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“ All the details of the story are worked out with persistent humour, characteristic of such legends in the Buddhist books, in order to bring out the two lessons-in the first place how, in all such matters, to trust to the gods is to lean on a broken reed; and secondly, how perfectly useless is the power of such iddhī, which, even at its best, can give no better help than that to one in earnest about higher things.
The problem put is of great interest; and goes to the very core of the Buddhist Welt-anschaūng, of Buddhist philosophy. The world, as we know it, is within each of us. ”

“ INTRODUCTION TO THE KEVADDHA SUTTA IN this Sutta we have the position taken up by the early Buddhists, and no doubt by Gotama himself, as to the practice of the wonders or miracles, in which there was then universal belief.
They were not, however, miracles in our Western sense. There was no interference by an outside power with the laws of nature. It was supposed that certain people, by reason of special (but quite natural) powers, could accomplish certain special acts beyond the power of ordinary men. ”

“ The picture drawn of the Arahat par excellence, the Buddha himself, is a standing example of what the early Buddhists considered a man to be in whom the viññāṇa had waned. Whatever else it is, it is the very reverse of a man intellectually asleep, unconscious of what is said to him dull to ideas. ”

“ And some believer, of trusting heart, should behold him doing so.
[213) 5. ‘Then that believer should announce the fact to an unbeliever, saying: “Wonderful, Sir, and marvellous is the mystic power and potency of that recluse. For verily I saw him indulging himself, in various ways, in mystic power: from being one becoming multiform (&c., as before, down to) reaching, even in the body, up to the heaven of Brahmā!”.’
[\q 278/] ‘Then that unbeliever should say to him: “Well, Sir! there is a certain charm called the Gandhāra Charm. It is by the efficacy thereof that he performs all this.” ”

“ But it is the picture of [\q 275/] a man to whom the Four Elements, and all that follows from them, material things, and the ways in which they affect him, have ceased to have the paramount importance they have to the thoughtless [11] .
[\q 276/] [English Introduction]
XI. KEVADDHA SUTTA [THE, THREE WONDERS, AND THE GODS]
[211] 1. Thus have I heard. The Exalted One was once staying at Nālandā in the Pāvārika’s mango grove [12] . Now Kevaddha [13] , a young householder, came where the Exalted One was, and bowed down in salutation to him, and took a seat on one side. ”

“ It is improbable that a wealthy and distinguished man, of high social position, should have been called Kevaṭṭa, ‘fisherman.’ However, Dr. Neumann, who has translated this Suttanta in his ‘Buddhist is the Anthropologie,’ pp. ”