Samyuktagama 163

Saṃyuktāgama 163. [Discourse on the View on Fourteen Hundred Thousand]

Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha was staying at Sāvatthī in Jeta's Grove, Anāthapiṇḍika's Park.

At that time the Blessed One said to the monks: “The existence of what is the cause, by clinging to what, by being fettered and attached to what, by seeing what as the self, do living beings have a view like this and speak like this:30 'In this there are fourteen hundred thousand gates to birth [as well as] sixty thousand and six hundred [gates to birth], five actions, three actions, two actions, one action, and half an action, sixty-two pathways, sixty-two minor aeons, one hundred and twenty hells, one hundred and thirty faculties,31 thirty-six elements of lust, forty-nine thousand abodes of dragons (nāga s), forty-nine thousand abodes of heavenly birds (garuḍa ), forty-nine thousand forms of wrong livelihood for heterodox practitioners, forty-nine thousand forms of going forth for heterodox practitioners, seven percipient aeons, seven non-percipient aeons, seven [kinds of] demons (asura ), seven [kinds of] goblins (pisāca ), seven [kinds of] deva s, seven [kinds of] humans, seven hundred [kinds of] humans, seven [kinds of] dreams, seven hundred [kinds of dreams], seven [kinds of] dangers, seven hundred [kinds of] dangers, seven [kinds of] thoughts, seven hundred [kinds of] thoughts, six [kinds of] births, ten [kinds of] progress, and eight stages of a great man.

“In this there are eighty-four thousand great aeons, which fools as well as the wise come and go through until the complete ending of dukkha. There is no recluse or brahmin who could proclaim this: 'By constantly upholding morality and undergoing austerities, cultivating the holy life, I will make unripe action ripen, and abandon already ripe action.'

“Advancing and retreating [on the path of purification] cannot be known. One constantly lives with this pain and pleasure, being born and passing away for a fixed amount [of times]. It is just as if a ball of thread is hurled into space and gradually comes down until it stays by itself on the ground. The fixed amount [of times] of one's being born and passing away in these eighty-four thousand great aeons is just like that?'”

The monks said to the Buddha: “The Blessed One is the root of the Dharma, the eye of the Dharma, the foundation of the Dharma …” to be recited fully in the same way in the sequence of the above three discourses.