22 CHAPTER ONEassociated with fertility. In their aerial aspect as cloud spirits, they came to be
musicians attendant upon the higher devas. Gandharvas mate with apsaras (ce-
lestial nymphs); such couples are frequently shown in early Buddhist art. Al-
though many female spirits are portrayed in early Buddhist texts, only Sri (or
Lak~rn.i), the goddess of fortune, is mentioned by name. She appears in Bud-
dhist art of the second century B.C.E., standing or sitting on her lotus pedi-
ment and being bathed by two elephants.
The celestial levels of the devas are considerably more orderly than the
earthly levels. The first level among the celestial devas is that of the Four Great
Kings, also called World-Protectors, each of whom rules one of the cardinal
points and a race of earthly devas. The most prominent of these kings is Ku-
bera, also called Vaisravaqa, ruler of the North and of yak~as. He was widely
worshiped as the god of wealth, and the Buddhists portrayed him as vowing to
protect all those who practice their religion. The second rank of celestial devas
are the Gods of the Thirty-Three, the old pantheon of the J.5.g Veda, headed
by Indra, more generally called Sakra in Buddhist texts. He reveres the Bud-
dha and protects the Dharma. Buddhist propagandists presented the reformed
character of the fierce warrior god of the ~g Veda as a model for their k~atriya
converts. Above the old Vedic Thirty-Three, the Buddhists imposed four more
tiers of devas, of which only the second, Tu~ita (Satisfied), is important. The
Bodhisattva spends his next-to-last life in this realm before returning to the
human world to become a Buddha. His mother is reborn there after giving
birth to him.
At the upper limit of the cosmos lies the Brahma world. This world con-
sists of 20 heavens: the first four in the realm of form-corresponding to the
first four dhyanas-and the remaining ones in the realm of formlessness, cor-
responding to the formless levels of dhyana. Rebirth in the Brahma world re-
sults from great virtue, meditation, and the development of the four Brahma
Attitudes: unlimited goodwill, compassion, appreciation, and equanimity. This
is the only heavenly world in which there is no gender. On occasion the Great
Brahmas visit the earth to interact with human beings. One, Sahampati, vis-
ited the Buddha to encourage him to preach the Dharma (see Section 2.1).
The early Buddhist texts are remarkable for the sense of easy familiarity
they display between the human and spirit worlds. Theirs is an attitude of po-
lite respect for spirits, but not worship. They take the existence of spirits for
granted but do not consider them especially sacred. Spirits, after all, are sub-
ject to passion, aversion, and delusion, and thus to the law ofkarma. In this,
they are inferior to the Buddha and arhants who have overcome all mental
defilements ~nd thus create no further karma. Even the great gods of the pop-
ular religion of the time, Indra and Brahma, were not regarded by the Bud-
dhists as eternal persons but merely as individuals born into those positions.
and destined to fall from office when their karma ran out.
This gives the spirit world an ethical basis, rendering it rational and more
benign. Malicious spirits were not to be appeased with sacrifice but rather
tamed through the power and goodwill of a holy individual. The theme of
the human sage using superior mental powers to convert ogres came to typifY