No budistu dzīvesstāstiem:

The great India scholar-monk Asanga from the 5th century CE had been meditating in a cave for 12 years, unsuccessfully, in order to gain a vision of the Bodhisattva Maitreya, the future Buddha and the embodiment of loving kindness. One day he saw a stray dog afflicted with maggot infested sores. Fearing that pulling the maggots off the dog would harm them, he expended great effort to coax them off the sore and onto his tongue where they could feed on his own flesh. At this point, both the dog and the maggots disappeared, and a full and splendorous image of Maitreya appeared where the dog had once been.