The History of Buddhist Thought c26.9

c26.9

When the sūtra opens Buddha was just coming out of the palace of the nāgas beneath the ocean, where he had been preaching for a week. He looked at Lankā and smiled, for he remembered that previous Buddha’s had taught the doctrine there. Rāvaṇa, being inspired by the power of Buddha, invited him to come and teach the doctrine of inner perception and the real existence of mind (*citta*). Buddha then went to Lankā in Rāvaṇa’s chariot, and he and his attendant bodhisattvas were adorned by yaksha girls and boys with necklaces of pearls and gems. He created other mountain peaks, on which he himself with Rāvaṇa was seen. Suddenly they all vanished, and Rāvaṇa found himself alone. He had a sudden revulsion of feeling (*parāvṛtti*), and realized that what he perceived was only his own mind. Then through his former roots of goodness he was able to understand all treatises, and with his yoga power he could see things as they really are. He heard a voice from the sky saying, “it is to be known through the inner self,” and Buddha explained to him that thus was the way of training. It is the way of the yogis, the sons of Buddha, i.e. the bodhisattvas, who advance beyond the views and attainments of disciples, pratyekabuddhas, and heretics. This is the realization of the great yogis, who crush the doctrines of others, who destroy evil heresies, who are skilled in rejecting the heresy of a self and in producing a revulsion of mind by means of higher understanding.