[191] At critical moments in the lives of persons of importance in the religious legends of Buddhist India, the seat of the Archangel Sakka becomes warm. Fearful of losing his temporary bliss, he then descends himself, or sends Vissakamma, the Buddhist Vulcan, to act as a _deus ex machinâ_, and put things straight. [192] The force of this passage is due to the fullness of meaning which, to the Buddhist, the words NIBBUTA and NIBBĀNAŊ convey. No words in Western languages cover exactly the same ground, or connote the same ideas. To explain them fully to any one unfamiliar with Indian modes of thought would be difficult anywhere, and impossible in a note; but their meaning is pretty clear from the above sentences. Where in them, in the song, the words _blessed_, _happy_, _peace_, and the words _gone out_, _ceased_, occur, NIBBUTA stands in the original in one or other of its two meanings; where in them the words _Nirvāna_, _Nirvāna of Peace_ occur, NIBBĀNAŊ stands in the original. _Nirvāna_ is a lasting state of happiness and peace, to be reached here on earth by the extinction of the ‘fires’ and ‘troubles’ mentioned in this passage. [193] Literally, “The three Bhavas seemed like houses on fire.” The three Bhavas are Existence in the Kāma-loka, and the Rūpa-loka and the Arūpa-loka respectively: that is, existence in the worlds whose inhabitants are subject to passion, have material forms, and have immaterial forms respectively. [194] Literally, “about an ammaṇa (_i.e._ five or six bushels) of the large jasmine and the Arabian jasmine.” [195] The Jātaka Commentary here referred to is, no doubt, the older commentary in Elu, or old Siŋhalese, on which the present work is based. [196] The word rendered league is _yojana_, said by Childers (Dictionary, s.v.) to be twelve miles, but really only between seven and eight miles. See my Ancient Coins and Measures, pp. 16, 17. The thirty yojanas here mentioned, together with the thirty from Kapilavastu to the river Anomā, make together sixty, or four hundred and fifty miles from Kapilavastu to Rājagaha, which is far too much for the direct distance. There is here, I think, an undesigned coincidence between Northern and Southern accounts; for the Lalita Vistara (Chap. xvi. at the commencement) makes the Bodisat go to Rājagaha _viâ_ Vesāli, and this would make the total distance exactly sixty yojanas. [197] These are the superhuman Snakes and Winged Creatures, who were supposed, like the gods or angels, to be able to assume the appearance of men. [198] Samāpatti.