Revata’s name means “constellation” because his parents also prayed to a constellation for their son’s birth. It also means “false unity”. Because he was poor and had no place to live, one night he stayed in an old abandoned shack. That night two ghosts came–a big one and a little one. The big one was twenty feet tall and the small one was two feet tall. They were grotesque as could be with green faces, red hair, huge mouths, pointed fangs, and facial features that were all scrunched up together.
They came in dragging a corpse and asked him, “Shall we eat this corpse or not?” What they meant was “If you tell us to eat the corpse, we will eat you. If you tell us not to eat the corpse, we won’t have anything to eat, and so we’ll have to eat you. They were obviously going to eat him no matter what he said, so he didn’t say anything.
The big ghost ripped off the corpse’s legs and the little ghost ripped off Revata’s legs and stuck them on the corpse. Then the ghost ate the corpse’s arms and the little ghost ripped off Revata’s arms and stuck them on the corpse. The big ghost ate the entire corpse and the little ghost replaced its parts, one by one, with parts of Revata’s body.
Revata panicked. “My body has been used to repair the corpse and so not I don’t have a body!” The next day, he ran frantically through town asking everyone he met, “Do I have a body? Please tell me!”
“What?” they said. They had no idea what he meant and supposed that he was insane. Then he met some High Masters. “Shramanas,” he asked, “Do I have a body?” Among the High Masters was a certified Arhat who knew that Revata had the potential to leave the home life.
“Your body is fundamentally false,” he said. “If you cultivate and certify to the fruit and obtain the bright light of your own nature, that is true. What difference then, would it make whether or not you have a body?”
“If that is the case,” said Revata, “then I shall leave the home life and follow you.” After he left home, he became enlightened.
Although he had been eaten by ghosts, he saw that his body was basically false. Therefore he took the name “false unity”, Revata.