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Mahāsamaya Sutta

The first contains a list of the devas and other beings present to worship the Buddha. It is a long list of strange names given in verses, mostly doggerel. Many of the beings mentioned are to us now mere names, with no special information attached. Most of them were probably local deities, the personification of natural phenomena, guardian spirits, fairies, harpies, naiads, dryads, and many others, who are here represented as adherents of the Buddha, come to do him honour. It is noteworthy that even the most important gods — e.g., Soma, Varuna and Brahmā — are only incidentally mentioned, added to the list, as it were, without special distinction. A similar list of devas is found in the Mahavastu (i. 245; iii.68, 77); the addition of Siva to this list is significant. The list of gods given in the Mahāsamaya should be compared with that given in the Atānātiya Sutta.

The second part of the sutta is the framework of the words attributed to the Buddha, introducing the list of devas, giving the Buddha’s warning to the monks to beware of Māra and Māra’s declaration that he had no power over them as Arahants are free from fear.

The third part of the sutta may be called the prologue, the verses of greeting spoken by the devas from Suddhāvāsā (Rhys Davids, Dial.ii.282f).

This prologue is elsewhere preserved as a separate episode (S.i.27).

The Commentaries give long accounts of the teaching of the Mahāsamya (e.g., SNA. 357ff.; DA.ii.672ff). The Arahants mentioned are Sākiyan and Koliyan youths, representatives of Sākiyan and Koliyan families, sent to join the Order as a sign of gratitude to the Buddha for having averted the quarrel between the two families regarding the water of the Rohinī. On that occasion the Buddha had taught the opposing armies the Attadanda Sutta and the Phandana, Latukika and Vattaka Jātakas (DA.ii.674 adds the Pathavuddriyana and the Rukkhadhamma Jātakas). He then related the story of their origin, showing that both families were descended from a common stock. When the quarrel was thus settled, two hundred and fifty young men from each family entered the Order and the Buddha dwelt with them in Mahāvana. However, the wives of the men tried to entice them back; the Buddha, therefore, took them to Himavā, where he taught them the Kunāla Jātaka on the banks of the Kunāla Lake. At the conclusion of the discourse they attained to various fruits of the Path, from anāgāmī-phala to sotāpatti. He then returned with them to Mahāvana, where they developed insight and became Arahants. They assembled to pay homage to their teacher on the evening of the full moon day of Jetthamāsa, and to the assembly came the devas of the ten thousand world systems. The Buddha told the monks the names of the devas present (as given in the Mahāsamaya), and, surveying the assembly, saw that it consisted of two kinds of beings, one capable of benefiting by his teaching (bhabbā), and the other not so capable (abhabbā). The bhabbā, he saw, could be divided into six groups — the rāgacaritā and the dosa moha vitakka saddhā buddhi caritā, according to temperament. To these, respectively, he taught six suttas, calculated to benefit each separate class, and, in order that each sutta might take the form of question and answer, he created a Buddha form to ask questions, while he himself answered them. The six suttas, so taught, were the Purābheda, Kalahavivāda, Cūlavyūha, Mahāvyūha, Tuvataka and Sammāparibbājaniya. Countless numbers of beings realised the Truth (AA.i.173, 320; Mil. 20, 350; SNA.i.174).

The teaching of the Mahāsamaya Sutta was among the incidents of the Buddha’s life sculptured in the Relic Chamber of the Mahā Thūpa. Mhv.xxx.83.

Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names • G.P. Malalasekera