________________
5.8 Suffering of the Gods
5 TRANSLATION: ŚR (57-205)
and the chance for a rebirth: "The gods and infernal beings cannot be immediately be reborn in hells because they are not capable of the virulent aggression and excessive possessiveness which cause birth in infernal regions. [...] After completing their lives in the infernal lands, souls are born either as subhumans (animals, plants) or as human beings. In the next life, those from all seven hells are capable of attaining the enlightened world-view [...]".278 Vasunandin explains in (192) that mental suffering is caused by a lack of mental energy or strength (appa-'dhiya). Hardships are described in Ts IX.6ff. by means of which one practises self-purification. Only in the rebirth as human being the spirit of forgiveness, humility, straightforwardness, purity, truthfulness, self-restraint, austerity, renunciation, detachment and continence can be accomplished.
203) Look, how the sentient being, after having enjoyed heavenly bliss in the celestial world, is reborn among the one-sensed beings! What a shame! It is [yet] subjected to the wheel of rebirth and death!
204) In this way the sentient being helplessly attains many kinds of suffering in the terrible ocean of mundane existence as result of the vices.
205) Who abstains from those seven vices and [from the fruits of] the five fig trees], whose mind is purified by true insight, is called "listener [in the stage] of true insight".
⚫ pariharei Vasunandin finishes this section with the refrain of (57). Śr (205b) reads pariharei instead of vivajjei in (57b).
Balbir. In Ratnachandra 1923 [1988], Vol. V, p. 595, appears samsaya, which denotes a category of mixed and deluded insight. Vasunandin argues that the man who lacks enlightened worldview endures all types of suffering. In the Marana-vibhakti (651) occurs the compound māṇa-samsiya-".
278 With regard to the affliction (kilesa) of sentient beings cf. also Mul (1579ff.).
84
