The Buddhist Cosmos

by Punnadhammo Mahathero

  The pisācas, like their cousins the yakkhas, are sometimes said to feed on human flesh.474 Sometimes, however, they are seen to be feeding on filth, especially the wretched paṃsupisācakas.475 The pisācas are often cited as being among those things which cause fear in lonely places (Vin Pāc 55 & DN-a 2). The pisācas, like the yakkhas and petas, can sometimes breath a deadly poison (Jāt 510). It is said that wherever the Buddha dwells the force of his mettā (“loving-kindness”) protects all the humans in the area from the depredations of paṃsupisācakas (DN-a 4). In spite of the danger and terror inherent in all pisācas, the paṃsupisācakas are often cited as a byword for an insignificant being. For example, when the great gulf between the Buddha’s power and that of his greatest disciples is compared, the difference is said to be like comparing a paṃsupisācaka with Sakka, king of the devas (AN-a 3:81).

  The pisācas, unlike the yakkhas, do not have any well developed characters in the texts. None are given names, and as individual actors they rarely feature in the stories. There is, however, one brief anecdote that has some interesting details:

  A paṃsupisācaka is a pisāca born into a place of filth. If he holds a certain root (eka mūla) his body becomes invisible. Here is a story: there was a certain yakkhinī who had two sons and she left them at the town gate to go and search for food. The boys saw an elder bhikkhu wandering for alms and said to him, “Bhante, our mother has gone into the town looking for food. Please tell her that if she finds anything good, she should hurry back, her boys are suffering from hunger and are unable to bear it.” The bhikkhu asked, “How can I see her?” They replied, “Here, bhante, take this piece of root and you will see.” The elder knew of many kinds of yakkha, so asked the boys to tell him by what signs he could recognize their mother. They told him that she was deformed and frightful (virūpa bībhaccha) and would be found on the street where she expected to find some afterbirth. (Upon going into the town) he saw the paṃsupisācaka and passed on the boys’ message. She asked, “How can you see me?” Then she saw the root and she seized it from him. Having taken the root, she became invisible once again. (MN-a 79)

  We have already encountered this “certain root” in the section on yakkhas, but in that story it works somewhat differently. In the Jātaka story, a human boy eats some of the root to become invisible like the yakkhas. In this story, the human bhikkhu by simply holding the root enters the perceptual world of the yakkhas and is able to see the otherwise invisible paṃsupisācaka. The subcommentary adds little additional information about this root. It only informs us that the root is between four fingers and a span in size and that it comes from “trees, plants, creepers and so forth,” which isn’t all that helpful. It goes on to say that whoever holds it becomes “of another birth” (aññajātikāna). Presumably then, the elder by holding the root actually became transformed into a yakkha and that is how he entered their perceptual world. The explanation concludes by stating that an invisible body is a natural power of the yakkha birth (jātisiddhā dhammatā) (MN-ṭ 79).

  3:4:4 RAKKHASA

  There is an important class of demonic beings in the pre-Buddhist mythology of India known as the rakṣas.476 They were incorporated into the Buddhist system under the Pali form of their name as rakkhasas. The rakkhasas do not figure as prominently in the Pali sources as yakkhas, and are in many cases simply synonymous with the latter.477 Sometimes when a being is referred to as a rakkhasa, rather than a yakkha, it is a hint that the story incorporates very old pre-Buddhist material. This is, for instance, the case in the Sambulā Jātaka478 where Sakka, acting very much like the Vedic Indra, saves a princess from a rakkhasa.

  There is one milieu which the Pali sources reserves for rakkhasas in particular and that is the haunting of lonely forest pools. Several stories feature a rakkhasa living in such a pool who devours all who come to bathe in or drink from its waters.479 The danger is sometimes apprehended by the wise hero when he discerns that there are foot-prints leading into the pool, but none emerging again. The image of a rakkhasa haunted pond is used proverbially to say that something is abandoned and unused, as for instance a a miser’s wealth.480 The character of the rakkhasa in the pool is seldom developed, but one place where we hear a little more is the Devadhamma Jātaka.481 The story concerns three royal brothers, Mahisāsakumāra (“Buffalo Prince”), Sūriyakumāra (“Sun Prince”) and Candakumāra (“Moon Prince”) who were in exile in the Himavā. Mahisāsakumāra, who was the Bodhisatta, asked his brother Sūriyakumāra to go to a nearby pond and fetch some water:

  Now, this pond had been given to a certain dakarakkhasa (“water demon”) by Vessavaṇa who had said “All those who go down into the pond, you may eat, except only those who know what is devadhamma (“divine teachings”). Those who do not go down into the pond, you may not have.” The rakkhasa asked everyone who went down to the pond the meaning of devadhamma, and ate those who did not know. So when Sūriyakumāra went down to the pond, without investigating first, the rakkhasa seized him and demanded “What is devadhamma?” The prince replied, “The sun and the moon are what is called devadhamma.” The rakkhasa said, “You do not know the devadhamma,” and dragged the prince underwater and placed him in his own abode.

  When Sūriyakumāra did not come back quickly, the Bodhisatta sent Candakumāra to the pond. He was also seized by the rakkhasa and asked about devadhamma. He said that the four directions were devadhamma and the rakkhasa said to him also, “You do not know the devadhamma,” and dragged him under the water to his abode.

  When Candakumāra also did not return, the Bodhisatta thought there must be some obstacle. When he approached the pond he say two sets of foot-prints going toward it, and none returning, and he knew, “This pond must be held by a rakkhasa.” So he armed himself with sword and bow and stood waiting near the pond. Seeing that the prince did not descend into the pond, the rakkhasa assumed the form of a woodsman and approached Mahisāsakumāra saying, “Good sir, you must be weary from travelling. Why do you not go into this pond, bathe, drink, eat of the lotus bulbs and having decked yourself with flowers, go on your way refreshed?”

  But the Bodhisatta knew, “This is a yakkha!” and he challenged him, “Was it you who took my brothers?” “Yes, it was I.” “For what reason did you take them?” “I take all who descend into my pond who do not know the devadhamma.” The Bodhisatta said that he indeed knew the devadhamma, but that he would not speak of it while he remained unwashed. So the rakkhasa bathed him, gave him food and drink, decked him with flowers and anointed him with scents and then prepared a decorated couch for him to sit upon, placed within a pavilion beside the pond. Thus comfortably placed the Bodhisatta proclaimed in verse:

  One with self-respect and fear of consequence (hiri-ottappa)

  Possessed of pure ways;

  They are the true men,

  These may be called those with devadhamma.

  This answer satisfied the rakkhasa and he freed the two brothers and acted as their protector in the forest thereafter. When the old king died and Mahisāsakumāra took his rightful place as king he appointed his two brothers to high office and had an abode (āyatana) made for the yakkha in a delightful place, where he received the finest of garlands and of food.482

  We can see from this story that a rakkhasa is indeed a kind of yakkha. Not only are the two terms used interchangeably in the text but the rakkhasa from the outset shows some characteristics normal to yakkhas: he is subject to their king, Vessavaṇa and he follows a strict law in his taking of victims. It is noteworthy that he is no longer referred to as a rakkhasa after his conversion by the Bodhisatta.

  3:4:5 KUMBHAṆḌAS

  The kumbhaṇḍas are a class of very odd looking beings. The name means “pot-testicles” because their testicles (aṇḍa lit. “eggs”) are as large as a water-pot (kumbha).483 They are also said to have large bellies (ibid.). They are subject to King Virūḷhaka, the Great King of the south. He is said to enjoy their songs and dances (DN 32). An army of kumbhaṇḍas for
ms the third line of defence of Tāvatiṃsa (Jāt 31). The kumbhaṇḍas are difficult to fit into any broader category. One passage identifies them as dānava-rakkhasā which are two kinds of yakkha,484 while another calls them kumbhaṇḍa-devatā (DN-a 19).

  Existence as a kumbhaṇḍa cannot be called a fortunate rebirth. The kumbhaṇḍas occur in a passage listing various demonic beings whose power is no match for Sakka’s, putting them in company with pisācās, rakkhasas and paṃsupisācas, all more or less demonic beings (Jāt 347). We are told of a corrupt magistrate who was reborn as a kumbhaṇḍa. His testicles were so large that when he walked, he had to throw them over his shoulders, and when he sat down, he used them as a seat (SN 19:10).

  There are almost no stories specifically about kumbhaṇḍas; there were the kumbhaṇḍa-rakkhasas who guarded Vessavaṇa’s magical mangoes,485 and little else. We have no names of individual kumbhaṇḍas, unless we count King Virūlhaka486 as such. They also seem to have some association with King Vessavaṇa. Besides the troupe who guarded his mango tree, he is also said to have killed many thousands of them with his glance, scattering them like chaff, although he refrained from this murderous behaviour after becoming a sotāpanna (Vin-a Pār 3).

  The kumbhaṇḍas presumably reproduce sexually as there is a mention of female kumbhaṇḍas called kumbhaṇḍī and young ones called kumbhaṇḍapotaka (boys) and kumbhaṇḍapotikā (girls) (DN 32).

  3:4:6 KINNARAS

  We have seen that many of the strange beings inhabiting the Buddhist cosmos are hard to classify, but there is one race whose ambiguous status is embedded in their very name. These are the kinnara, (from kiṃ + nara, “is it a man?”) (PED) also known, especially in verse passages, as kimpurisa (“is it human?” also spelled kiṃpurisa). These are small woodland beings who in many ways resemble the lower devas. The kinnara are mostly known for their beautiful singing and dancing487 and for their deep romantic attachment to their mates. Translators have variously rendered kinnara as “fairy”, “sylph” (Cowell) or “faun” (Bodhi). In later artistic renderings, the kinnara are always shown as bird-like: either with a human head on a bird’s body or the upper torso of a human (usually a woman) on a pair of bird’s legs.488 There is almost no support for this image in the old Pali texts. The only hint of a connection to birds is in a list of kinds of kinnara: “deva kinnaras, moon kinnaras, dark kinnaras and bird-ears-and-mantle kinnaras and so forth.”489 There is no explanation for this strange phrase, which in any case seems to refer only to one kind of kinnara, not to all.

  On the other hand, there are several stories which involve human men falling in love with kinnarīs (female kinnaras),490 which seems less than likely if they have the lower bodies of birds. One such story illustrates the charming ways of the kinnara:

  At one time, when Brahmadatta was king at Bārāṇasi, the Bodhisatta took birth as a kinnara in the Himavā, by the name of Canda (“Moon”), and he had a wife by the name of Candā.491 The two lived together on a silver mountain called Mount Canda.

  Now, the kinnaras of Mount Canda remain in the mountains during the rainy season, but they descend to the low country in the hot season. At one such time, the kinnara Canda and his mate were wandering about from place to place, anointing themselves with the scent of flowers, feeding on the pollen, dressing themselves in flowers and playing at swinging from vines and singing songs with voices as sweet as honey. They came upon a small stream and descended into the water where they sported a while, scattering their flowers. Afterward, they emerged from the water, dressed themselves again in robes of flowers and made a bed of bamboo upon the silver sands and lay themselves down. Then Canda took up a piece of bamboo and made sweet sounding music with it. His wife, Candā, got up and danced the dance called “tender hands” (muduhattha) while singing with a honeyed voice.

  At that time there was a king of men out hunting in the Himavā and hearing the sound of their sweet music, he approached the spot softly and stood watching the kinnaras from a hidden place. He was stricken with love for the kinnarī and determined to kill her husband and take her for himself. And so he shot an arrow into Canda, who lamented with his dying breath:

  My heart sinks in suffering, the darkness consumes me.

  It is for you, my Candā, that I grieve, there is no other pain.

  Candā, being intoxicated with delight, at first did not know that her mate had been shot. But when she saw him lying there senseless, wondered “what is the matter with my dear husband?” Looking closer she saw the wound with blood flowing from it and overcome with unbearable sorrow she lamented in a loud voice. At this, the king showed himself and she exclaimed, “Here is the brigand who has slain my dear husband!” She ran off to a hill top and stood there, cursing the king:

  May this, my heart-ache, be known by your own wife,

  This, my heart-ache, seeing the slain kimpurisa.

  May your wife and your mother know the loss of their prince,

  You who have slain this blameless kimpurisa, all for the lust of me.

  The king told her to cease lamenting, he would take her to be his wife and she would live in a royal palace, but Candā said she would rather die than live with the slayer of her husband. Hearing this, the king lost his passion for her and left her there, saying:

  So, timid one, if you desire to live, go back to the Himavā.

  Feed on plants and herbs, enjoy yourself with the other animals.

  Candā returned to her husband’s body, cradling him in her arms, After weeping and lamenting for a while, Candā detected some faint signs of life and she “made a complaint” (ujjhānakamma) against the devas. “Are there no guardians of the world? Have they gone away or perhaps they are dead, why do they not save my husband?” At this, Sakka descended in the form of a brahmin and revived Canda by sprinkling him with a magical water pot and admonished the happy pair to return to Mount Canda and never again to descend into the lands of human beings. (Jāt 485)

  Another story of a human man falling in love with a kinnarī is found in an anecdote from the Umaṅga Jātaka:

  In times gone by there was a brahmin named Vaccha who seeing the disadvantage in sense pleasures left home to practice austerities in the Himavā. Nearby his hermitage, there was a cave where many kinnaras lived. At the entrance there dwelled a spider. The kinnaras were being caught in its web, whereupon the spider would break open their skulls and drink their blood. Now, kinnaras are weak and timid and the spider was very great. Being unable to do anything for themselves, the kinnaras approached the hermit and he received them kindly. They told him why they had come, “Deva,492 a spider is slaying us. Besides yourself, we have no other refuge. Please kill it and save us!” But Vaccha replied, “Go away. Those like me do not kill living beings.”

  Now among the kinnaras there was a kinnarī named Raṭṭhavatī who was beautiful and charming and who had no husband. She adorned herself and went to see the hermit saying, “Deva, I will be your handmaiden if you slay our enemy.” Seeing her, Vaccha became enamoured. After making love with her, he went to the door of the cave and when the spider left his den, the hermit killed it with a club. Thereafter the two, Vaccha and Raṭṭhavatī, lived together and had many children. They dwelled in harmony until they died. (Jāt 542, eng 546)

  The beauty of kinnara females is proverbial. It is high praise to tell a human woman that she has “eyes like a kinnarī” (Jāt 458) or that she is “as graceful as a kinnarī” (Jāt 527). Yet there must be something about their appearance that is not quite human as the following story illustrates:

  It so happened that a hunter wandering in the Himavā by means of his skill captured a pair of kinnaras and brought them to the king. The king had never seen kinnaras before and he asked the hunter “Hunter, of what kind are these things?” “Sire, they can sing sweetly and dance delightfully. No human being knows how to sing and dance like these.” The king gave much wealth to the hunter and said to the kinnaras, “Sing! Dance!” But the kinnaras thought, “If
we sing and we get a syllable wrong, then we will have make a bad song. They will reproach us and punish us. Also, those who speak much, must tell lies.” So out of fear of wrong speech, although the king commanded them again and again they would neither sing nor dance. The king, growing angry, said, “Kill them and cook their flesh and bring it to me.”

  These are not devas, nor gandhabbas.

  They are but beasts, brought to me for profit.

  When cooked, one can furnish my supper,

  The other my breakfast.

  Then the kinnarī thought, “Without a doubt, the king will kill us. Now is the time to speak!” And she spoke aloud:

  A hundred thousand ill-made songs,

  Are not worth a fraction of one well sung.

  It is from fear of the defilement of wrong speech,

  And not from folly that we kinnaras are silent.

  Satisfied with the kinnarī, the king ordered that she be sent back to her home in the Himavā but that the other would still serve as his breakfast. On hearing this, the male kinnara then spoke as well:

  Just as the cattle depend on the rain,

  And men upon the cattle,

  I, o king, depend on thee,

  And my wife depends on me.

  Know we are a pair,

  And set us free in the Himavā. (Jāt 481)

  After some further conversation (in verse) the king decided that “these are wise kinnaras” and sent them in a golden cage to be released into the Himavā. We can see from this anecdote that the kinnara are not wholly human in appearance, or the king would not have decided they were wild animals suitable for his breakfast. It also hints at their small size, which the fact of their being prey to a spider in the previous story also implies.