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BUDDHAHOOD and devoted himself to austerities for many years, until he arrived at the threshold of absolute Enlightenment. Sitting then beneath the Bo Trec, he was approached and tempted by the god Kāma-Māra ("Desire and Death"), the master magician of the world illusion.” Having overcome the tempter by remaining iminovablc in introversion, the prince experienced the Great Awakening, since which time he has been known as the "Awakoned One," the Buddha. Absorbed in the vast experience, he remained beneath the Bo Trce, uninoved, untouched, for seven days and seven nights, "experiencing the bliss of the Awakening," then arose, as though to depart from that place, but could not depart. He placed himself beneath a second tree, and there again, for seven days and nights, remained merged in the strcam of the bliss of the awakening. A third time, under a third tree, a spell of seven days and nights again absorbed him. He moicd from tree to trce in this way for seven weeks, and during the filih was protected by the hood of the serpent-king, Mucalinda.Following the blessed period of forty-nine days, his glorious glance opened again to the world. Then he understood that what he had experienced was beyond speech; all endeavor to talk about it would be vain. He determined, consequently, not to attempt to make it known.
But Brahmā, the Universal Lord of the fleeting processes of life, in his eternal abode at the summit of the egg-shaped cosmos, looking down on the Awakened One, realized that the decision had been made to withhold the tcaching. Brahmā, himself a creature, indeed the highest of all creatures, was perturbed to know that the sublime knowledge (knowledge un
2 Cf. supra, pp. 205-206. 3 Cf. supra, pp. 206-207.
* Not Brahman, the anonymous transcendent, but Brahma, the highest creative being. who supervises the process of the unfolding of the flower of the world; cf. supra, pp. 424-425, and Zimmer, Myths and Symbols in Indian Art and Civilization, index, under “Brahmä."
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