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

14. 'Again, Ânanda, a Samana or a Brâhman of great (intellectual) power, arid who has the feelings of his heart well under his control; or a god or fairy (devatâ[1]) of great might and power,--when such a [1. Devatâ is a fairy, god, genius, or angel. I am at a loss how to render this word without conveying an erroneous impression to those not familiar with ancient ideas, and specially with ancient Buddhist ideas, of the spirit world. It includes gods of all sorts; tree and river nymphs; the kindly fairies or ghosts who haunt houses (see my 'Buddhist Birth Stories,' Tale No. 40); spirits in the ground (see above, § I, 26); the angels who minister at the great renunciation, the temptation, and the death of the Buddha; the guardian angels who watch over men, and towns, and countries; and many other similar beings. 'Celestial being' would be wholly inapplicable, for instance, to the creatures referred to in the curious passage above (§ I, 26). 'Superhuman being' would be an inaccurate rendering; for all these light and airy shapes come below, and after, man in the Buddhist order of precedence. 'Spirit' being used of the soul inside the human body, and of the human soul after it has left the body, and figuratively of mental faculties--none of which are included under devatâ--would suggest ideas inconsistent with that of the Pâli word. As there is therefore no appropriate general word I have chosen, for each passage where the expression occurs, the word used in English of the special class {footnote p. 46} more particularly referred to in the passage of the text. Here all kinds of devatâs being referred to, and there being, no word in English for them all, I have ventured to put the word devatâ into my version, and to trouble the reader with this note.]