Mahâ-Parinibbâna-Suttanta: The Book of the Great Decease

25. When the Blessed One had thus taught the disciples, and incited them, and roused them, and gladdened them, far into the night with religious discourse, he dismissed them, saying, 'The night is far spent, O householders. It is time for you to do what you deem most fit.' 'Even so, Lord!' answered the disciples of Pâtaligâma, and they rose from their seats, and bowing to the Blessed One, and keeping him on their right hand as they passed him, they departed thence. And the Blessed One, not long after the disciples [1. Four such states are mentioned, apâya, duggati, vinipâto, and nirayo, all of which are temporary states. The first three seem to be synonyms. The last is one of the four divisions into which the first is usually divided, and is often translated hell; but not being an eternal state, and not being dependent or consequent upon any judgment, it cannot accurately be so rendered.] p. 18 of Pâtaligâma had departed thence, entered into his private chamber. 26. At that time Sunîdha and Vassakâra, the chief ministers of Magadha, were building a fortress at Pâtaligâma to repel the Vaggians, and there were a number of fairies who haunted in thousands the plots of ground there. Now, wherever ground is so occupied by powerful fairies, they bend the hearts of the most powerful kings and ministers to build dwelling-places there, and fairies of middling and inferior power bend in a similar way the hearts of middling or inferior kings and ministers.