buddha, S ́akyamuni was believed to possess the stan-
dard set of supernormal powers or ABHIJN
A(HIGHER
KNOWLEDGES) accruing to those of high spiritual at-
tainments, including the power to know details of his
previous lives, the ability to see the past lives of oth-
ers, the power to read minds, and other magical pow-
ers, such as the ability to fly. In the course of his
teachings, the Buddha demonstrates these powers re-
peatedly, frequently, for instance, recounting events
that took place in the previous lives of members of his
audience in order to explain the workings of KARMA.
Similarly, the Buddha performed two famous miracles
at the city of S ́ravastin order to win converts. After
admonishing his own disciples for displaying their
magical powers in public, the Buddha declared that, in
their place, he would perform a miracle at the foot of
a mango tree to demonstrate his superiority to propo-
nents of false teachings. On hearing this, his opponents
uprooted all of the mango trees in the vicinity so that
he would be unable to fulfill his vow. In response, the
Buddha took the seed of a ripe mango, and no sooner
planted it in the ground than it sprouted and in an in-
stant grew into an enormous tree. This done, he ful-
filled his promise to perform a miracle by the mango
tree when he rose into the sky and emitted water and
fire from his body in spectacular fashion.
Finally, the Buddha’s NIRVANAis accompanied by a
number of marvelous events. When the Buddha pre-
dicts his own death, vowing to enter nirvana in three
months time, the earth quakes once again. Three
months later, as the Buddha lay down to die, flowers
fell from the sky. At the moment he entered nirvana,
there was a great earthquake and loud peals of thun-
der. Some of those present then attempted to light the
funeral pyre, but were unable to do so. Later, when the
disciple MAHAKAS ́YAPA, who had been away, arrived on
the scene, the pyre miraculously caught fire of itself,
leaving behind relics that were themselves later attrib-
uted with miraculous powers.
Many attempts, of varying degrees of sophistication,
have been made to root out all that is miraculous, and
hence historically suspect, in accounts of the Buddha’s
life in order to derive a more sober, believable narra-
tive, or to interpret miracles in the Buddha’s life as
rhetorical tools for explaining Buddhist doctrines. For
the vast majority of Buddhists, however, marvelous
events were and are an integral part of any biography
of the Buddha. In general, Buddhists have interpreted
these literally, as signs of the Buddha’s unique attain-
ments. Indeed, some of the phenomena described
above, such as the Buddha’s power to see the previous
lives of others, are recounted in such a matter-of-fact
manner that they are miraculous only in a weak sense.
In other words, however fantastic such powers may ap-
pear to a modern skeptic, from the perspective of the
tradition, they are more commonsensical than mar-
velous.Disciples of the Buddha
Many of the Buddha’s disciples were credited with su-
pernormal powers and associated with miraculous
events. Mahakas ́yapa, as a product of his determined
cultivation of the most trying austerities, could fly.
S ́ARIPUTRAattained the “dharma eye,” allowing him to
perceive the past lives of others. MAHAMAUDGALYAYANA,
called “foremost of those who have supernormal pow-
ers,” could vanish from one place and appear in an-
other in an instant.
Later figures in Indian Buddhism possessed mar-
velous powers as well. UPAGUPTA, for instance, to
prove a point, once caused a drought of twelve years.
The powerful King AS ́OKA(third century B.C.E.), who
was at first hostile to Buddhism but eventually became
its greatest patron, was, according to legend, converted
upon seeing the supernormal powers of a monk his ex-
ecutioners could not kill.Miracles in the spread of Buddhism
Miracles continued to play a prominent role in the his-
tory of Buddhism as it spread beyond India. Legends
of the founding of Buddhism in other lands are typi-
cally tied to miraculous events. In Sri Lanka, it is said
that the Buddha himself visited the island at a time
when it was dominated by demons. Traveling directly
to a grand meeting place of these demons, the Buddha
hovered above them in the sky, calling up rain, winds,
and darkness, and thereby terrifying the demons to
such an extent that they conceded dominion of the is-
land to him. In China, the introduction of Buddhism
was linked to Emperor Ming of the Han dynasty (r.
58–75) who, according to the legend, had a marvelous
dream in which he saw a golden deity flying through
the air. The following day, when he asked his minis-
ters to explain the dream, one informed him that he
had heard of a deity called the Buddha whose body was
of golden color and who could fly. The emperor then
dispatched envoys to obtain more information about
the Buddha, thereby initiating the introduction of
Buddhism to China. In Japan, the introduction of the
first Buddhist image was followed by widespread pesti-MIRACLES