and confused.
“You forgot one thing to do.”
“Please tell me, what I forgot!”, Nagarjuna appealingly asked
“You forgot to call your teacher for help!”
That’s why Nagarjuna was given the task by his teacher to build many monasteries and pagodas. Because the task was so huge, he asked the nagas for support.
Later Nagarjuna connected his extended lifespan with one of his main sponsors, a local king, Udayibhadra. At one point the young prince Kumara Shaktiman approached Nagarjuna and told him, “You don’t have any compassion!”
Nagarjuna paled, shocked, having heard these sentences already twice from Saraha.
“Please explain, why in your opinion I don’t have any compassion?”
The prince replied, “Because you connected your and my father’s lifespan. That simply means, I will die before him, and I will never become king.”
“To strengthen my compassion, you have to kill me”, Nagarjuna proposed. “Then your father will die, and you’ll be the king.” The prince agreed and tried to kill Nagarjuna. He tried to stab him, poison him, drown him as well as other methods. Nothing worked. Angry and disappointed, the prince yelled at Nagarjuna, “You really don’t have any compassion! If you had compassion, you would tell me how I can kill you!”
Nagarjuna suggested to cut his throat with kusha grass (Buddha was sitting on kusha grass when he enlightened himself), this would definitely work. The prince did it as advised, Nagarjuna (and his sponsor) died and reached enlightenment in the moment of his death.
