In exchange for his life, the king, along with his ministers and the mayor Nagaraguttika, made a promise to provide the demon with the bodies of captured criminals as food.

It eventually came to pass that due to a shortage of criminals, each household in the vicinity was forced to sacrifice one child to satiate the demon.

Pregnant women fled the capital until twelve years later, the only child left was the king's own son Āṭavaka Kumāra.

The yakṣas Śatagiri and Haimavata were also on their way to the assembly in the Himalayas and became aware of the Buddha's presence by their inability to fly directly over him.

Āṭavaka's proposed a set of questions to the Buddha, claiming that if he was unable to answer, he would possess his mind, rip out his heart, or hurl him by the feet across the Ganges river.

Endowed with these four qualities,—truth, self-control, stamina, relinquishment (cāga)—a householder of conviction, on passing away, doesn’t grieve.

The Commentary (SnA.i.228) states that Āṭavaka's parents had prepared these questions and their answers from Kāśyapa Buddha and taught them to their son.

At dawn, the king's men arrived with the young prince prepared for sacrifice as food for Āṭavaka.

Upon learning of the demon's conversion, the king and the citizens of Āṭavī built for him a special residence near that of Vaiśravaṇa, where they provided him with gifts of flowers, scents, and more.

In East Asia, he is commonly known as 大元帥明王 (Chinese: Dàyuánshuài Míngwáng; Japanese: Daigensui Myōō; lit.

In ancient times, the Japanese Imperial Court held a ceremony from the eighth to fourteenth days of the first month called Taigen[sui] no hō (大元帥の法; lit.

[5] In January, 1945, several Shingon monks performed Goma rituals dedicated to Daigensui Myōō to curse the U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt.

[6] Below is a non-exhaustive list of temples and shrines at which Daigensui Myōō is enshrined: Several esoteric practices fall under Āṭavaka's jurisdiction and include several mantras and dhāraṇīs.

If he threw it up into the sky, no rain would fall for twelve years; if he let it fall on the earth, all plants and trees would die and nothing would grow for twelve years; if he threw it into the sea, the sea would completely dry up; it could make Sineru crumble into pieces.