At that time there came from the opposite direction a grass-cutter named Sotthiya, carrying grass; and recognizing the Great Being, he gave him eight bundles of grass. The Bodisat took the grass; and ascending the rising ground round the Bo-tree, he stood at the South of it, looking towards the North. At that moment the Southern horizon seemed to descend below the level of the lowest hell, and the Northern horizon mounting up seemed to reach above the highest heaven.
The Bodisat, saying, “This cannot, I think, be the right place for attaining Buddhahood,” turned round it, keeping it on the right hand; and went to the Western side, and stood facing the East. Then the Western horizon seemed to descend beneath the lowest hell, and the Eastern horizon to ascend above the highest heaven; and to him, where he was standing, the earth seemed to bend up and down like a great cart wheel lying on its axis when its circumference is trodden on.
The Bodisat, saying, “This cannot, I think, be the right place for attaining Buddhahood,” turned round it, keeping it on the right hand; and went to the Northern side, and stood facing the South. Then the Northern horizon seemed to descend beneath the lowest hell, and the Southern horizon to ascend above the highest heaven.
The Bodisat, saying, “This cannot, I think, be the right place for attaining Buddhahood,” turned round it, keeping it on the right hand; and went to the Western side, and stood facing towards the East. Now in the East is the place where all the Buddhas have sat cross-legged; and that place neither trembles nor shakes.
The Great Being, perceiving, “This is the steadfast spot chosen by all the Buddhas, the spot for the throwing down of the temple of sin,” took hold of the grass by one end, and scattered it there. And immediately there was a seat fourteen cubits long. For those blades of grass arranged themselves in such a form as would be beyond the power of even the ablest painter or carver to design.
The Bodisat turning his back upon the trunk of the Bo-tree, and with his face towards the East, made the firm resolve, “My skin, indeed, and nerves, and bones, may become arid, and the very blood in my body may dry up; but till I attain to complete insight, this seat I will not leave!” And he sat himself down in a cross-legged position, firm and immovable, as if welded with a hundred thunderbolts.
At that time the angel Māra, thinking, “Siddhattha the prince wants to free himself from my dominion. I will not let him get free yet!” went to the hosts of his angels, and told the news. And sounding the drum, called “Satan’s War-cry,” he led forth the army of Satan.
That army of Māra stretches twelve leagues before him, twelve leagues to right and left of him, behind him it reaches to the rocky limits of the world, above him it is nine leagues in height; and the sound of its war-cry is heard, twelve leagues away, even as the sound of an earthquake.
Then Māra, the angel, mounted his elephant, two hundred and fifty leagues high, named, “Girded with mountains.” And he created for himself a thousand arms, and seized all kinds of weapons. And of the remainder, too, of the army of Māra, no two took the same weapon; but assuming various colours and various forms, they went on to overwhelm the Great Being.
But the angels of the ten thousand world-systems continued speaking the praises of the Great Being. Sakka, the king of the angels, stood there blowing his trumpet Vijayuttara. Now that trumpet is a hundred and twenty cubits long, and can itself cause the wind to enter, and thus itself give forth a sound which will resound for four months, when it becomes still. The Great Black One, the king of the Nāgas, stood there uttering his praises in many hundred stanzas. The archangel Mahā Brahma stood there, holding over him the white canopy of state. But as the army approached and surrounded the seat under the Bo-tree, not one of the angels was able to stay, and they fled each one from the spot where the army met them. The Black One, the king of the Nāgas, dived into the earth, and went to Mañjerika, the palace of the Nāgas, five hundred leagues in length, and lay down, covering his face with his hands. Sakka, taking the Vijayuttara trumpet on his back, stopped on the rocky verge of the world. Mahā Brahma, putting the white canopy of state on to the summit of the rocks at the end of the earth, went to the world of Brahma. Not a single deity was able to keep his place. The Great Being sat there alone.