So I have heard. At one time the Buddha was wandering in the land of the Kosalans together with a large Saṅgha of mendicants when he arrived at a town of the Kosalans named Daṇḍakappaka. The Buddha left the road and sat at the root of a tree on the seat spread out. The mendicants entered Daṇḍakappaka to look for a guest house.

Then Venerable Ānanda together with several mendicants went to the Aciravatī River to bathe. When he had bathed and emerged from the water he stood in one robe drying his limbs.

Then a certain mendicant went up to Venerable Ānanda, and said to him, “Reverend Ānanda, when the Buddha declared that Devadatta was going to a place of loss, to hell, there to remain for an eon, irredeemable, did he do so after wholeheartedly deliberating, or was this just a way of speaking?”

“You’re right, reverend, that’s how the Buddha declared it.”