When he said this, one of the mendicants said to the Buddha, “But sir, is it possible to give a simile?”

“It’s possible,” said the Buddha. “Suppose there was a king, a wheel-turning monarch who possessed seven treasures and four blessings, and experienced pleasure and happiness because of them.

What seven? It’s when, on the fifteenth day sabbath, an anointed aristocratic king has bathed his head and gone upstairs in the royal longhouse to observe the sabbath. And the heavenly wheel-treasure appears to him, with a thousand spokes, with rim and hub, complete in every detail. Seeing this, the king thinks, ‘I have heard that when the heavenly wheel-treasure appears to a king in this way, he becomes a wheel-turning monarch. Am I then a wheel-turning monarch?’

Then the anointed aristocratic king, taking a ceremonial vase in his left hand, besprinkled the wheel-treasure with his right hand, saying, ‘Roll forth, O wheel-treasure! Triumph, O wheel-treasure!’ Then the wheel-treasure rolls toward the east. And the king follows it together with his army of four divisions. In whatever place the wheel-treasure stands still, there the king comes to stay together with his army. And any opposing rulers of the eastern quarter come to the wheel-turning monarch and say, ‘Come, Great King! Welcome, Great King! We are yours, Great King, instruct us.’ The wheel-turning monarch says, ‘Do not kill living creatures. Do not steal. Do not commit sexual misconduct. Do not lie. Do not drink liquor. Maintain the current level of taxation.’ And so the opposing rulers of the eastern quarter become his vassals.