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. But Māra said to his host, “Friends! there is no other man like Siddhattha, the son of Suddhodana. We cannot give him battle face to face. Let us attack him from behind!” The Great Being looked round on three sides, and saw that all the gods had fled, and their place was empty. Then beholding the hosts of Māra coming thick upon him from the North, he thought, “Against me alone this mighty host is putting forth all its energy and strength. No father is here, nor mother, nor brother, nor any other relative to help me. But those ten cardinal virtues have long been to me as retainers fed from my store. So, making the virtues my shield, I must strike this host with the sword of virtue, and thus overwhelm it!” And so he sat meditating on the Ten Perfections.[202] Then Māra the angel, saying, “Thus will I drive away Siddhattha,” caused a whirlwind to blow. And immediately such winds rushed together from the four corners of the earth as could have torn down the peaks of mountains half a league, two leagues, three leagues high--could have rooted up the shrubs and trees of the forest--and could have made of the towns and villages around one heap of ruins. But through the majesty of the goodness of the Great Being, they reached him with their power gone, and even the hem of his robe they were unable to shake. Then saying, “I will overwhelm him with water and so slay him,” he caused a mighty rain to fall. And the clouds gathered, overspreading one another by hundreds and by thousands, and poured forth rain; and by the violence of the torrents the earth was saturated; and a great flood, overtopping the trees of the forest, approached the Great Being. But it was not able to wet on his robe even the space where a dew-drop might fall.