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The Birth of the Buddha
7. The Uruvela Conversion
Soon after his first turning of the wheel in Benares, the Buddha decided to
return to the site of his enlightenment. He must have known that near Uruvela
there were three brahmin brothers called Kashyapa who led the life of
matted-hair ascetics and practiced the fire-cult.
As we see in Figure 10
from the the great stupa at Sanchi in India, the Kashyapa followers were
recognized by their large mop of hair and by their garments made of bark. They
lived in huts built of branches on the edge of the jungle. Their austerities,
their complicated rites had quickly brought them popular veneration in the
Benares area. It is this hermitage of Uruvela-Kashyapa where the Buddha visited
and asked if he could spend the night at the hut in which the sacrificial fire
was kept burning. Taken by the stranger's self-confidence and personality
Kashyapa did not dare refuse, but warned him that the place was haunted by a
venomous divine serpent (naga). But the Buddha did not allow himself to be
frightened off, and spent the night in the hut. As soon as he went in the hut
the serpent entered and a terrible struggle ensued. Smoke against smoke
appeared, fire against fire, so that the whole structure seemed to go up in
flames. In Figure 10, we can see the flames coming out of all the openings of
the hut, which looks as if it is burning up, while the brahmin ascetics seem
stricken with horror and the novices rush forward with jugs of water to put out
the fire. The Buddha is here represented by the stone slab between the
five-headed serpent and the sacrificial fire. In the end the supernatural power
of the Buddha overcame the naga's fury, and he placed the serpent in his begging
bowl. When morning came, Kashyapa and his followers went to the hut and said:
"The young monk must have been fiercely burned by the serpent's fire." But the
Buddha came out of the hut and presented the distressed brahmins with the
serpent quietly coiled inside his alms bowl.
Totally overpowered by this miraculous feat, Kashyapa and his five hundred threw
their ritual utensils into the river and converted to the Buddhist faith.
Sometime after their conversion the Buddha delivered the well-known Fire Sermon,
which alluded thematically to the practices of the Kashyapa brothers' fire cult.
It begins with these famous words: "Everything is ablaze!" The message of this
sermon is that if anyone's senses are ruled by greed, hatred and delusion, all
his perceptions will kindle, because they arouse further desires and aversions
in him: for him the world is on fire. But whoever exerts control over the six
senses is free from lusts and passions, and will gain freedom from rebirth.
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