Nandopananda wondered who it was that crushed him against Sineru and afflicted him with fire and smoke: “Who are you?” “I am Moggallāna.” “Then resume the form of a bhikkhu.” Returning to his natural form, Moggallāna went into the nāga’s right ear and came out of his left ear; he went into the nāga’s left ear and came out of his right ear. He went in one nostril and came out the other. Then he went into Nandopananda’s open mouth and walked to and fro inside his belly.
The Buddha called out, “Moggallāna, beware, this is a nāga of great power!” Moggallāna replied, “Venerable sir, I have mastered the four bases of power (iddhipādā), developed them, made much of them, thoroughly practiced them. I could tame a hundred, a thousand, a hundred thousand nāgas like Nandopananda.”
Nandopananda thought, “I did not see him going in, but when he goes out I shall catch him with my fangs and chew him up.” He said aloud, “Venerable sir, come out! Your walking to and fro inside my belly is annoying me!” The elder went and stood outside and seeing him there, Nandopananda issued a blast of wind from his nostrils. But Moggallāna quickly entered the fourth jhāna and the wind was unable to stir so much as a hair on his body. All the other bhikkhus, it seems, could have performed all the supernormal feats up to this, but no one else could have entered jhāna quick enough to save himself at the end. This is why the Buddha gave only Moggallāna permission to tame the nāga.
Nandopananda thought, “My blast has been unable even to stir the hairs of his body. This is a powerful samaṇa!” Moggallāna now assumed the form of a supaṇṇa and demonstrating the supaṇṇa’s wind362 he gave chase to the nāga. Nandopananda now assumed the form of a young man and falling to the elder’s feet, asked him for refuge. Moggallāna said, “The teacher is here, take refuge from him.” So he led the nāga, now tamed and bereft of his poison, to the Buddha. Nandopananda took refuge and the Buddha dismissed him saying, “Be happy, nāgarāja.” (Vism 12:108f.)
Another significant repeating motif in the stories about nāgas is the contrast between sensuality and renunciation. The nāga realm is always portrayed in extravagant language as being a sensual paradise: the enticements are natural, artificial and erotic. The natural surroundings of a nāgabhavana (dwelling place of nāgas) are always described as idyllic: smooth, level ground, lush vegetation, fragrant with flowers especially lotuses, resounding with the cries of swans, (Jāt 543) mango groves that bear both fruit and blossom continually, (Jāt 524) and so forth. (Note once again, that this park-like environment is reached by going underwater). The palaces of the nāga kings dwell in are equally fantastic: they are commonly described as having a thousand pillars and the building material of choice is lapis-lazuli (veḷuriya) although gold and silver are also commonly employed in the trim.363
Of course, no ancient Indian sensual paradise would be complete without hordes of lovely female attendants, and the dwellings of the nāga lords are no exception. The palace of the nāga king Bhūridatta is “full of splendid young maidens” (pūrā kaññāhi jotare) as is that of king Saṅkhapāla, whose women wear golden bracelets shaped like serpents and are described as “slim-waisted, lovelier than lotus blossoms” (sabbattamajjhā padumuttarābhā). These nāga females serve their lord and his guests with delicious and variegated food, by playing music for them and by more intimate attentions (kāmakāra, “making pleasure.”) (Jāt 524) The nāga women have a magically seductive quality about them, a power that the nāgarāja Vimalā was shamelessly asked his daughter, Princess Irandhatī, to employ for his own ends, a request the text says was “improper” (ananucchavikaṃ):
King Vimalā of the nāgas wished to recruit a champion in order to seize and kill the sage Vidhura, because his queen had declared a longing for the wise man’s heart. He asked his daughter, the lovely princess Irandhatī to procure one for him. She, for her part, was not loathe to undertake the task, for she was by nature full of lustful desire (kilesābhiratabhāva). Irandhatī adorned herself with ornaments and a fine red gown, and went forth to a mountain peak in the Himavā. There she prepared a bed of fragrant flowers and performed a delightful dance, singing a song with her sweet voice:
“What gandhabba, or rakkhasa, kiṃpurisa or man, what sage, will get to satisfy his every desire, acting as my husband the whole night long?” (Jāt 546, Eng. 545)
(This was how Puṇṇaka, the yakkha chief, whom we will meet later, got into so much trouble).
Another nāga maiden who acted immorally is mentioned in the Kharaputta Jātaka (Jāt 386). This was a female nāga who was married to a human king. At one time the king and his nāga wife were in the palace gardens, and while he was otherwise occupied she slipped away to the lotus pool. There she saw a male water snake, and reverting to her snake form had sex with it. This episode illustrates both the sensuality and the essentially animal nature of nāgas, despite their often appearing in human form.
Very often, these descriptions of lavish sensuality serve as a counterpoint for a great renunciation. In two Jātakas concerned with nāgas, no. 524 and no. 543, a nāgarāja determines to keep the fortnightly uposatha fast in order to win a better rebirth. King Saṅkhapāla longed to be reborn human, and Bhūridatta aspired to rebirth as a deva of Tāvatiṃsa. It should be noted here, that although we meet many virtuous nāgas in the literature, they are never depicted as reaching or even aspiring to the state of sotāpanna. This is because, although a nāga birth may be a refined and pleasant one, it is still classed as within the animal realm, a “frog-eating existence” (maṇḍūkabhakkha attabhāva), as King Bhūridatta scornfully described it. Even the noblest of nāgas is not capable of transcending the sensual realm altogether. The motivation for Bhūridatta’s asceticism was that while visiting Tāvatiṃsa with his father to attend a council, he developed a longing for the beautiful palaces of the gods, and for the heavenly nymphs (devaccharā), more beautiful even than the nāga maidens (Jāt 543).
Nevertheless, it were those nāga maidens that made it impossible for either king to keep his precepts while remaining at home, so in both stories, the king decides to practise the uposatha in the human realm, coiled up on an ant-hill in snake form. Both are there seized and abused by snake-charmers, but keep their vows by non-resistance.
Unable to keep the purity of his uposatha precepts in the nāga palace, surrounded by lovely female attendants, Bhūridatta went up to the human world and coiled his snake-body up on top of an ant-hill near the banks of the Yamunā. “Whoever desires my hide, my flesh, my bones or my blood, let them take it!”
In the course of time, an evil minded brahmin betrayed the nāgarājā to the snake-charmer Ālambāyana. When he saw that Ālambāyana was coming to seize him, Bhūridatta determined not to break his vows. “No matter if he cuts me up, cooks me or impales me on a stake, I shall not allow anger to arise.” The snake-charmer smeared himself with magic ointment and uttered his protective mantras while the great nāga lay on his ant-hill unmoving. Then Ālambāyana seized Bhūridatta by the head and forcing open his mouth, spat into it a powerful drug which he had held in his own mouth for the purpose. Although he was outraged by this act of uncleanliness, Bhūridatta did not so much as open his eyes. The charmer then took the nāga by the tail and shook him violently, forcing him to vomit up his food. He then laid the serpent out on the ground and pummeled him with his hands as if kneading a pillow, crushing his bones in the process. Having subdued his victim, the charmer forced him into a basket; it was too small to hold his mighty coils, so Ālambāyana mercilessly drove them in with the heels of his feet. (ibid.)
A related theme is that of a human being, who visits the nāga world and at first enjoys sensual bliss; for instance, the nāga king Saṃkhapāla gave his guest, the nobleman Āḷara, the loan of three-hundreds of his wives (Jāt 524). But after a year of such pleasures, the human visitor grew disenchanted with sensuality and left to become an ascetic (Jāt 524 & 472). An interesting variation occurs in the Bhūridatta Jātaka. In contrast to the virtuous men in the other tales, th
is concerns an evil-minded brahmin.364 He too stayed for only a year, but instead of transcending sensuality through wisdom, he had quite a different reaction:
After staying a year in the nāga world, the brahmin, because of the paucity of his merit (mandapuññatāya) was no longer able to enjoy the sensual pleasures of that realm. The nāga world was like an empty hell-realm (lokantaranirayo) to him, the gaily decorated palace like a prison and the ornamented nāga maidens like female yakkhas. So he decided to feign a desire for renunciation in order to win King Bhūridatta’s leave to return to the human realm (Jāt 543).
This demonstrates the magical and illusory quality of the nāga world and its wonders. Because the brahmin had made insufficient good kamma, he was unable to retain the perception of pleasure.
Magical powers of transformation and illusion are among the defining features of nāga existence. These are well illustrated by the following description of the hapless Bhūridatta being forced to perform by the snake charmer:
Setting his basket in the village square, the snake-charmer called out: “Anyone who wants to see a nāga dance, come!” When a crowd had assembled, he bade the nāgarājā to come forth. He ordered Bhūridatta to make himself become huge, to become small, to become round, to manifest a suit of armour, to show forth his hood, to make two hoods, three hoods, even up to one hundred hoods. He bade him appear great and noble or small and meek, to become invisible and to then become visible again. He ordered him to change colour from blue to yellow to crimson to white and to scarlet. He was made to breathe forth fire, water and smoke. Thus the nāga demonstrated his dancing powers (attabhāve nimminitvā naccaṃ). The people were amazed, and the snake-charmer made a thousand pieces of gold that day (ibid.).
We would be remiss to leave poor Bhūridatta in the hands of the cruel snake-charmer. The episode whereby he regains his liberty reveals some intriguing details of nāga-lore:
When Bhūridatta did not return to the nāga world after his fast, his three brothers set out to look for him; one went to the deva world, one to the Himavā, and the eldest, Sudassana, went to the world of men. Sudassana assumed the guise of a matted-hair ascetic for the purpose. Out of her great love for Bhūridatta his half-sister Accimukhī wished to come along, and assumed the form of a little frog and hid herself in Sudassana’s hair.
They followed the trail of Bhūridatta and the charmer through many villages and towns, everywhere hearing tales of the wondrous snake who performed such amazing tricks. At last they came to Bārāṇasī, the royal capital, where a great crowd had assembled in the palace court-yard to see the great nāga perform for the pleasure of the king. When Bhūridatta emerged from his basket he surveyed the crowd. Now, nāgas will not dance if they see any supaṇṇas, because of fear, or any of their relatives (ñātake), because of shame.365 Seeing Sudassana standing there, he went and laid his head on his brother’s foot.
The snake-charmer, misinterpreting the gesture, grew alarmed and thought that Bhūridatta had bitten the ascetic. Sudassana assured him that his snake was harmless, but claimed to have a frog with a powerful poison and challenged him to a wager as to which was mightier. The snake-charmer, under the eyes of the king and of the whole town, was unable to refuse the contest.
At a word from Sudassana, Acimukkhī hopped from his hair into the palm of his hand and spat up three drops of poison before hopping back. Sudassana cried aloud with a mighty voice: “This land will be destroyed! This land will be destroyed! Alas, this land will be destroyed! There is no place I can drop this poison. Should I cast it on the earth, all the crops and plants would wither and die. Should I throw it into the air, no rain would fall for seven years. Were I to throw it into the water, the fish and turtles and all that live in the sea would utterly perish.”
Alarmed, the king asked how the poison could be neutralized and Sudassana gave directions that three pits were to be dug. The first was to be filled with various medicines, the second with cow-dung and the third with divine medicine (dibbosadha). When this was done, Sudassana threw the drops of poison into the first pit, which burst into flames which leapt to the second and then the third, consuming all their contents. The fumes from the last fire blew over the snake-charmer who was standing nearby and he was instantly afflicted with the white leprosy (setakuṭṭhi). In great fear, he cried aloud that the nāga was released from bondage. Hearing this, Bhūridatta emerged from the basket and assumed a form as glorious as a deva-king, adorned with wonderful ornaments (Jāt 543).
The Saṃyutta Nikāya has some information about the modes of birth of nāgas. Nāgas may take any of the four kinds of birth. Those born spontaneously are considered superior to the others, the moisture-born are considered next best, then the womb-born and the lowest class are the egg-born nāgas (SN 29:2). The order of these classes seems odd, since other moisture-born creatures are things like flies, born in filth. It may be because the egg-born nāgas are considered common snakes, or very much like them. We also learn that all nāgas give birth in mountain pools in the Himavā; there they teach their young to swim before letting them travel to the more dangerous ocean waters (SN 45:151). A being is born into a nāga existence because of making ambivalent kamma (dvayakārī) by body, speech or mind and by having a desire to be born there (SN 29:7 f.).
Two nāgas are especially associated with the incidents surrounding the Buddha’s awakening. One of these is Mahākāḷa, who has a life-span equal to a full kappa.366
Before his final supreme effort, the Bodhisatta partook of a meal of milk-rice offered by Sujātā in a golden cup. Having finished his meal, the Bodhisatta set the cup into the Nerañjarā River with the aspiration: “If I am to be victorious in my quest for Buddhahood, may this cup float upstream.” It did so, riding swiftly against the current until it came to a whirlpool which led to the nāgabhavana of the great nāga lord Mahākāḷa. There it sank, coming to rest against the three golden cups left by the three previous Buddhas of this world-age.
On hearing the metallic sound of the golden cups striking each other, the nāgarāja exclaimed in joy: “It seems just yesterday that a Buddha arose in the world, and already there is another!” (GGB v1, p. 303)
The other nāga important in the life of the Buddha is Mucalinda. After the Buddha’s awakening, as he sat rapt in meditative bliss, a great rain-storm began and the nāga Mucalinda protected the Buddha by wrapping his coils around him and sheltering him with his out-spread hood (Ud. 2:1). This scene became a popular motif in Buddhist art.
When the Buddha cleansed the city of Vesālī of a plague by chanting the Ratana Paritta, he was given great honour by humans, devas and nāgas. For their part, the nāgas of the Ganges provided five hundred jewelled boats to carry the Buddha and his retinue back across the river. The Buddha created five hundred mind-made (nimitta) duplicates of himself so that each nāga’s boat would be equally honoured. Before crossing the river to return to Magadha, the Buddha and his company of bhikkhus visited the nāga realm where they were offered a meal and the Buddha taught Dhamma to the assembly of nāgas.367
One very important and recurrent theme is the enmity of nāgas and supaṇṇas, but we will defer that for the discussion of supaṇṇas in the next section.
3:2:5 THE SUPAṆṆAS
A Note on Nomenclature: These beings, huge mythical birds, are perhaps better known to most readers as garudas. However, in the Pali sources they are almost always referred to as supaṇṇas, which etymologically means “well winged.” Garuda is a Sanskrit word; the Pali version is garuḷa. This form does occur in the sources but infrequently and almost always in verse.368 In these verse passages it is sometimes used poetically to refer to common birds.369 In this book, we will follow the Pali sources and refer to them as supaṇṇas.
The supaṇṇas are very large indeed. A king of the supaṇṇas may have a wing-span of one hundred and fifty yojana (AN-a 3:81). We hear of one such supaṇṇa complaining that he cannot find enough empty space to spread his mighty wings: “They say that sp
ace is infinite. How can it be infinite when I cannot even get enough room to flap my wings and make a wind?” (DN-a 15) Together with their great size, the supaṇṇas are possessed of tremendous strength; they are able to uproot whole banyan trees (Jāt 412, 543). As well, they have the power to raise a great wind (supaṇṇavāta) with the flapping of their wings (Jāt 518). With this wind, they can cleave the ocean waters asunder and reveal the nāgas in their abode, (Jāt 412) or raise a storm which threatens to knock down houses and plunges an entire city into darkness (Jāt 360).
They also have other magical powers:
A young supaṇṇa was in the habit of visiting the king of Bārāṇasī to play at dice. For this purpose, he would assume the form of a beautiful human youth. The queen’s handmaidens were struck by the young man’s good looks, and reported to the queen that a beautiful young man was playing dice with the king. Curious to see him, the queen adorned herself with all her finery and jewels and repaired to the gaming-room. When the supaṇṇa and the queen looked at each other, they were smitten with desire. Using his supernatural power (attano ānubhāvena), the supaṇṇa raised a storm and plunged the whole city into a profound darkness. He made off with the queen, unseen by anyone, and returned to his abode with her (Jāt 360).
The supaṇṇas make their dwellings mostly in groves of simbali trees (SN 48:70). These are identified by the PED as Bombax ceiba, known in English as Silk-cotton or Kapok trees. A large community of supaṇṇas is specifically mentioned as living in a simbali forest on the slopes of Mount Sineru (Jāt 31).
At one time, when the devas were making war against the asuras, Sakka at the van of a mighty host drove his terrible chariot of victory, a hundred and fifty yojana in size, down the slopes of the mountain. When they came to the grove of simbali trees they cut through them like so many reeds and the trees tumbled into the ocean. At once there began a great wailing cry. Sakka asked his charioteer, Mātali, “What, friend, is that cry which wrings my heart with compassion?” (atikāruññaravo) “That, my lord, is the cry of the young of the supaṇṇas, stricken with the fear of death as their homes are thrown into the sea.” On hearing this, Sakka ordered the host to turn around and withdraw, even if it meant forsaking victory that day (ibid.).
The Buddhist Cosmos Page 26