Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v1.c9.1533

v1.c9.1533

Mention is made of several temptations of the Buddha while he dwelt at Uruvelā, apart from the supreme contest with Māra, under the Bodhitree. Once Māra came to him in the darkness of the night in the guise of a terrifying elephant, trying to frighten him. On another dark night when the rain was falling drop by drop, Māra came to the Buddha and assumed various wondrous shapes, beautiful and ugly. Another time Māra tried to fill the Buddha’s mind with doubt as to whether he had really broken away from all fetters and won complete Enlightenment.⁹ Seven years after the Buddha’s Renunciation, Māra made one more attempt to make the Buddha discontented with his lonely lot and it was then, when Māra had gone away discomfited, that Māra’s three daughters, Taṇhā, Rati and Ragā, made a final effort to draw the Buddha away from his purpose.¹⁰ It was at Uruvelā, too, that the Buddha had misgivings in his own mind as to the usefulness of preaching the Doctrine which he had realised, to a world blinded by passions and prejudices. The Brahmā Sahampati thereupon entreated the Buddha not to give way to such diffidence.¹¹ It is recorded that either on this very occasion or quite soon after, the thought arose in the Buddha’s mind that the sole method of winning Nibbāna was to cultivate the four satipaṭṭhānas and that Sahampati visited the Blessed One and confirmed his view.¹² A different version occurs elsewhere,¹³ where the thought which arose in the Buddha’s mind referred to the five controlling faculties (saddhindriya, etc.), and Brahmā tells the Buddha that in the time of Kassapa he had been a monk named Sahaka and that then he had practised these five faculties.