The first result, however, of his engaging in abstract meditation, was that he seemed to himself to be as far as ever from the emancipation which was the one aim of his great renunciation. Why not then return to the world? Why not indulge again in the pleasures of sense? Why not go back to home, wife, and child? Thoughts of this kind passed through his mind, while all his old affections and feelings seemed to revive with tenfold intensity. Then on one particular night, during this mental struggle, Māra, the Destroyer and personification of carnal desire, seized his opportunity. The spirit of evil had bided his time; had waited to assail the sage at the right moment, when protracted self-mortification had done its work—when with exhausted strength he had little power of resistance. It is certainly remarkable that a great struggle between good and evil, right and wrong, truth and error, knowledge and ignorance, light and darkness, is recognized in all religious systems, however false. (See a notable allusion to this in Ṡaṅkara’s Commentary to Ćhāndogya Upanishad, p. 26, ll. 2-8.) The legendary description of the Buddha’s temptation, and of the assault made upon him by Māra (the deadly spirit of sensuous desire[13]), and by all his troop of attendants, is so interesting and curious, notwithstanding its extravagance, that I here abridge it:— Fiends and demons swarmed about him in the form of awful monsters, furies, vampires, hobgoblins, armed to the teeth with every implement of destruction. Their million faces were frightful to behold, their limbs encircled by myriads of serpents, their heads enveloped in a blaze of fire. They surrounded the saint and assailed him in a thousand different ways. Missiles of all kinds were hurled against him; poison and fire were showered over him—but the poison changed into flowers, the fire formed a halo round his head. The baffled evil one now shifted his ground. He summoned his sixteen enchanting daughters, and sent them to display their charms in the presence of the youthful saint. But the resolute young ascetic was not to be lured by their wiles. He remained calm and impassive, and with a stern face rebuked the maidens for their boldness, forcing them to retire discomfited and disgraced. Other forms of temptation followed, and the debilitated ascetic’s strength seemed to be giving way. But this was merely the crisis. After rising to higher and higher stages of abstract meditation at the end of a long night he shook off his foe. The victory was won, and the light of true knowledge broke upon his mind. A legend relates that in the first night-watch he gained a knowledge of all his previous existences; in the second—of all present states of being; in the third—of the chain of causes and effects (p. 102); and at the dawn of day he knew all things.