The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha - Bhikkhu Nanamoli [639]
1161 This refers to the Bodhisatta’s rebirth in the Tusita heaven, which followed his preceding human existence as Vessantara and preceded his birth in the human world as Siddhattha Gotama.
1162 MA: Between every three world systems there is an interspace measuring 8,000 yojanas; it is like the space between three cartwheels or almsbowls touching one another. The beings who live there have taken rebirth there because of committing some heavy, terrible offence against their parents or righteous recluses and brahmins, or because of some habitual evil deed like killing animals, etc.
1163 MA: The four deities were the Four Great Kings (the presiding deities of the heaven of the Four Great Kings).
1164 MA: This happened, not through a defect in the birth, but through the expiration of her lifespan; for the place (in the womb) occupied by the Bodhisatta, like the inner chamber of a cetiya, is not to be used by others.
1165 MA explains each aspect of this event as a foretoken of the Buddha’s later attainments. Thus, his standing with his feet (p̄da) firmly on the ground was a foretoken of his attaining the four bases for spiritual power (iddhip̄da); his facing the north, of his going above and beyond the multitude; his seven steps, of his acquiring the seven enlightenment factors; the white parasol, of his acquiring the parasol of deliverance; his surveying the quarters, of his acquiring the unobstructed knowledge of omniscience; his uttering the words of the Leader of the Herd, of his setting in motion the irreversible Wheel of the Dhamma; his statement “This is my last birth,” of his passing away into the Nibbāna element with no residue remaining (of the factors of existence).
1166 This statement seems to be the Buddha’s way of calling attention to the quality he regarded as the true wonder and marvel.
SUTTA 124
1167 According to MA, Ven. Bakkula became a monk in his eightieth year, which would make him 160 at the time this sutta takes place. He was declared by the Buddha to be the foremost disciple with respect to good health.
1168 MA says that the passages here enclosed in brackets were added by the elders who compiled the Dhamma.
1169 This passage and those to follow show Ven. Bakkula as an observer of the ascetic practices. The kaṭhina time is the period following the three-month rains residence when bhikkhus make new robes from the cloth they have received.
1170 MA says that after he went forth, he was an ordinary man for seven days, but on the eighth day he attained arahantship together with the analytical knowledges (paṭisambhidā).
1171 MA: Ven. Bakkula himself did not give the ordination (which would have been a violation of his mode of practice) but arranged for other bhikkhus to give it.
1172 MA: Ven. Bakkula had considered that all his life he had never made himself a burden to the other bhikkhus, and he did not want his body to be a burden after his death. Thus he entered into meditation on the heat element and attained final Nibbāna by causing his entire body to be consumed by the blaze. Only the relics remained.
1173 MA says that this sutta was recited at the second compilation of the Dhamma, held about a hundred years after the Buddha’s passing away.
SUTTA 125
1174 MA identifies Prince Jayasena as a son of King Bimbisāra.
1175 The simile as at MN 90.11.
1176 Note that here the four foundations of mindfulness are expounded in the place usually reserved for the four jhānas.
1177 I translate on the basis of BBS and SBJ (supported by a 1937 Sinhala edition) rather than PTS. Both BBS and SBJ abridge the passage; where PTS reads kāyūpasaṁhitaṁ and dhammūpasaṁhitaṁ , these two eds. read kāmūpasaṁhitaṁ in both places, a significant difference. I am told that the Chinese translation of the Madhyama Āgama (the Skt counterpart of MN) has a reading that corresponds to that of BBS and SBJ. The Chinese version mentions all four jhānas.
SUTTA 126
1178 MA says that Ven. Bhūmija was the uncle of Prince Jayasena.
1179