俱舍論頌疏論本 8.43

8.43

"Hell-beings, the gods, and intermediate existences have only apparitional birth": all hell-beings, gods, and intermediate existences have only apparitional birth. The ghost destiny is open only to the two births of womb and apparitional. As for ghosts born of the womb, it is as when the mother of hungry ghosts said to Maudgalyāyana: "At night I give birth to five sons, and as they are born I eat them all myself; in the daytime I also give birth to five, and although I eat them completely, I am never sated" (The explanation says: This is intended to indicate that there is womb-birth). The treatise says: "Among all births, which birth is the most supreme? It should be said that the most supreme is solely apparitional birth. If so, for what reason does a bodhisattva in their final existence, possessing mastery over rebirth, undergo womb-birth? Because seeing that undergoing womb-birth has great benefits: namely, to guide the vast family and relatives of the Śākya clan, taking this connection as the cause to lead them to enter the true Dharma; also to lead other classes of beings to know that the bodhisattva comes from a lineage of wheel-turning kings, so that they generate a mind of respect and longing, and through this are able to abandon heterodoxy and take refuge in the true Dharma; furthermore, to cause those to be converted to generate a superior mindset: 'Since he is a human being and can accomplish such a great matter, we are also like this; why can we not, by generating right effort, devote ourselves to practicing the true Dharma?'; again, if it were not so, his clan and lineage would be difficult to know, and people might suspect him of being a magical illusion, a deva, or a ghost, just as a tīrthika treatise slanderously concocted: 'After the passage of a hundred eons, a great illusion will appear in the world.' Therefore, he undergoes womb-birth to put an end to all doubts and slanders. Other masters say: 'To leave behind the corporeal relics (dhātu), he undergoes womb-birth, so that immeasurable humans and various different classes of beings, once raising offerings, may be reborn in heaven a thousand times and realize liberation. If he underwent apparitional birth, because there would be no external seed, as soon as the body perished, there would be no remaining form left, just as when the light of a lamp is extinguished, nothing further is seen' (The above is the text of the treatise. In Sanskrit it is dhātu, translated here as 'element', the corporeal relics of the Buddha; it is also called śarīra, translated here as 'body', the Buddha's physical remains. The old term sheli was an error. The rest may be known accordingly)."