Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c6.s2.6

c6.s2.6

In the Mahāpadāna Suttanta¹ of the Dīgha Nikāya we have in the fullest and most categorical form the declaration of the transcendental character of the Buddha. He is no mere mortal reformer, but a sage whose divine insight enables him to pierce back to the ninety-first Aeon ago when the Buddha Vipassin came to earth to be followed in the thirty-first Aeon by Sikhin and Vessabhu, and in this Aeon by Kakusandha, Koṇāgamana,² and Kassapa, and finally by Gotama himself. Theirs is no mortal birth; they descend in full consciousness amid surpassing radiance throughout the universe into their mother's womb, in which they abide in happiness, completely visible to their mothers for ten months before birth. At birth gods receive them, streams of water fall to bathe them, they stride seven paces proclaiming their pre-eminence, the worlds are illuminated; their mothers bear them standing and without defilement, but die on the seventh day. The infants bear already the marvellous marks, thirty-two in number, which mark them out as Great Males, destined either to become Emperors of the World or Buddhas, the flat feet, the dustless skin, the long tongue, the mole between the eyebrows, and the turban-like protuberance on the head. Each passes through the same stages of worldly life, of enlightenment, of teaching and attainment of Nirvāṇa. No two Buddhas can coexist, and it is the privilege of the Buddha to extend his life to the full length of an Aeon; shame on Ānanda who in heedlessness failed to accept the hint repeatedly pressed upon him by Gotama, and to beg his master to exercise this power, instead of passing away at the age of eighty, like a mere man.³ Gotama's adversaries are much more than human; the legend of the varied temptations by Māra,⁴ the god of death or the desire which leads to death, is not to be explained away as metaphorical or the fruit of a poetic fancy; to the Buddha himself as to his followers we may easily believe the experience was as real as anything else in the world; does not our own age suffer from the puerilities of spiritualistic phenomena of far inferior order? The divine nature reveals itself again in the transfiguration of the Buddha’s colour on the night in which he attains supreme insight and on that on which he passes away, and in the earthquakes which mark the various stages in a Buddha’s career.¹ His powers include that of assuming diverse forms at pleasure; he can discourse to assemblies of nobles, Brahmins, householders, and wanderers and to the hosts of the Guardian Gods, the Thirty-Three Gods, of the Māras, and the Brahmās, and none of these can say who indeed he was.² The Buddha is the first of beings, lord and controller of the whole world and those that are within it, Māra, Brahmā, men and gods, ascetics and Brahmins.³ At his mere word the demon of the eclipse, Rāhu, slinks away, releasing the moon which had appealed to the Buddha for safety.⁴ The great voice of the Buddha penetrates countless universes, and he rebukes the graceless Udāyin when he mocks Ānanda for the awe which this peculiarity in the master inspired.⁵ The Milindapañha⁶ frankly styles him the sovereign god of gods (devātideva), and the Canon makes a simple Arhant above the gods (atidevapatta). Significant is the Buddha’s reply to the Brahmin Doṇa, who had viewed with amazement the thousand-spoked wheels which adorn the feet of the Blessed One. Questioned as to his identity he denies that he is god, or Gandharva or Yakṣa⁷ or man; like a lotus born in the water which rears its head above the water and is no longer defiled by the water, he has left the world and its defilements, and is a Buddha.⁸ Gotama in fact neither has the appearance of a man, nor will he admit that he is a man. If he dies, he does so voluntarily, laying aside the possibility of prolonging his life; miracles mark his death and his funeral, and his relics form forthwith the object of eager veneration.