The story thus far, up to the intervention of the Buddha, exhibits several archetypal mythological motifs. The king out hunting and separated from his companions entering into an other-worldly situation is also found, for example, in the Welsh Mabinogion. The demonic bargain leading to the imminent sacrifice of the first-born son is also a common element in myths and fairy-tales. But there is something more to this sacrifice. Two odd details raise provocative questions. First, the King is identified as Āḷavaka Rājā. He bears the same name as the yakkha and that is why the text almost always identifies the latter with the full appellation Āḷavakayakkha (rendered in translation as “Āḷavaka the Yakkha.”) Second, there is a contradictory element in the choice of the prince for sacrifice in that the text casually mentions the grief of the “sixteen thousand” hand-maidens. (They are actually called dhātiya which means wet-nurse, presumably of the prince, which makes the number even more absurd). Granted, there is the ancient Indian love of impossibly large numbers, but it does put the choice of the prince in a new light. A hand-maiden a day would have kept the yakkha fed for more than forty years! Taken together, is what we see here a mythological echo of some ancient rite of human sacrifice involving a sacred king, as in Frazer’s “Golden Bough?”
Moving on, the story after the arrival of the Buddha takes on a new and more elevated tone. Āḷavaka is no longer portrayed as a simple tree-spirit but as a mighty, and rather nasty, deity.
When the Buddha arrived at Āḷavaka’s residence, the yakkha was away attending a council of yakkhas in the Himavā. Āḷavaka’s palace was of eight stories, surrounded by a wall with gates and watchtowers and covered from above with a bronze netting. The whole was like an incomparable casket, protected from all sides, three yojana high.
The gate-keeper, a yakkha by the name of Gadrabho, greeted the Buddha with courtesy and informed him of the absence of his master. The Buddha said he would like to wait within. Gadrabho advised the Buddha strongly against this. “This is not suitable, Bhante. The yakkha Āḷavaka is coarse and rough. He has no regard for mother or father, for samaṇas and brahmins, or for the Dhamma. He will overthrow your mind, rend your heart asunder and grab you by the feet and either throw you over the ocean, or out of the world-system altogether!”
Three times the Buddha announced his intention to wait for Āḷavaka’s return inside and three times the gate-keeper gave the same warning. At last Gadrabho saw that the Buddha was unafraid and he said, “If I let you into my master’s house without his permission, my own life will be forfeit. I shall go and inform him of your arrival.”
The Buddha entered into Āḷavaka’s palace and sat on his celestial gem-throne (dibbaratanapallaṅka), emitting a glorious radiance. The yakkha’s women came out to pay him reverence and he sat discoursing to them on the Dhamma. “In former lives, you lived morally and gave generously, and that is why you are enjoying your present happiness. In this present life, do not let yourselves be overcome by jealousy and meanness towards one another.”
At that time, two other yakkhas named Sātāgiri and Hemavata were journeying to the council in the Himavā. They were flying overhead with a great retinue in various vehicles. Now, yakkhas cannot travel through the air just anywhere, but must follow fixed paths. The path to the Himavā passed directly over Āḷavaka’s palace. Due to the presence of the Buddha, they were unable to pass overhead. The two yakkha chiefs descended to earth to investigate and were filled with joy to see the Buddha. They paid him homage and said, “Of great fortune is Āḷavaka that the Bhagavā is within his dwelling!” The Buddha gave them leave and they departed for the Himavā.
Meanwhile, the gate-keeper Gadrabho arrived at the Himavā and informed his master that the Buddha was waiting for him at his palace. Āḷavaka felt that his pride was humbled before the assembly, and when Sātāgiri and Hemavata arrived shortly afterward and sang the praises of the Buddha, telling Āḷavaka how fortunate he was to have the Teacher at his home, Āḷavaka became enraged. He stood with his left foot on Mt Manosilātata and his right on Mt Kelāsa, sixty yojana apart, and gave a great shout that was heard over the whole of Jambudīpa: “I am Āḷavaka!”
The yakkha flew back to his palace near the city of Āḷavi in a ferocious whirlwind which uprooted whole trees and scattered the roof-tiles of the city. He thought the storm-wind would drive the trespassing samaṇa away, but the wind did not even disturb the folds of the Buddha’s robes. Āḷavaka then tried to kill the Buddha by unleashing an enormous rain-storm. Although it flooded the forest with a great deluge, the Buddha’s robes were not moistened by as much as a dew-drop. Then Āḷavaka caused the mountains to erupt in fire and smoke and cast huge rocks into the sky, hoping to crush the Buddha, but the boulders turned to celestial flowers as they fell at his feet.
Growing more enraged, Āḷavaka the Yakkha kept attacking the Buddha. He sent a deluge of swords and arrows down upon him, then a rain of hot ashes, then a ferocious sand-storm and a shower of thick mud. All of these things also turned to flowers and fell at the Buddha’s feet. But Āḷavaka was not yet ready to admit defeat and he caused a great black pall of darkness to descend upon the Buddha. “This horrifying sight will surely terrify that samaṇa and make him flee in despair!” But the Buddha dispersed the darkness with radiance like that of the sun.
But the yakkha had still not unleashed his final and most terrible weapon; Āḷavaka had not yet cast the banner Dussāvudha at the Buddha. This was one of the Four Great Weapons of the world: a cloth banner of awful power. If it was cast into the sky, no rain would fall for twelve years. If cast upon the earth, all the trees and grass would wither and nothing would grow again for the same number of years. If cast into the sea, the ocean would boil away entirely. If cast upon a mountain, even one as great as Mt Sineru itself, that mountain would shatter into pieces. As Āḷavaka took Dussāvudha in his hands the devas of the whole ten-thousand-fold world-system gathered in the sky to watch. “Today there will be a great battle, and having defeated Āḷavaka, the Blessed One will teach him the Dhamma!”
Āḷavaka unleashed this terrible weapon, hurling it like a blazing thunderbolt at the Buddha, but it fell harmlessly to the ground before him, and changed into a foot washing rag. Now the great pride of Āḷavaka the Yakkha was broken and the Buddha was able to conquer him with loving-kindness (mettā). When three times the despairing yakkha ordered the Buddha to leave his abode, and three times ordered him to return, the Buddha complied with courtesy, saying “So be it, friend” (sādhāvuso) .
But on the fourth time being ordered to leave, the Buddha refused to comply. Āḷavaka made one last attempt at bluster, telling the Buddha that he would ask him some questions, and if he could not answer them: “I shall overthrow your mind, split your heart asunder and grabbing you by the feet toss you over the ocean or beyond the world-system altogether.” The Buddha replied that there was no-one who could do these things to him, but gave the yakkha permission to ask his questions.
Now in Āḷavaka’s storeroom there was an heirloom of his house, dating back to the time of the previous Buddha, Kassapa. This was a golden tablet on which was inscribed, in vermillion paint, a series of questions and answers that his mother and father had exchanged with Kassapa Buddha. Āḷavaka asked these questions to the Buddha and was astonished to see that his answers agreed syllable for syllable with what was recorded on the tablet! At the conclusion, Āḷavaka attained to the state of stream-entry.
It was now morning and the king’s messenger arrived with the little prince, intended for the yakkha’s meal. The king’s man handed the child to Āḷavaka, who now ashamed of his previous conduct, meekly handed him over to the Buddha, who handed him back to the king’s messenger. From being passed this way from hand-to-hand, the prince ever after was known by the name of Hatthaka Āḷavaka. (“By the Hand Āḷavaka”) The prince grew up to become one of the greatest of the Buddha’s lay disciples. (ibid.)
We can see that the presentation of Āḷavaka has cha
nged considerably in the latter part of the story. He is now presented as a very powerful nature deity, with all the elemental forces at his command. His potency is emphasized by his possession of one of the Four Great Weapons, and the shout that he uttered while standing astride the mountain peaks is classed as one of the Four Great Shouts.460 In the first part of the story Āḷavaka is described as living under (or perhaps in) a banyan tree like a simple tree deva; in the later section his abode has been changed into a fabulous fortified palace. But the detail which speaks most strongly to Āḷavaka’s importance is the gathering of devas from the ten-thousand-fold world-system (dasasahassilokadhātu) to witness his final defeat at the hands of the Buddha. This means that his conversion was regarded as an event of cosmic significance.
The metamorphosis of Āḷavaka from a kind of ogre living in a banyan tree devouring hapless travellers, to a great and wrathful world-shaking divinity can be interpreted in at least two ways: textually or mythologically. Textually, what we are seeing here are successive chronological strata in the texts. There are four layers, composed at different times:
1—The verse passages of the sutta
2– The prose passages of the sutta
3—The first part of the commentary, before the arrival of the Buddha on the scene
4—The remainder of the commentarial story, featuring the encounter of the Buddha with the yakkha Āḷavaka, now portrayed as a mighty nature deity.
However the complete story was composed, the final version with all its seeming contradictions became an accepted part of the mature tradition, and should be considered as a whole. The myth of Āḷavaka demonstrates something we see often in Buddhist cosmology: the fluid nature of reality. The entity Āḷavaka the Yakkha may be a tree-ogre and a cosmic storm-god at the same time, manifesting in different ways at different levels. To the king, who is a human being of low moral character (hunters are always considered such in the Pali sources) he is seen as a fierce ogre living in a tree. The Buddha, with his vision surpassing that of the devas, penetrates to another higher or more fundamental level of reality and sees a divine being dwelling in a three-yojana high palace. It may be asked which the “real” yakkha is, but that only raises deeper metaphysical issues about the nature of reality and perception. One possible way to think about it is to see Āḷavaka as a single force or being manifesting differently at different levels, according to the perception of the viewer. To add another layer, given the confusion of the names, Āḷavaka might also be seen as a dark shadow of the king’s own psyche, without negating his reality as a separate entity at the other levels.
Beside King Vessavaṇa himself, the only other yakkha found in the source material of comparable power to Āḷavaka is Puṇṇaka, Vessavaṇa’s nephew:
Vidhura was at that time a very great sage (paṇḍita) and his wisdom was acclaimed throughout Jambudīpa. The nāga king Varuṇa encountered him during a trip to the human world and later sung his praises to his wife the nāga queen, Vimalā. On hearing about the wonderful heart of the sage, she developed a craving for it and took to her bed feigning illness. She told her husband the king that only Vidhura’s heart could make her well. In despair, Varuṇa enlisted the help of his lovely daughter, the nāga princess Irandatī. He told her to use her charms to recruit a mighty champion who could secure the heart of the sage.
Dressing in her most beautiful finery, the lovely nāga princess went to a mountain in the Himavā and there adorned with jewels and flowers she sang and danced in order to arouse the passion of some great hero. It so happened that the yakkha chief Puṇṇaka was travelling overhead, riding on his fabulous mind-made horse (manomayasindava). He immediately fell in love with the princess, and agreed to undertake the quest for Vidhura’s heart.
Vidhura was the servant of King Koravya of the Kurus, and the king had a weakness for gambling. Puṇṇaka knew this, and decided he could win possession of the sage by playing at dice against him. Now, Puṇṇaka knew that the king would not wager Vidhura against any mean stake, but he also knew where there was a marvellous gem which had belonged to a Wheel-Turning King. This jewel was such that if a person gazed into it, he could see the whole of the world-system (cakkavāḷa), all the cities and towns, the mountains and oceans, the earth and the heavens above.
Having secured this fabulous gem-stone, Puṇṇaka flew on his horse to the capital of the Kuru country and challenged the king to a game of dice. King Koravya asked him who he was and where he came from, “For your speech is not that of a man of the Kurus.” Puṇṇaka thought that if he announced his true name, the king would despise him and refuse to play, since he was just a servant of Vessavaṇa and not a noble. So he gave his name from his previous human birth: “I am Kaccāyana, a brahmin from the Aṇga country, sire.”
So he wagered his jewel and his horse and the king, desirous to win these marvellous prizes, said that he would bet against these all that he had, saving only his own person, his queen, and his white parasol (setachatta—emblem of his sovereignty). Now, the king always won at dice because he had a guardian deva (ārakkhadevatā) who had been his mother in a previous life. She would hover in the air and protect him from bad throws. When Puṇṇaka became aware of this, he gazed directly at her with eyes wide and full of wrath. The deva, recognizing him as a powerful yakkha, fled in terror all the way to the iron mountains at the edge of the world-system. So, with the king bereft of his supernatural aid, Puṇṇaka easily won the game and as the dice fell his way on the final throw he clapped his hands and cried aloud three times: “I have won! I have won! I have won!” and the sound of this great shout was heard all over Jambudīpa.
Puṇṇaka claimed as his prize nothing more but the sage Vidhura only. Puṇṇaka bade Vidhura to grasp the horse’s tail, and to plant his feet firmly against the horse’s legs and he flew off with him into sky as the whole of the populace wept aloud. He took him to the Himavā and put him down on Kāḷāgiri, the Black Mountain. “What use is this sage to me alive? I will kill him, take his heart and give it to the nāga king and thereby win the lovely Irandatī and go to the realm of the gods! (devaloka).”
Puṇṇaka thought to himself that it would be better if he did not kill Vidhura with his own hand, so he tried at first to terrify him so that he would die of fright. The yakkha assumed his most horrible yakkha shape (bheravayakkarupa) seized Vidhura in his jaws and shook him about, making as if to eat him. But the sage was unmoved, showing no sign of fright. Puṇṇaka changed into a huge bull elephant, a lion and a monstrous large snake, but none of these frightful forms had any effect on the imperturbable sage. Then Puṇṇaka tried by raising a mighty wind to blow Vidhura off the mountain, but not a hair on his head was stirred. The yakkha then assumed the form of a giant elephant and shook the entire mountain to and fro with his enormous trunk, but he could not dislodge Vidhura from the mountain top. Nor could he terrify the sage by entering into mountain and uttering a fearsome sound.
At last the yakkha decided there was no other recourse but to destroy Vidhura with his own hand, so he seized him and flung him round violently, but before he could throw him off the mountain and dash him to bits on the rocks, the sage spoke: “Before you kill me, you would be wise to give me a chance to speak. Seldom does a sage like me arise in the world, and you should not miss the chance to gain some words of wisdom. Afterward, you can do what you like with me.”
So Puṇṇaka set the sage down and listened as Vidhura discoursed to him about the way of living according to Dhamma. In the end, the yakkha’s heart was turned and he contritely offered to take the sage home, but Vidhura wanted first to be taken to the nāga kingdom, where he also converted the nāga king and queen. The nāga king agreed that the heart of a sage is his wisdom, so he deemed the quest completed and gave his daughter to Puṇṇaka, and Puṇṇaka gave Vidhura the magic jewel. The yakkha then flew Vidhura back to the Kuru Kingdom, where there was great rejoicing at his safe return, and Vidhura presented the jewel to King Koravya.461
Vidhura is identified as a previous birth of the Buddha, which emphasizes the parallelism between the stories of Āḷavaka and Puṇṇaka; both of these powerful yakkha chiefs were turned from their murderous ways by the Buddha or Bodhisatta and subsequently became guardians of the Buddhasāsana (the Buddhist religion), being among the righteous yakkha chiefs upon which a bhikkhu in distress from supernatural forces may call.462 A point of interest in the latter story, which sheds light on ancient Indian society, is that the word translated above as “servant” is dāsa, which can also be rendered as “slave.”463 It seems there was little distinction between the two categories. Vidhura is described as living in luxury with numerous wives and concubines, but King Koravya still has the authority to gamble his person away. Puṇṇaka too, is described as the dāsa of Vessavaṇa, and he needed the latter’s permission before undertaking his quest. Furthermore, the reason Puṇṇaka, the mighty yakkha chief, does not reveal his true identity to the king is that he is worried that the latter might be prickly about caste and refuse to play with a dāsa!
This also illustrates a curious ambivalence in the nature of yakkhas. Although they are always portrayed, at least before a spiritual conversion, as fierce and bloody-handed, they are also bound by the strict laws of their kind and are subservient to their king, Vessavaṇa. Although they might devour people, they normally do so only within very specific limits set by King Vessavaṇa; for example only those who took shade under his banyan tree were available for Āḷavaka’s meal. Likewise, although the yakkhas can fly through the air, they do so only along fixed paths. Also ambivalent is the yakkhas’ place in the cosmic hierarchy; like some others among the mythological inhabitants of the cakkavāḷa, they are not easily placed in the thirty-one abodes or the five realms of rebirth. Existence as a yakkha is generally considered duggati (an unfortunate or low birth) but we have seen the Buddha telling the yakkha wives of Āḷavaka that their present state is the result of having made good kamma in the past.
The Buddhist Cosmos Page 35