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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.orgAcharya Shri Kailashsagarsuri Gyanmandir
( 99 )
parallels of these verses are to be found in the Saroyutta as belonging to a group of four stanzas, named Accharā (the nymplis') from the catchword of its first verse which is left out in our text, and which reads:
Acchará gana-sanghatthun, pisācaganasevitan
Vanan-tam mohanam nāma, kathom yatrā bhavissatiti ? The imagery developed in these verses serves to throw the Buddhist idea of the silent spiritual progress of man along the path of Righteousness into clear relief, by contrast with the popular aspiration to Altair rebirth in the heaven where Iudra, king of the gods, visits the enchanting Nandapa-grov: in a rattling chariot, surrounded by 'troops of nymphs' making the chariot and the paradise resonant with their music and melody', and attended by a' guard of fiendish warriors 's; and à priori with the popular admiration of luxurious life of princes on earth, 3 ivho frequent in the same way the royal pleasure grove, escorted by troops of women and bands of ferocivus soldiers*; in other words, with a life of pomp and pleasure.
The central idea of these verses, divested of poetic imagery and spiritual contrast, i.., in its more primitive natural
1 The first of the Acchara.group, quoted abore, expressly mentions the pleasannce as the place which is resounded with the song and music of the nymphs. The idea that the chariot was made similarly resonant can be gupplied from the second verse, where the description of the Buddhist Path compared to a chariot mttling noiselessly on' (ratho a-kijano) implies by contrast the idea of a chariot of just the opposite character.
Buddhaghobit takes pisacagnna in the first Acchară-verse to be in opposition with accharāgana : "tam eva acrharagannit pixäcaganah," i.e. " the troops of nymphs are but the troops of fiends." The commentator can rightly Ruggest this in respect of a god tho is surrounded only by the troops of nymphs, and his interpretation fits well, no doubt, into the context which he has applied, though from what sonrce of authority robody know. The Acchară-verses, taken together, seem to have reference rather to Indra's visit to the celestial plensaunce or paradiso than that of an ordinary deyapatta, "accosted as their lord by nymphs with song and music." The grantmatical form of the expression piracagana, 'troops of male fiende," prevents taking it as nppositional with accharāgana, troops of femalo nymphs,' anlegg it be supposed that the former alluden to the formale body. guards, dressed and armed like men.
The text of the Accharā-verses, as the commentator rightly suggests, contrasts the life of the gods in the heaveu of the Thirty-three with the summum bonum cf the Buddhists. But the mythological concuptions of heaven and hell being anthropomorphic, the imagery of the verses can be interpretad also n8 iaplying a contrast with the seasnous and luxurious life of princon on earth.
. Cf. the doscription of royal visit to tho Buddha in the Digha, 1.. P. 49 fcc. 9; Sumangala-vilapini, I., pp. 148.9; and Lanklyutara-Surra, Fusc. I, p. 2.
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