1000 Buddhas of Genius. Victoria Charles

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      The importance afterwards attached to the accession of Gautama’s next convert is shown by the number of miraculous events which are said to have preceded it. Of these, the only possible historical basis is that in the solitudes of Uruwela there were three brothers named Kasyapa, fire worshippers and hermit philosophers, whose high reputation as teachers had attracted a considerable number of scholars. After Gautama had remained some time with them, the elder brother adopted his system, and at once took a principal place in the small body of believers. His brothers and their scholars followed his example; the first set discourse preached by Gautama to his new disciples is preserved in the Pitakas under the title Adittapariyaya Sutra (Sermon on the Lessons to be drawn from Burning).

      This Sutra affords an excellent example of the method so often adopted by Gautama of creating his new doctrines by putting a new meaning into the religious ceremonies of the time, or into the common occurrences of life. The new disciples, who had been worshippers of Agni, the sacred fire, were seated with Gautama on the Elephant Rock near Gaya, with the beautiful valley of Rajagriha stretched out before them, when a fire broke out in the jungle on the opposite hill. Taking the fire as his text, the Teacher declared that as long as men remained in ignorance they were consumed by a fire of the excitement produced within them by external things. These things acted upon them through the five senses and the heart (which Gautama regarded as a sixth organ of sense). The eye, for instance, perceives objects: from this perception arises an inward sensation, producing pleasure or pain. Sensations produce this misery and joy, because they supply fuel to the inward fires of lust, anger, and ignorance, and the anxieties of birth, decay, and death. The same was declared to be the case with the sensations produced by each of the other senses. Those who follow the Buddha’s scheme of inward self-control, the four stages of the Path whose gate is purity and whose goal is love, have become wise. For them, sensations no longer give fuel to the inward fire, since the fires of lust, anger, and ignorance have ceased to burn. These true disciples are thus free from that craving thirst which is the origin of evil, and the wisdom they have acquired will lead them on to perfection; they are delivered from the miseries which would result from another birth. Moreover, in this birth they no longer need the guidance of such laws as those of caste and ceremonies and sacrifice, for they have already reached far beyond them.

      81. Seated Buddhas, date unknown, Po Win Daung Caves, near Monywa, Burma.

      82. Gautama Buddha lying on his right side in the final repose of death, date unknown, Chayamangkalaram Temple, Malaysia.

      From Gaya, Gautama and his new disciples walked on towards Rajagriha. The city was still ruled by Bimbisara, the most powerful chieftain in the eastern valley of the Ganges, whose kingdom of Magadha extended about 160 kilometres south from the river Ganges, and 160 kilometres east from the river Sona. Both Gautama and Kasyapa were well known in the town, and when the raja came out to welcome the teachers, the crowd was uncertain which was the master and which the disciple. Gautama therefore asked Kasyapa why he had given up sacrificing to Agni. The latter saw the motive of the question, and replied that while some took pleasure in sights and sounds and taste and sensual love, and others in sacrifice, he had perceived that all these alike were worthless, and had given up sacrifices of any kind. Nirvana was a state of peace unattainable by men under the guidance of sense and passion, a rest destructive of transmigration, birth, decay, and death: a happy state to be reached by inward growth alone. Gautama is then said to have told the people a story about Kasyapa’s virtue in a former birth; seeing СКАЧАТЬ