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

p. 40 CHAPTER III. 1[1]. Now the Blessed One robed himself early in the morning, and taking his bowl in the robe, went into Vesâli for alms, and when he returned he sat down on the seat prepared for him, and after he had finished eating the rice he addressed the venerable Ânanda, and said: 'Take up the mat, Ânanda; I will go to spend the day at the Kâpâla Ketiya.' 'So be it, Lord!' said the venerable Ânanda, in assent, to the Blessed One. And taking up the mat he followed step for step behind the Blessed One. 2. So the Blessed One proceeded to the Kâpâla Ketiya, and when he had come there he sat down on the mat spread out for him, and the venerable Ânanda took his seat respectfully beside him. Then the Blessed One addressed the venerable Ânanda, and said: 'How delightful a spot, Ânanda, is Vesâli, and the Udena Ketiya, and the Gotamaka Ketiya, and the Sattambaka Ketiya, and the Bahuputta Ketiya, and the Sârandada Ketiya, and the Kâpâla Ketiya. 3. 'Ânanda! whosoever has thought out, developed, practised, accumulated, and ascended to the very heights of the four paths to Iddhi[2], and so [1. The whole of this passage down to the end of § 10 recurs in the Iddhipâda Vagga of the Samyutta Nikâya. 2. Iddhi. The four paths are, 1. Will, 2. effort, 3. thought, and 4. investigation, each united to earnest thought and the struggle against sin. The Iddhi reached by them is supposed in works on Buddhism to be a bodily condition (power of flying, &c.), by which the body rose superior to all the ordinary limitations of {footnote p. 41} matter--a bodily condition corresponding to the mental condition of exaltation and power by which it was reached. On this curiously perverted exaggeration of the real influence of the mind over the body see, further, the translator's Buddhism,' pp. 174-17 7. Two of the string of participles--yânikatâ, which may possibly mean 'made use of as a vehicle,' and susamâraddhâ, 'most thoroughly ascended up to'--might seem to allude to Iddhi as a power of flying bodily through the air. But the whole set of participles is used elsewhere of conditions of mind highly esteemed among the Buddhists, and incapable of giving support to any such allusion. So, for instance, of universal love (mettâ) at Gâtaka II, 61.]