Nursing The Sick

Now at that time a certain monk was suffering from dysentery and lay where he had fallen in his own excrement. The Lord and Ananda were visiting the lodgings and they came to where the sick monk lay and the Lord asked him, ‘Monk, what is wrong with you.’ ‘I have dysentery, Lord.’
‘Is there no one to look after you?’
‘No, Lord.’
‘Then why is it that the other monks do not look after you?’
‘It is because I am of no use to them, Lord.’
Then the Lord said to Ananda, ‘Go and fetch water so we can wash this monk.’ So Ananda brought water and the Lord poured it out while Ananda washed the monk all over. Then taking the monk by the head and feet the Lord and Ananda together carried him and laid him on a bed. Later, the Lord called the monks together and asked them, ‘Why monks, did you not look after that sick monk?’
‘Because he was of no use to us, Lord’
‘Monks, you have no mother or father to look after you. If you do not look after each other who will? He who would nurse me, let him nurse the sick’ (Yo bhikkhave mam upatthaheyya so gilamam upatthaheyya, Vin.I,301).

This is well known incident in the life of the Buddha - at least today. But looking through the literature produced in Buddhist cultures over the last two thousand years - poems, biographies of the Buddha, anthologies of stories, hagiographies, guides to the monastic life, cosmological works etc. - I have been able to find only a single reference to it. I am very familiar with the sculpture, wall paintings and sculptures of India Thailand, Burma, Tibet, China and Sri Lanka which illustrate the life of the Buddha but I have never seen this incident depicted. Mingun Sayadaw’s monumental 2700 page biography of the Buddha mentions almost every conceivable incident in his life - but not this one. The famous and ever-popular Jayamangala Gatha which celebrates the Buddha’s good or miraculous deeds does not consider his nursing the sick monk to be significant. The only mention or depiction of this story that I know of in the traditional literature, sculpture or painting of Theravadin lands is in the Saddhammopayana, a 10th century poem from Sri Lanka. Verses 557 to 560 eulogize the Buddha’s compassion in nursing the sick monk and ask the reader to follow his example. These few words of heartfelt and practical kindness make the Saddhammopayana almost unique in the literature of Theravadin lands. There must be an explanation for this anomaly and one does not have to look far to find it. According to scholars, the Saddhammopayana was composed by a monk of the Abhayagirivasins, a sect that the Theravadins derided as heretics and dismissed as Mahayanists. So although the Saddhammopayana draws on material from the Pali Tipitaka it is not a Theravadin work. Why has the wonderful story of the Buddha and the sick monk – so human, so indicative of loving-kindness and compassion, so worthy of being held up as an example to be emulated – received almost no attention in Theravada?
Now in some things I like being proved wrong. Can anyone find me an example of Buddhist literature mentioning the incident of the Buddha washing the sick monk or a depiction of it. Both must predate 1850. If no one can, and I’m fairly certain no one will be able to, I hope it will prod my readers to give some thought to why the Buddhist tradition has ignored/suppresses/never noticed this incident and what this might tell us about Buddhism as it has been practiced.