One time the Bodhisattva, our Lord, having gathered by a constant practice of dhyâna a store of good karma, obtained, it is said, a birth in the Brahmaloka, in consequence of the ripening of that ierit. Nevertheless, owing to his having always been conversant with commiseration in his former existences, that high happiness of the Brahmaloka, which he had obtained as the effect of the excellence of his dhyâna, did not destroy in him his longing for the task of benefiting others.
1. By indulging in sensual pleasures, however material, worldly people become utterly careless. But a frequent absorption in the delight of meditation, however ideal, does not hide the desire for benefiting others from the mind of) the pious.
Now one time it happened that the High-minded One was passing his looks over the Region of Sensuality[1] below (his Brahma-world), where Compassion finds its proper sphere of action, since this is the region visited by hundreds of different forms of sufferings and calamities, and containing the elements for moral illnesses, disasters, injuries against living beings, and sensual pleasures. And he perceived the king of Videha, named Angadinna, erring in the wilderness of a wrong belief, partly by the fault of his intercourse with bad friends, partly also in consequence of his being ardently attached to false thoughts. That king had got this persuasion: there is no other world after this; how could there be anything like result ripening out of good or evil actions ?' and in conformity with this belief his longing for religious practices was extinguished, he was averse to performing the pious works of charity, good conduct
- ↑ The Brahmaloka or Brahma-world is in Buddhist cosmology the world superior to the region of sensuality, the kâmadhâtu (see Burnouf, Introduction, &c., p. 604) or kâmâvakara (see Hardy, Manual, pp. 3, 261). Cp. Kern, Geschiedenis van het Buddhisme, I, pp. 290, 291. Cp. Story XXX, stanza 21, where we have this series of happiness : 1. royalty on earth, 2. heavenly bliss, 3. Brahma's world, 4. final extinction (Nirvâna).
