Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II — trans. T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys Davids (1910)

' I do remember, Five-crest. I was the High Steward of those days.1 I taught my disciples the way to communion with the Brahma world. But, Five-crest, that religious life did not conduce to detachment, to passionlessness, to cessation of craving, to peace, to understanding, to insight of the higher stages of the Path, to Nirvana, but only to rebirth in the Brahma-world. On the other hand my religious system, Five-crest, conduces wholly and solely to detachment, to passionlessness, to cessation of craving, to peace, to understanding, to insight of the higher stages of the Path, to Nirvana. And that is the Aryan Eightfold Path, to wit, right views, right intention, right speech, right, action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right rapture.

62. ' Those of my disciples, Five-crest, who in all points wholly understand my teaching, they from the

1 In spile of this express statement this legend of the High Steward does not appear in the canonical collection of Birth Stories. See Rhys Davids's ' Buddhist India,' p. 196, for other instances.

D. ii. 252. THE LORD HIGH STEWARD. 28 1

destruction of the Deadly Taints have by and for themselves understood, realized and attained to, even in this life, freedom from taint, liberty of heart, liberty of intellect. [252] Those who do not in all points wholly understand my teaching, some of them, in that they have broken away the five Fetters belonging to the Hither Side, are reborn without parents, where they will utterly pass away, being no more liable to return to this world. And some of them, in that they have broken away three [other] Fetters, and have worn down passion and hate and dulness, become Once- Returners, who after once returning to this world shall make an end of 111. And some of them, again, in that they have broken away those three Fetters, become Stream-Attainers, not liable to be reborn in any state of woe, but assured of attaining to the Insight. And so, Five-crest, of all, even all those persons, there is not one whose renunciation is vain or barren ; in each case it will have brought fruit and development' Thus spoke the Exalted One. And Five-crest of the Gandharva fairies was pleased at the word of the Exalted One, and in delight and gladness he saluted the Exalted One, and with the salutation of the right side he vanished from that place.

Here endeth the Story of the Lord High

Steward.

INTRODUCTION

TO THE

MAHA-SAMAYA suttanta

The method followed in this poem is nearly the same as in the two previous Suttantas, only here it is rather the minor gods, — the local deities, the personification of natural phenomena, guardian spirits, fairies, harpies, naiads, dryads, and many others — who are represented as themselves proclaiming their adherence to the new movement. Important gods are indeed incidentally mentioned ; and it is perhaps not without intention that great and small are here thrown together, as if Soma and Varu/^a and Brahma were really all of the same kind as the long list of spirits and fairies in which they appear *.

The poem is almost unreadable now. The long list of strange names awakes no interest. And it is somewhat pathetic to notice the hopeless struggle of the author to enliven his unmanageable material with a little poetry. It remains, save here and there, only doggrel still.