qualities of the Buddha, some of which were quoted on page
232, para.12. The whole list was also enumerated on page 149,
para. 1 (see Chapter 18, note §9).
CHAPTER 34: THE HELL OF SPEARS
1. Page 261, I then became aware of a solitary traveller…
All the way through this chapter we have references to the
Angulimāla Sutta, M 86 (see Appendix 3); this passage, together
with those following it, appears almost verbatim at M 86.3‐7.
Incidentally, this meeting between Angulimāla and the
Buddha is traditionally placed only twenty years after the
enlightenment, i.e. twenty‐five years before the Buddha’s old
age and the events depicted in this story.
2. Page 262, this wanderer here comes on alone — like a
conqueror… Jina or ‘The Conqueror’ was indeed one of the
epithets given to the Buddha.
3. Page 263, I couldn’t gain another step, although I ran with
all my might and he seemed to be walking quite leisurely
forward… K.G. would almost certainly have been struck by the
similarity between Angulimala’s experience here and that described
by Parsifal, the eponymous hero of Wagner’s opera, on the way to
the Grail Castle with Gurnemanz. He says:
“I scarcely move,—
Yet swiftly seem to run.”
To which his companion replies:
“My son, thou seest
Here Space and Time are one.”
‘Parsifal,’
Richard Wagner
(Quoted in ‘The Grail Legend’ by Emma Jung & Marie Louise
von Franz, Princeton University Press, 1998)
This comment does not appear in quite this form in Wolfram von
Eschenbach’s 13
th
Century CE original. However, at the opening of Book V
it says: “The horse pulled the dragging reins through marshy land, for no
one’s hand guided it. The story tells us that on that day he rode so far that
a bird could only with difficulty have flown all that way.” The ‘dragging
reins’ image suggests a dolorous trudge rather than a headlong gallop,
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thus it is a mysterious counterpoint to the huge distance covered. Perhaps
Wagner’s familiarity with Buddhist scriptures, via his association with
Schopenhauer, inspired him to equate this strange temporal illogicality
with Angulimāla’s experience, and expand it to specify the fusing/
dissolution of ordinary time and space around the Grail Castle.
4. Page 266, as though it were a matter of going from
one house to another... This simile is used in the Mahā‐
Sakuludāyi Sutta, at M 77.34‐5.
5. Page 266, “Give me your hand,” he said… The manœuvre
that is described in this paragraph is similar to one that the
Buddha used a few times — always to help bring someone to
greater understanding or to help them make stronger efforts in
the practice of meditation. For example, a very similar trip to
hell is undertaken in the Nimi Jātaka, §541 in the ‘Collection of
Stories of Previous Births’; here the Lord Mātali, a deva prince,
takes the Buddha‐to‐be (King Nimi in that particular life) to visit
the lower realms on a chariot drawn by a thousand thoroughbred
horses. The incident is also mentioned at M 83.13, in the
Makhādeva Sutta.
On a slightly different tack, at Udāna 3.2, the Buddha takes
his cousin, the newly ordained bhikkhu Nanda, off to the Tāvatimsa
heaven to introduce him to the celestial nymphs there so that he
would stop thinking about his former girlfriend Janapadakalyānī.
As a skilful lure, the Buddha promised him five hundred
of the Tāvatimsa nymphs, who all had ‘beautiful dove‐like feet,’
if he would commit himself with vigour to his meditation. Nanda
set to with a will, but when his fellow bhikkhus found out that
his new‐found zeal was on account of the promise of the celestial
maidens, they roundly criticised him and he became embarrassed
by his own foolish worldliness. He continued with his meditation
practice regardless, however, and not long after arrived at
complete enlightenment. He then went to the Buddha and
released him from his promise.
There is also mention of ‘the path to the gods’ in the Kevaddha
Sutta, at D 11.67, and an incident, in the ‘Collection on Brahmās,’ at S 6.5,
where the Buddha, Mahā‐Moggallāna et al. go to visit a brahmā god to
humble the conceited opinion he had of himself.
Incidentally, the reader should note that this interlude
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in the story is K.G.’s own invention — the Buddha does not
actually do this in the Angulimāla Sutta; in the original story
faith arises and Angulimāla asks to go forth as a bhikkhu without
the benefit of a sobering trip to the underworld — the relevant
passage occurs at M 86.6 (see Appendix 3).
6. page 267, “This, Honoured Sir, is the Hell of Spears…”
From the viewpoint of Buddhist cosmology, life in the various
hell realms bears a very close resemblance to that described in
many other religious traditions — and, as in most other traditions,
it’s a topic of great popular interest. One of the most vivid
descriptions of life in the hells comes in the Devadūta Sutta
(‘The Discourse on the Heavenly Messengers) M 130; a
comparable passage is found at §35 of the ‘Book of the Threes.’
‘The Hell of Spears’ itself is called the Sattisūla, Sattihati
or Lagātihasala Niraya — it is the eighth auxiliary hell of Mahā
Avīci, the lowest and worst of the ‘Eight Great Hells.’ It is
mentioned in §522 of the ‘Stories of Previous Births,’ the
Sarabhanga Jātaka, and is particularly reserved for ‘thieves,
robbers, defrauders and false accusers.’
The passage in our story bears a striking resemblance
to the experiences of Mahā‐Moggallāna, the Buddha’s second
disciple after Sāriputta, as he describes them in the Māratajjanīya
Sutta (The Rebuke to Māra) at M 50.22. He is recounting
to the Māra of the current age the karmic result of his own abuse
of the chief disciple of the Buddha Kakusandha, when he (Mahā‐
Moggallāna) had been the Māra of that age (actually the uncle
of the Māra to whom he was speaking!) As he says: “Then, Evil
One, the wardens of hell came up to me and said: ‘Good sir,
when stake meets stake in your heart, then you will know: “I
have been roasting in hell for a thousand years.”’” This situation
in itself is an interesting commentary on Buddhist cosmology,
where, within the space of a few lifetimes, one can go from being
the embodiment of evil to being a paragon of virtue and wisdom.
The evolution of the spiritual path is also by no means a linear
flow — along with his many lives of cultivation of goodness,
Mahā‐Moggallāna had been Māra no less than thirty‐seven times.
For the reader’s interest, some of the other hells’ characteristics
are as follows:
1. Sañjīva Niraya — The Hell of Those Who Are Killed but
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