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

We cannot be surprised to learn that the conception which appealed so strongly to a more barbarous age, and to clans when engaged in fighting their way into a new country, were found discordant, unattractive, not quite nice, in the settled and prosperous districts of Kosala, after many centuries of progress and culture. It is so with every god known to history. He seems eternal. But by the gradual accumulation of minute variations there comes a time, it may be in a few generations, it may be after the lapse of centuries, when the old name no longer fits the new ideas, the old god falls from his high estate, and a new god, with a new name, occupies the place he filled in the minds of men. Of course the priests went on repeating the old phrases about Indra. But even to the priests they had become barely intelligible. The people paid little heed to them ; they followed rather other gods more up-to-date, and of their own making. And it was of these new gods that the leaders of the new movement told their new stories to point a new moral *.

1 The above is based exclusively on Nikaya evidence. It is confirmed by that of the later books given by Childers {sub voce Sakko).

XXI. SAKKA-PANHA SUTTANTA1.

THE QUESTIONS OF SAKKA.

i. [263] Thus have I heard. The Exalted One was once staying in Magadha, to the east of Rajagaha, at a brahmin village named Ambasaw^/a. There he resided on the Vediya mountain to the north of the village, in the cave called the cave of Indra's Sal Tree '-'. Now at that time a longing came over Sakka, the king of the gods, to visit the Exalted One.

And this idea occurred to him : — 'Where may he now be staying, the Exalted One, the Arahant, the Buddha supreme ? ' And Sakka saw that he was staying in Magadha at Ambasa;^a, east of Rajagaha, in the cave called Indra's Saltree Cave on the Vediya mountain to the north of the village. And seeing that, he said to the Three-and-Thirty gods : — ' Gentlemen, that Exalted One is staying in Magadha, to the east of Rajagaha at a brahmin village named Ambasawda, in the cave called Indra's Saltree Cave, on the Vediya mountain to the north of the village. How would it be, gentlemen, if we were to go and visit the Exalted One ? '

' So be it and good luck to you ! ' replied the Threeand-Thirty gods consenting.

1 This Suttantais quoted by name at Sawyutta III, 13 ; Mahavastu I, 350; Milinda 350; Sumahgala Vilasini I, 24 (where it is called vedalla). The last passage is repeated at Gandha Va/wsa 57.

1 Inda-sala-guha. Buddhaghosa says there was a cave here between two overhanging rocks with a large Sal tree at the entrance. The village community had added walls with doors and windows; and ornamented it with polished plaster scroll-work and garlands, and presented it to the Buddha. In Fa Hian's time (Legge, p. 81) it was still inhabited. In Yuan Chwang's time (Watters, II, 173) it was deserted. Both pilgrims were told that certain marks on the rock had been made by Sakka writing his questions (!). The Sanskritisation of the name into Indra-saila-guha (Schiefner, Bohtlingk-Roth, Julien, Legge, and Beal) is a mere blunder. The name Indra enters into the names of several plants, probably merely in the sense of excellent. There is nothing to justify the idea that Indra was supposed to haunt this tree.

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2. Then Sakka [made the same statement and proposal to Five-crest the Gandhabba, [264] and received the same reply] and Five-crest taking his lyre of yellow Beluva wood, followed in attendance on Sakka, the king of the gods.

So Sakka, the king of the gods, surrounded by the Thirty-and-Three, and attended by Five-crest the Gandhabba, vanished from his heaven as easily as a strong man might shoot out his arm, or draw in his arm outshot, and reappeared in Magadha, standing on the Vediya mountain.