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5.8
Suffering of the Gods
5 TRANSLATION: ŚR (57-205)
• cham-māsâuya-sese [...] cavana-kāla In this context Pkt. cavana 274 denotes the termination of the life-time of a sentient beings which "dwell" in heaven. In the Introduction to Gs KK, p.41, and in the annotations in the same book on stanzas (228ff.) it is stated that the downfall takes place because gods are agitated in their mind due to the operations of the passions. The mental process of transformation of the four greater "error-feeding" passions into the less vigorous passions by one's own effort is technically referred to as Pkt. visamyojana or Skt. udvelanā. The dwellers of the higher world are bestowed with the knowledge of their hour of death and start to lament, when they feel the end to come: "Knowing the time of its downfall (to be close) (...), when six months of life duration among these classes of gods) remain ..." (Prof. Balbir, p.c.). According to Ts I.32-33 the three types of cognition, mati, śruta and avadhi, are prevalent in a distorted form in the "rebirth" in the lower and higher worlds. The avadhi-knowlege is believed to derive from the ksāyôpaśamika condition.
196-197) The sentient being which dwells in the higher world laments: "Alas, nine months I have to stay in a womb in the human rebirth. This is a bad-smelling place], filled with flocks of small insects and worms, pus and blood!
What shall I do? Where can I go? Whom shall I submit my wishes to? Where to go for a refuge? Isn't there a relative who prevents me from falling?"
198-201) (It is mourning:) “The splended king of the gods with Eravan as his vehicle, whose projectile is the Vajra, even he Indra does not support me, although he has been served by me) life-long!
If there will be death, it might happen! But there is my next rebirth. If I come into life among the one-sensed beings, I will hardly take rebirth in the human world!
[It is wailing:) "Moreover, how to act in the case that the result of my thought and previous action has now come into fruition? When even Indra does not possess the power to protect himself at this time of falling from heaven]!"
274Cf. Skt. cyavana "moving; falling from divine existence" (MW: p. 403). See also Śr (87cd); Māc II.66ff.; Mül (1596); Ratnacandra 1923 (1988), Vol. II, p.710; Kuvalayamālā, Vol. I, p. 383, Vol. II, p. 593, 212.4ff. The idea is well illustrated by the story of Vikramayasa's downfall in the Sanat-kumāra-caritam (683, quoted according to Jacobi 1921).
