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| Animal realm from the Wheel of Life |
updated and revised on 25th August 2020
Bodhisattva
Vasubandhu states:
“As for
the animals, they have three places, the land, the water, and the air. Their
principal place is the Great Ocean; the animals that are elsewhere
are the surplus of the animals”[1].
Master Genshin also explains:
“The
realm of animals is divided into two parts. The chief place is in the great
sea, and branches are interspersed in the realms of humans and heavenly beings” .
a) Animals living in the Great Ocean
In the Buddhist cosmology, the great ocean or
sea is the immeasurable extent of salt water which surrounds the four
continents inhabited by humans and the Mount Sumeru[2].
In that place there are many types of animals, some many times bigger than those
living in our human continent of Jambudvipa. Some are born between the
continents where there is no sunlight and where they cannot see even their own
bodies. Their suffering comes mainly from eating each other, the bigger ones
swallowing up the little ones, while they themselves are inhabited by tiny
little creatures who feed on their flesh.
b) Animals living in different places
These are animals that live in some realms of
the gods or in the human realms, or they are animals with supernatural powers
like the nagas and the garudas.
The animals who live in our realm and the
realm of the gods suffer from both eating one another, and from exploitation.
They are hunted or raised for their meat and various products of their bodies,
thus experiencing inconceivable torments and almost none of them dying a
natural death.
Bodhisattva Nagarjuna lamented the state of
animals in the following verses:
“Even
when in the state of an animal rebirth,
there
are all sorts of sufferings:
Being
slaughtered, tied up, being beaten, and so on.
For
those who've had to give up [the ability for] constructive behavior
leading
to [a state of] peace,
There's
the extremely unbearable devouring of one another”.
Some are
killed for the sake of their pearls or wool,
Or bones,
meat, or pelts;
While
others, being powerless, are forced into servitude,
Patrul
Rinpoche said:
„The animals that live in the realms of gods and humans
suffer continually from their stupidity and from being exploited, while the
nagas pass their lives in misery being
tormented by garudas and rains of burning sand. In addition they are stupid,
aggressive and poisonous.
The wild animals that share our human world, in
particular, live in constant fear. They cannot eat a single mouthful of food
without being on their guard. They have many mortal enemies, for all animals
prey on each other and there are always hunters, beasts of prey and other
threats to life. Hawks kill small birds, small birds kill insects, and so on, continually
amassing evil actions in an endless round of killing and being killed.
Hunters are expert in all methods of torturing and
killing these animals. They threaten their lives with all sorts of vicious
devices-nets, snares, traps and guns. Some animals are killed for their horns,
fur, skins and
other products of their body. Oysters are killed for
their pearls; elephants for their tusks and bones; tigers, leopards, otters and
faxes for their fur; musk-oxen for their musk; wild asses and yaks for their
flesh and blood.
It is a terrible affliction that the very body with which
they are born is the reason for their being killed.
As for those animals domesticated by man, they are so
stupid that when their executioner approaches, knife in hand, they can only
stare wideeyed, not even thinking of escape. They are milked, loaded down, castrated,
pierced through the nose and yoked to the plough. Not one of
them escapes this continual round of slavery. Horses and
yaks continue to be loaded and ridden even when their backs are nothing but one
big sore. When they can go no further, they are whipped and pelted with stones.
The fact that they could be in distress or ill never seems to cross
their owners' minds. Cattle and sheep are exploited until
they die. Once they are too old, they are sold off or killed by the owners
themselves. Whatever the case, they are destined for the butcher and a natural
death is unknown to them. Animals, then, experience inconceivable torments.
Whenever you see animals tortured in this way, put yourself in their place and
imagine in detail all they have to undergo.”[4]
Nagas are animals with miraculous
powers who live in many places: in some realms of the gods or humans, bellow
the four continents or in depths of waters (oceans, rivers, lakes, etc) where
they have their own paralel reality, invisible to us, with cities, palaces and
various manifestations. Sometimes, it seems that the waters are just a portal
towards their realms which they can reach through other means[5], like for example, through earth[6].
The
world of nagas is luxurious, very sensual and sexual. The palaces are
fantastically beautiful, filled with all kinds of riches, gardens and lakes,
fruits always rippened and perfumed open lotuses. The land is leveled and
pleasant to touch like a soft carpet. The naga women are perfect seducers whose
magical power of attraction is hard to resis, some of them leading an immoral
life[7].
The
nagas resemble a lot with the spirits and have miraculous powers but are
included in the category of animals because of their body in the form of big hooded
snakes like cobras[8], and also probably because of
their powerful animal instincts. They
have the capacity to become invisible and shapeshift, the sacred texts often
mentioning them to appear in human form, although they can take other forms[9], too. They are temperamental
beings and if they are upset or their teritory is defiled they can throw with diseases
or cause various problems to humans.
However,
there are some nagas who are converted to Buddhism and who protect the Dharma
and the disciples of Buddha, sometimes even acting as keepers of sacred texts[10]. In Muccalinda Sutra we are told that the naga king Muccalinda
protected Shakyamuni Buddha from rain by covering him with his huge hood. This
image is famous in the Buddhist statuary art. Also, in the Lotus Sutra we are told about a daugher of another naga king who attained
Enlightenment, and a list of eight great naga kings are often mentioned in
audience when Shakyamuni taught various sutras. So, the world of nagas has its
own sages and spiritually evolved practitioners.
Generaly
speaking, a being is reborn as a naga due to an ambivalent karma of speech,
body and mind. For example, it is mentioned in the Samantapasadika the case of a man who had such a good karma that he
deserved to be reborn in the world of the gods but because he was guilty of
incestuous relations he was reborn as a water naga who fed on frogs. He was so
disgusted with his life as a naga and wanted to become human again as he took
human form and received monk ordination to gain the necesary karma to be reborn
a human in the next life. Unfortunately, after he became a monk and lived for
some time at a monastery, somebody saw his true form when sleeping[11] and the monks told everything to
Shakyamuni. He spoke about the specific limitations of nagas and forbade the
ordination of animals, on which occasion was proclaimed the rule that each
aspirant should be asked, ”manusso’si?”, which means, “are you a human being?” before
ordination.[12]
Uncontrolled
sexual instincts lead to rebirth in the animal world. However, as nobody has a
single type of karma, there is not a single type of animals, some being
superior to others. Thus, an uncontrolled sexuality combined with a very good
karma in other things[13] may lead to rebirth in a superior
form of animal like the naga.
Depending
on the modality of birth, the nagas are of many types, each category being
considered superior to other: 1) nagas born by spontaneous apparition, 2) nagas
born from moisture, 3) nagas born from the womb and 4) nagas bron from eggs.
Nagas are
usually associated with the water element but there are also nagas associated
with the fire element. It is well known the story of taming a fire naga by
Shakyamuni Buddha followed by the mass conversion of the fire ascetic
worshippers[14].
Although
the nagas have some miraculous powers and enjoy great abundance, they also
suffer from various afflictions. For example, the nags of Jambudvipa (our
world) are said to suffer from three calamities:
1)
Their skin and flesh are burned by
a hot wind or hot sand storm which appears from time to time in their world,
2)
Sometimes an evil wind errupts in
their naga palaces leaving them without clothes, ornaments and protection from
heat,
Garudas, the second type of animals with miraculous
powers,
are very big birds[16] with incredible strenght, being
capable to pull banyan trees from their roots (Jataka, 412, 543) or create a powerful wind with the flapping of
their wings (Jataka, 518) through
which they separate the waters of the ocean and find nagas dwelling places (Jataka, 412) or to cause a storm which
can destroy human houses and plunge a whole town into total darkness (Jataka, 360).[17]
Also,
because of their supranatural powers, garudas can shapeshift, often taking
human form. Their favorite place to live are the groves of simbali trees[18] (Samyutta Nikaya, 48:70), a large community of garudas being
mentioned (Jataka, 31) to live in
such a forest on the slopes of mount Sumeru[19].
The main
food of garudas are the nagas. The garudas are born in all the four modes,
simmilar to the nagas, and here too there is a hierarchy depending on the modes
of birth: 1) spontaneous appartition, 2) from moisture, 3) the womb and 4) from
the egg. This hierarchy reflects especially in the modality of eating, that is,
a garuda born spontaneously can eat any type of nagas, while the rest can eat
only a naga from the same category or inferior to them. Those born from egg,
being the lowest category, can only eat the nagas equivalent to them. There are,
however, cases of peace between these two species of powerful animals.
Some
garudas are converted to Buddhism and act as protectors of Dharma and disciples
of Buddha. Among these some are also very advanced spiritually and even
attained Enlightenment.
The sacred
texts are very poor in details regarding garuda birds which is why I did not
find any information about the causes of birth in this form of existence and
the sufferings specific to them, as they seem to have no natural enemies. However,
they also get old and die, and suffer from the tirany of instincts like any
animal, feeling hunger and the need to eat other animals.
In accordance
with Abhidharmakosabhasyam by
Vasubandhu, the lifespan of most long-lived animals is no more than an
eon, while the life spans of short-lived animals is not fixed.
[1] Abhidharmakosabhasyam,
English translation by Leo M. Pruden; Berkeley, Calif, Asian
Humanities Press, 1991; vol 2, p. 460
[2] Mount Sumeru is a cosmological mountain, like
an axis of the world. Every samsaric world or universe has a mount Sumeru, or
an axis in relation with which all the six planes of existence are described.
[3] Verses 89 and 90 from Letter to a Friend (bShes-pa'i
springs-yig, Skt. Suhrllekha) by Nagarjuna, translated by Alexander Berzin,
2006,
http://www.berzinarchives.com/web/en/archives/sutra/level6_study_major_texts/suhrllekha_letter_friend_nagarjuna/letter_friend.html
[4] Patrul Rinpoche, The Words of My
Perfect Teacher, Boston: Shambhala, Revised edition, 1998, p.76-77
[5] When king Uggasena wished
to visit the realm of nagas, the naga king Campeya created through his magical
power a golden road which lead there.
[6] In Bhuridatta Jataka entrance to a naga dwelling place is described as
a whirpool in the Yamuna river, but later, the nagas reach the same place
through earth.
Jataka
543 - The Buddhist Cosmos: A Comprehensive Survey of the Early Buddhist
Worldview; according to Theravada and Sarvastivada sources, by Punnadhammo Mahathero, Independently Published, Arrow River Forest
Hermitaje, 2018, p.169
[7] It is told that the naga king Vimala wished to recruit an assasin to
kill the sage Vvidhura because his queen desired to eat his heart, so he asked
his daugher Irandhati to find one. She did not oppose, being herself overcome
by carnal desires, so she put on a red dress, adorned herself with various
ornaments and went on the top of a mountain. There she made a bed of perfumed
flowers, danced and sang with a sweet voice: „What gandharva, rakshasa,
kimpurisa or a sage would like to have his desires satisfied with me and be my
husband for the whole night?” This is how she seduced and recruited Punnaka,
the leader of yakshas who tried to kill Vidhura.
Jataka,
546 - The Buddhist Cosmos: A Comprehensive Survey of the Early Buddhist
Worldview; according to Theravada and Sarvastivada sources, by Punnadhammo Mahathero, Independently Published, Arrow River Forest
Hermitaje, 2018, p.173
[9] The sacred texts sometimes
mention cases of nagas who assume the form of animals and even objects.
[10] It is said that
Bodhisattva Nagarjuna received the Prajnaparamita
sutras from some nagas which were entrusted to them by Shakyamuni Buddha.
[11] Nagas come back to their
natural form when sleeping, throw their skin, make sex with other nagas and in
the moment of death.
[12] Vinaya, Mahavagga 1:63 - The
Buddhist Cosmos: A Comprehensive Survey of the Early Buddhist Worldview;
according to Theravada and Sarvastivada sources, by Punnadhammo Mahathero,
Independently Published, Arrow River Forest Hermitaje, 2018, p.168-169
[13] For example, somebody observes
all the other precepts and be very generous with those in need but has an
incorrect sexual life. This combination may lead to rebirth as a naga. Uncontrolled
sexuality has the karmic effect of birth into the animal plane of existence (and
in some extreme cases even in hell or preta realms) while generosity leads to abundance
and miraculous powers.
[14] Once the Buddha reached the monastery of Kassapa in Uruvela, who was
the leader of a group of fire ascetics and asked him to let Him sleep in the
place called the „fire hut”. Kassapa agreed but told Him that there was a
ferocious and poisoned naga there. Buddha was not scared and sat inside the
fire hut in meditation posture. The naga became furious and blew smoke through his mouth. Buddha did
the same. „I will conquer the heat of this naga with heat without destroying
him”, thought the Buddha. Then the naga blew fire and the Buddha, entering the
fire element, did the same. The fire ascetics gathered arround the hut and
watched in amazement how it was filled with fire. All of them thought the
Buddha will die, but to their surprise the next morning the Buddha left the hut
with the tamed naga seated silently in His bowl: „Look Kasapa, here is your
naga. His fire was extinguished.”
[17] The Buddhist Cosmos: A
Comprehensive Survey of the Early Buddhist Worldview; according to Theravada
and Sarvastivada sources, by Punnadhammo Mahathero, Independently
Published, Arrow River Forest Hermitaje, 2018, p.177
[18] Bot: Bombax Ceiba. They
are also called Kapok trees. In English they are known as Silk-cotton trees.
[19] The Buddhist Cosmos: A
Comprehensive Survey of the Early Buddhist Worldview; according to Theravada
and Sarvastivada sources, by Punnadhammo Mahathero, Independently
Published, Arrow River Forest Hermitaje, 2018, p.177
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