Pearson Edexcel Level 3 Advanced GCE in Religious Studies – Anthology
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The Nidāna Kat hā emphasizes the need for c ourage and det erminat ion: it
shows Go t a ma engaged in a heroic struggle against all those forc es wit hin himself
whic h milit at e against the achievement of Nibbāna. We read that after Go t a ma had
eaten his dish of junket, he st rode as majest ic ally as a lion t oward the bodhi t ree to
ma ke his last bid for liberat ion, determined to reac h his goal that very night. First ,
he c irc led the tree, t rying to find the plac e where all the previous Buddhas had sat
when they had won through to Nibbāna, but wherever he stood, ‘the broad eart h
heaved and sunk, as though it was a huge cartwheel lying on it s hub, and
somebody was t reading on it s rim.’ Eventually, Go t a ma approached the eastern
side of the tree, and when he stood there, the ground re ma in ed st ill. Go t a ma
decided that t his mu s t be the ‘immovab le spot’ on whic h all the previous Buddhas
had posit ioned themselves, so he sat down in the āsana posit ion fac ing the east,
the region of the dawn, in the firm expectation that he was about to begin a new
era in the hist ory of humanity. ‘Let my skin and sinews and bones dry up, together^
wit h all the flesh and blood of my body! I will w e lc o me it! ’ Go t a ma vowed. ‘But I
will not mo v e from t his spot until I have attained the s u p re me and final w is d o m.’
The te xt emphasizes the fantastic shuddering of the eart h as Go t a ma c irc led
the bodhi t ree to re min d us not to read t his st ory lit erally. T his is not a physic al
loc at ion: the world-tree, standing at the axis of the cosmos, is a c o mmo n feat ure of
salvat ion my t h o logy. It is the plac e where the divine energies pour int o the world,
where humanity enc ounters the Absolut e and becomes mo re fully it self. We need
only rec all the c ross of Jesus, whic h, according to Christ ian legend, stood on the
s a me spot as the T ree of Kn owledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden. But in
Buddhist my t h , Go t a ma the ma n sit s in t his pivot al plac e, not a ma n-God, bec ause
human beings mu s t save themselves without supernatural aid. The texts ma ke it
c lear that Go t a ma had c o me to t his axis of the universe, the myt hologic al center
that holds the whole of the cosmos together.
...But the struggle was not yet over. Go t a ma st ill had to fight those residual
forc es wit hin himself whic h c lung to the unregenerate life and did not want the ego
to die. Māra, Gotama’s shadow-self, appeared before h im, decked out like a
cakkavatti, a World Ruler, wit h a massive a rmy. Māra himself was mounted on an
elephant that was 150 leagues high. He had sprout ed 1,000 a rms , each of whic h
brandished a deadly weapon. Māra’s n a me me a n s ‘delusion.’ He epit omized the
ignoranc e whic h holds us back from enlightenment, sinc e, as a cakkavatti, he c ould
only envisage a vic t ory achieved by physic al forc e. Go t a ma was st ill not fully
enlightened, so he t ried to respond in kind, seeing the virt ues he had ac quired as
defensive weapons, as a word or a shield that would dest roy t his deadly a rmy. But ,
our author c ontinues, despite Māra’s power, Go t a ma was sit t ing in the
‘unc onquerable posit ion,’ proof against suc h vulgar coercion. When Māra hurled
nine fearful s t o rms against h im, Go t a ma remained unmoved. The gods, who had
gathered around to wit ness Gotama’s attainment of Nibbāna, fle d in t error, leaving
him alone. When me n and w o me n seek salvat ion, in the Buddhist view, they can
expect no divine support.