Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.40

c8.40

How does the primitive Church narrate the history of the attainment of the knowledge which "maketh free?" What are the real facts of the occurrence as accepted by them? This, and only this, that Buddha, passing through a series of stages of esctasy, sitting under a tree through the three watches of a certain night, obtains the threefold sacred knowledge, that his soul becomes free from all sinful taint, and he becomes partaker of deliverance with a knowledge of his deliverance.* These purely theological elements far transcend in importance, in the opinion of the primitive Church, the struggle with Mâra; wherever in the sacred Pâli texts the attainment of Buddhahood is described, there is not a word spoken of Mâra.