Jesus In India — Page 125
J e s u s i n I n d i a 125 go also to preach this doctrine’ (Mah ā -vagga I. II. I). When his monk-missionaries had departed, Gautama himself followed, though not till M ā ra (p. 41) had again tempted him. Quitting Benares he journeyed back to Uruvel ā , near Gay ā. There he first converted thirty rich young men and then one thousand orthodox Br ā hmans, led by K ā syapa and his two brothers, who maintained a sacred fire (‘Br ā hmanism,’ p. 364). The fire-chamber was haunted by a fiery snake-demon; so Buddha asked to accupy the room for a night, fought the serpent and confined him in his own alms-bowl. Next he worked other miracles (said to have been 3500 in number)…. To them on a hill Gay ā s ī sa (Brahma-yoni), near Gay ā , he preached his ‘burning’ fire-sermon (Mah ā -v o I. 21): ‘Everything, O monks, is burning ( ā dittam= ā d ī ptam). The eye is burning; visible things are burning. The sensation produced by contact with visible things is burning—burning with fire of lust (desire), enmity and delusion (r ā gaggin ā dosaggin ā mohaggin ā ), with birth, decay (jaray ā ), death, grief, lamentation, pain, dejection (domanassehi), and despair (up ā y ā sehi). The ear is burning; sounds are burning; the no ś e is burning, odours are burning; the tongue is burning, tastes are burning; the body is burning, objects of sense are burning. The mind is burning; thoughts are burning. All are burning with the fire of passions and lusts. Observing this, O monks, a wise and noble disciple becomes weary of (or disgusted with) the eye, weary of visible things, weary of the ear, weary of sounds, weary of odours, weary of tastes, weary of the body, weary of the mind. Becoming weary, he frees himself from passions and lusts. When free, he realizes that his object is accomplished, that he has lived a life of restraint and chastity (brahma ć ariyam), that re-birth is ended. ’ It is said that this fire-sermon—which is a key to the meaning of Nirv ā na—was suggested by the sight of a conflagration. It was Gautama’s custom to impress ideas on his hearers by pointing to visible objects. He compares all life to a flame; and the gist of the discourse is the duty of extinguishing the fire of lusts, and with it the fire of all existence, and importance of monkhood and celibacy for the attainment of this end. Contrast in Christ’s Sermon on the Mount the words addressed to