give him battle face to face. Let us attack him from behind!" The Great Being looked round on three sides, and saw that all the gods had fled, and their place was empty. Then beholding the hosts of Māra coming thick upon him from the North, he thought, "Against me alone this mighty host is putting forth all its energy and strength. No father is here, nor mother, nor brother, nor any other relative to help me. But those ten cardinal virtues have long been to me as retainers fed from my store. So, making the virtues my shield, I must strike this host with the sword of virtue, and thus overwhelm it!" And so he sat meditating on the Ten Perfections.[1]
Then Māra the angel, saying, "Thus will I drive away Siddhattha," caused a whirlwind to blow. And immediately such winds rushed together from the four corners of the earth as could have torn down the peaks of mountains half a league, two leagues, three leagues high — could have rooted up the shrubs and trees of the forest — and could have made of the towns and villages around one heap of ruins. But through the majesty of the goodness of the Great Being, they reached him with their power gone, and even the hem of his robe they were unable to shake.
Then saying, "I will overwhelm him with water and so slay him," he caused a mighty rain to fall. And the clouds gathered, overspreading one another by hundreds and by thousands, and poured forth rain; and by the violence of the torrents the earth was saturated; and a great flood, overtopping the trees of the forest, approached the Great Being. But it was not able to wet on his robe even the space where a dew-drop might fall.
Then he caused a storm of rocks to fall. And mighty, mighty, mountain peaks came through the air, spitting
- ↑ His acquisition of the Ten Perfections, or Cardinal Virtues, is described above, pp. 54-58.
