English
the earth was split. A great cloud came over the forests and trees, but it could not even moisten the Bodhisatta's robe with a single dewdrop. Then he caused a rain of stones to arise. Great mountain peaks, smoking and blazing, came through the sky, and at the Bodhisatta's feet, they became balls of divine flowers. Then he caused a rain of weapons to arise. Single-edged, double-edged swords, daggers, razors, and the like, smoking and blazing, came through the sky, and reaching the Bodhisatta, they became divine flowers. Then he caused a rain of embers to arise. Embers the color of kiṃsuka flowers came through the sky, and at the Bodhisatta's feet, they became divine flowers and scattered. Then he caused a rain of hot ash to arise. Extremely hot, fire-colored hot ash came through the sky, and at the Bodhisatta's feet, it fell as divine sandalwood powder. Then he caused a rain of sand to arise. Extremely fine sand, smoking and blazing, came through the sky, and at the Bodhisatta's feet, it fell as divine flowers. Then he caused a rain of mud to arise. That rain of mud, smoking and blazing, came through the sky, and at the Bodhisatta's feet, it fell as divine ointment. Then, thinking, "I will frighten Siddhattha with this and make him flee," he caused darkness to arise. That darkness, like a great gloom endowed with four parts, reaching the Bodhisatta, vanished as if dispelled by the sun's radiance. Thus Māra, with these nine winds, rains, stones, weapons, embers, hot ash, sand... Unable to make the Bodhisatta flee with mud, mire, darkness, and rain, he commanded his assembly, "Hey, why do you stand? Seize this Prince Siddhattha! Strike him! Make him flee!" And he himself, seated on the elephant Girimekhalā, taking his discus weapon, approached the Bodhisatta and said, "Siddhattha, rise from this seat! This does not belong to you! It belongs to me!" The Great Being, hearing his words, said, "Māra, you have not fulfilled the ten perfections, nor the minor perfections, nor the supreme perfections. Nor have you made the five great sacrifices. Nor have you fulfilled the welfare of relatives, nor the welfare of the world, nor the welfare of the Buddhas. All those have been fulfilled by me alone. Therefore, this seat does not belong to you; it belongs to me alone." Māra, enraged, unable to bear the force of his anger, hurled the discus weapon at the Great Man. As he recollected the ten perfections, it became a canopy of garlands above him and remained there. That razor-edged discus weapon, when hurled in anger by him on other occasions, would cut through solid stone pillars like bamboo shoots. But now, with it standing as a canopy of garlands, the remaining Māra's retinue, thinking, "Now he will rise from the seat and flee!" hurled very large rock-pinnacles. Those too, as the Great Man recollected his perfections, became balls of garlands and fell to the ground. The devas, standing at the edge of the world-circle, stretching their necks, raising their heads, watched, thinking, "Alas, the excellent form of Prince Siddhattha is ruined! What will he do?" Then the Great Man said to Māra, who stood saying, "The seat attained on the day of enlightenment of Bodhisattas who have fulfilled the perfections belongs to me alone!" "Māra, who is the witness to your giving of alms?" Māra stretched out his hand towards Māra's army, saying, "These many people are witnesses!" At that moment, Māra's assembly shouted, "I am a witness! I am a witness!" The sound was like the sound of the earth's tremor. Then Māra said to the Great Being: "Siddhattha, who is witness to your giving of alms?" The Great Being said: "As for your giving of alms, conscious beings are witnesses. But for me, in this place, there is no conscious witness. Let alone the alms given in my other existences; but standing in the Vessantara existence, for my giving of the great seven-times-sevenfold gift, even the unconscious, solid great earth is witness!" So, drawing his right hand from beneath his robe, he stretched out his hand towards the great earth, saying: "In my Vessantara existence, for my giving of the great seven-times-sevenfold gift, are you witness or not?" The great earth "I am witness to your alms!" roared with a thousand roars, with a hundred thousand roars, as if overwhelming Māra's army. Then, as the Great Being reflected on the Vessantara gift, saying, "Siddhattha, the great gift you gave is the supreme gift," Girimekhalo the elephant, one and a half hundred yojanas tall, fell to his knees. Māra's retinue fled in all directions. Not two went by the same path. Abandoning their head ornaments and their clothes and ornaments, they fled in all directions, from where they stood. Then the assembly of deities, seeing Māra's army fleeing, (thought) "Māra's defeat has occurred. Prince Siddhattha's victory. We shall perform a victory offering!" So, sending messages to Nāgas, Supaṇṇas, deities, and Brahmās, they came to the Great Being at the Bodhi-seat, with perfumes and garlands in hand. And when they had thus come – "Victory indeed for the glorious Buddha, And defeat for Māra, the evil one; They proclaimed joyfully at the Bodhi-mandala, The Nāga hosts then, the great sages' victory. Victory indeed for the glorious Buddha, And defeat for Māra, the evil one; They proclaimed joyfully at the Bodhi-mandala, The Supaṇṇa hosts then, the great sages' victory. Victory indeed for the glorious Buddha, And for Māra's... and the defeat of the wicked one; They proclaimed at the Bodhi-mandala, delighted, The victory then of the great sage's divine hosts. This indeed is the victory of the glorious Buddha, And the defeat of Māra, the wicked one; They proclaimed at the Bodhi-mandala, delighted, The victory then of the Brahmā hosts, too, of such a one." In the remaining ten thousand world-systems, deities stood, worshipping with garlands, perfumes, and unguents, and uttering various praises. Thus, while the sun had not yet set, the Great Being, having dispersed Māra's army, and being worshipped as it were by the falling Bodhi tree sprouts, like red coral shoots, recollected the knowledge of past lives in the first watch of the night, purified the divine eye in the middle watch, and immersed himself in the knowledge of dependent origination in the last watch. Then, as he contemplated the twelve-linked chain of causation, in forward and reverse order, in terms of its arising and ceasing, the ten-thousand-world-system, making the ocean its boundary, trembled twelve times. It is said that the Great Being, having made the ten-thousand-world-system resound, attained omniscience at dawn. What remains to be said here should be understood by looking at those (texts). This is a brief explanation here. The Fortunate One, endowed with merit, complete with the merit of perfections like giving, or complete with the merit of perfections like giving, that Sugata, at the root of the excellent Bodhi tree, near the supreme Bodhi tree, having conquered Māra the king with his army, having vanquished him by the power of the merit of perfections, at dawn on the full moon of Vesakha, at the time of sunrise, attained Bodhi, which is called the knowledge of the path of Arahantship and omniscience, or penetrated it, or comprehended it. That Sugata, the conqueror of Māra, the vanquisher of the five Māras, the indestructible one whom Māra with his army or anyone else is unable to break, I salute. The commentary on the sixth verse of homage is concluded. 7. With the pure sword of knowledge that cuts lust and so forth, Holding the shield of mindfulness and right knowledge; Adorned with the ornament of the flood of virtue, I salute him, endowed with supreme supernormal powers. 7. Having thus praised the Sugata with the sixth verse, now, desiring to praise and worship him with four qualities such as the knowledge of the path of arahantship, he speaks the verse beginning with "rāgādi". This, however, is to be understood as an Upajāti verse, characterized by eleven syllables, due to the mixing of the characteristics of the Indavajira and Upendavajira verse pairs. For it is said in Vuttodaya: "If the feet are mixed with the characteristics described immediately before, they are Upajātis." Its meaning is: If the feet of that meter, which have the characteristics of the Indavajira and Upendavajira verses described immediately before, are mixed, those meters are called Upajātis. Here, in "rāgādichedāmala ñāṇakhaggaṃ", the division of words is "rāga-ādi-cheda amala-ñāṇa-khaggaṃ". The meaning is: the sword of knowledge of the path of arahantship, which cuts the defilements such as passion, and is stainless. Here is the verbal meaning: That which delights in forms and so on is passion (rāga). The root "ranj" is in the sense of passion. Those of which passion is the beginning are passions (rāgādayo), defilements. That which cuts them is the cutter of passions (rāgādichedaṃ), the knowledge of the path of arahantship. That which holds or supports impurity is impurity (malaṃ), such as passion. Or, that by which one is defiled is impurity. The root "mal" is in the sense of defilement, with "a". That which is free from impurity is stainless (amalaṃ), knowledge. That which knows and penetrates the four noble truths is knowledge (ñāṇaṃ), the knowledge of the path of arahantship. The cutting of passions, and the stainless, and that knowledge, is the stainless knowledge that cuts passions (rāgādichedāmalañāṇaṃ). Or, that by which one cuts trees and so on is a sword (khaggaṃ), a natural sword. Like a sword is a sword (khaggaṃ), knowledge. He who has the sword, which is the stainless knowledge that cuts passions, is the one with the sword of stainless knowledge that cuts passions (rāgādichedāmalañāṇakhaggo), the Buddha. The meaning is: he is endowed with the sword, which is the knowledge of the highest path, stainless, cutting the defilements such as passion. That (Buddha).