24.8 The Story about Māra

Dhp 351-352

Burlingame: Māra Seeks in Vain to Frighten Rāhula

One night because of the arrival of several great elders Elder Rāhula, who was eight years old at the time, gave up his room and slept near the Buddha’s hut; Māra thought to frighten him and took the form of a great elephant and trumpeted near him; the Buddha explained with some verses that Elder Rāhula was an Arahat and was therefore unafraid.

Keywords: Novices, Great Disciples

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“Having gone to the end,” this Dhamma teaching was given by the Teacher while he was in residence at Jetavana with reference to Māra. {4.69}

For one day several elders entered the Jetavana monastery at an unseasonable hour, and going to the quarters of Elder Rāhula, woke him up. Rāhula, seeing no other place to sleep, went and lay down in front of the Realised One’s Perfumed Chamber. This venerable elder, although he was newly ordained, had already attained Arahatship.

As Māra Vasavattī, keeping his natural form, beheld this venerable lying in front of the Perfumed Chamber, he thought to himself: “The son of the ascetic Gotama lies outside the Perfumed Chamber, as though his finger hurt him; he himself reclines within the Perfumed Chamber, and if the finger of his son be pinched, he himself {4.70} will feel a pinching.” So Māra took the form of a gigantic elephant-king, and drawing near the elder, encircled the head of the elder with his trunk, and with a loud voice trumpeted the heron’s call.

The Teacher, even as he reclined in the Perfumed Chamber, perceived that it was Māra, and said: “Māra, with 100,000 like yourself, it would be impossible for you to frighten my son. My son is unafraid, devoid of craving, having great energy and great wisdom.” So saying, he pronounced the following verses:

351. Niṭṭhaṁ gato asantāsī, vītataṇho anaṅgaṇo,
acchindi bhavasallāni, antimoyaṁ samussayo.

Having gone to the end, without
trembling, craving, impurity,
cutting the darts of existence,
this one is his final body.

352. Vītataṇho anādāno, niruttipadakovido,
akkharānaṁ sannipātaṁ jaññā pubbaparāni ca,
sa ve antimasārīro mahāpañño (mahāpuriso) ti vuccati.

Without craving and attachment,
skilled in words and explanation,
knowing how syllables are arranged,
which come before and which after,
the one in his final body
is said to be of great wisdom. {4.71} [30.235]

At the end of the teaching many reached the fruition of Stream-entry and so on. Māra the Wicked One said to himself: “The ascetic Gotama knows me,” and then and there he disappeared.