PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SUNDAY, MAY 17, 2015 AND AGAIN TO THE NEW BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, JANUARY 11, 2025 (REVISED)

The Discourse on the Marks
Digha Nikaya 30

Country: Kosala
Locale: Jetavana monastery in Anathapindika’s Park, Savatthi
Speakers: the Buddha
Date of Composition: 3rd to 2nd cent. BCE

We discussed the thirty-two marks of a great man and the seven treasures of a world ruler in discourse 14. Here in discourse 30 we encounter them again, so some of today’s talk may be familiar to those who attended my talk on discourse 14. The marks of a great man are, paradoxically, observable shortly after birth. If they are all present, they indicate that the infant will grow up to be either a righteous world ruler, who governs in accordance with the teaching, or a Buddha, who achieves enlightenment and teaches the way. If he becomes a world ruler, he will have the seven great treasures: wheel treasure, elephant treasure, horse treasure, jewel treasure, woman treasure, householder treasure, and counsellor treasure.

The seven treasures represent seven essential qualities of a righteous world ruler:

• Wheel Treasure: the power of truth and the teaching itself;
• Elephant Treasure: virtue or morality;
• Horse Treasure: dispassion, renunciation, detachment;
• Jewel Treasure: omniscience;
• Woman Treasure: ecstasy or bliss;
• Householder Treasure: wisdom or skill;
• Counsellor Treasure: omnipotence.

A righteous world ruler has however conquered, not by force of arms, but by the power of truth, and governs based on justice and law.

A Buddha, the discourse says, draws back the veil from the world – implying that the world is veiled or obscured from sight. The world that we perceive is not reality. It is a false front or, as we might say today, virtual.

Commentators endlessly emphasize how odd the thirty-two marks of a great man are, but most of them are not hard to imagine. The tradition says that the Buddha was flat-footed, with prominent heels and ankles; long fingers and toes; soft and tender hands and feet, with a bit of a web between the fingers and toes; shapely and powerful legs; long arms; a clear golden complexion; delicate and smooth skin; distinct curly bluish-black body hairs; an erect posture; well-rounded limbs, shoulders and trunk; a powerful, rounded chest; a perfect sense of taste; powerful jaws; forty even, closely spaced, white teeth; a beautiful voice; deep blue eyes; long eyelashes; a mole with fine white hairs between his eyes; and a large cranium. This really tells us little about the actual physical appearance of the Buddha, but Rhys Davids has suggested that the mole between the eyebrows and the large cranium may represent actual physical idiosyncrasies of the historical Buddha. Many of the characteristics correspond to the classical Indian concept of male beauty.

You will notice that this discourse, like many others, appears in both verse and prose. Each verse section summarizes the prose section that precedes it, but one could equally view the prose section as a commentary. Verse is more easily memorized than prose. Thus, the question arises, which came first, the prose or the verse? According to Wikipedia, “the earliest extant forms of Buddhist discourse appear in verse.” Linguistic analyses also suggest that the verse has been less edited than the prose, which is hardly surprising. Hajime Nakamura states that the verse sections predate the prose sections. Similarly, the verse sections of the Jatakas are canonical, but the prose sections are not. Pande, however, says that whereas “verse is a greater conserving medium and in oral transmission likely to be more conservative than prose,” “where prose and verse occur together, it is impossible to say in general whether the one or the other is older,” and rejects drawing any conclusions regarding stratification based on whether the text is in verse or prose (Studies in the Origin of Buddhism, p. 50). Walshe’s note that the metres of the verses in this discourse indicate that they are of late date supports Pande’s caution, in the context of this discourse, at least in part. However, as I have observed elsewhere, a late date of composition neither proves that the constituent material is either late or logically or philosophically illegitimate even if it is.

The qualities and characteristics of a future Buddha are, like everything else, the result of moral causality. Each of these characteristics seems to symbolize a noble quality earned in former lives. Thus, this theory of the thirty-two marks of a great man is really a codification of the general theory of moral causality, identifying the cause of each characteristic and its effects in the present life (which are comparable), both for world rulers and buddhas. There is a similar Mahayana sutra, called the Karma Sutra, which compiles a similar list of qualities without special reference to a buddha or the thirty-two marks.

The discourse presents this list as a secret or at least unknown knowledge, despite the Buddha’s insistence elsewhere they he makes no distinction between esoteric and exoteric.

The Thirty-Two Marks of a Great Man and Corresponding Karmic Factors

	Mark	Cause	Effect
1	Feet with level tread	Meritorious deeds	Cannot be impeded
2	Wheels with 1000 spokes on soles	Provides for happiness of people	Large retinue
3	Projecting heels	Avoids killing	Longevity
4	Long fingers and toes	Avoids killing	Longevity
5	Soft and tender hands and feet	Sympathy	People well-disposed to him
6	Webbed hands and feet	Sympathy	People well-disposed to him
7	High raised ankles	Dispenses welfare	Chief of all
8	Legs like an antelope’s	Skilfulness	Acquires things he needs
9	Can touch and rub his knees with either hand	Considerate	Wealthy and virtuous
10	Male organs enclosed in a sheath	Reunites families	Large progeny
11	Bright golden complexion	Avoids anger and generous	Receives fine “stuffs”
12	Delicate smooth skin	Ethics	Wisdom
13	Separate body hairs	Truthfulness	Obedience of others
14	Curly, blue-black, upwardly growing body hairs	Dispenses dharma (just?)	Chief of all
15	Straight body	Avoids killing	Longevity
16	Seven convex surfaces	Gives fine food	Receives fine food and drink
17	Front part of body like a lion’s	Desires the welfare of people	Success
18	No hollow between shoulders	Desires the welfare of people	Success
19	Proportioned like a banyan tree	Considerate	Wealthy and virtuous
20	Evenly rounded chest	Seeks the welfare of people	Success
21	Perfect sense of taste	Harmlessness	Suffers little; good digestion
22	Jaws like a lion’s	Avoids idle chatter	Cannot be overcome
23	Forty teeth	Avoids slander	Unity of the people
24	Even teeth	Right livelihood	Purity
25	No spaces between teeth	Avoids slander	Unity of the people
26	Canine teeth very bright	Right livelihood	Purity
27	Very long tongue	Avoids harsh speech	Persuasiveness
28	Brahma-like, melodious (‘bird-like”)	Avoids harsh speech	Persuasiveness
29	Deep blue eyes	Straightforward and kind	Popularity
30	Cow-like eyelashes	Avoids harsh speech	Persuasiveness
31	White hairs between eyebrows	Truthfulness	Obedience of others
32	Head like a royal turban	Leadership	Loyalty

This analysis shows that at the time of the Buddha there was a divinatory science of physiognomy, in which the signs of past karma could be “read” in the body of the infant and so inferences made about their future destiny. The repeated reference to “Those who read the marks and signs, / Experts in such lore” implies the existence of such a science. This also implies that moral causality determines, not just the experiences of life and psychological tendencies, but also one’s physical genetic inheritance. From the modern secular perspective, genetic outcomes are the results of random chance, but Buddhism, which is based on interconnectedness and moral causality – everything affects everything else, effects and is the effect of everything else – does not emphasize randomness. Therefore, there are no coincidences. These qualities also provide a checklist of the qualities that one must cultivate to become a Buddha. Ethics are strongly emphasized.

The list also provides an unusual view of the Precepts, in which each of the precepts corresponds to a positive action too, not just an avoidance, showing that the Buddha in past lives did not merely abstain from negative karma, but also cultivated positive karma.

Negative Karma (Avoided)	Positive Karma (Cultivated)	Karmic Effect
Taking life	Compassion	Longevity
Stealing	Generosity	Good disposition towards him by others
Wrongful speech (lying, idle chatter, gossip, harshness)	Truthfulness, speaking at the right time, peacemaking, agreeableness	Obedience by others, cannot be overcome, unity of the people, persuasiveness

This important list of the attributes of a Buddha does not emphasize sensuality or alcohol.

We also see traces of the Noble Eightfold Path, especially Right Speech, Action, and Livelihood.

There are a few points of interest in this list of karmic factors. First, in connection with the wheel-spoked soles of a Buddha, the text states that the Buddha’s retinue includes, in addition to male and female monastics and lay followers or householders, divine beings, antigods, dragons (or sacred or divine serpents), and celestial musicians: i.e., non-human beings. Divine beings are of course the “shining beings” that we have discussed before. Antigods, however, are notoriously evil beings, even demonic, but here the discourse implies that there are antigods who are also Buddhist. We have seen a hint of this before, when the divine beings and antigods congregate together to honour the Buddha. This interpretation seems to refer to the early Vedic period (1500-1200 BCE), when the antigods were not necessarily evil.

Dragons also are morally ambiguous creatures. They are snake or dragon beings, especially cobras with one or many heads, that dwell in lakes, oceans, or underground streams and caverns, as well as on the human-inhabited earth. They are also associated with treasure and hidden and important esoteric writings, called hidden treasures, which became important after Padmasambhava (755-817 CE). Dragons are also able to appear as human beings. There is a story of a dragon who wished to ordain as a Buddhist monk, so they include Buddhists clearly. The dragons serve Virupaksa, the guardian of the West in the realm of the Four Great Kings. They protect the divine beings of the realm of the thirty-three gods from the antigods and function as messengers between the realm of the thirty-three gods and the earth. Thus, contrary to the defamatory attacks by British conspiracy theorist and public speaker David Icke, the dragons (or “reptilians” in Icke’s jargon) are not unrelentingly wicked. The dragon Mucalinda protected the Buddha from a great storm for seven days, four weeks after his enlightenment, by covering his head with his hood. Sariputta and Moggallana, the two chief disciples of the Buddha, are called great snakes. Dragons also appear commonly in the names of great Buddhist philosophers. (e.g., Dignaga, an Indian Buddhist logician; Nagarsena, who compiled the Questions of King Milinda;  and the great Buddhist philosopher, Nagarjuna). The Vajrayana and Mahasiddha traditions include esoteric texts that are associated with dragons. Tradition holds that a dragons revealed the Prajnaparamita to Nagarjuna. The dragons stored the Lotus Sutra in their realm for five hundred years before they revealed it about 78 CE. This implies a date for the final emancipation shortly before 423 BCE, since the Buddha is reputed to have delivered the discourse toward the end of his life. This date is consistent with the modern reckoning.

A celestial musician is the lowest ranking divine being in Buddhist cosmology. They are subject to Dhritarashtra, the guardian of the East in the realm of the Four Great Kings. Those who practise only elementary ethics are reborn here. In addition to being known as musicians, they are aerial and connected with trees and flowers, and dwell in the scents of bark, sap, and blossom, rather like fairies. We met a celestial musician in a previous discourse in connection with the rebirth of the of King Bimbisara of Magadha. Incidentally, this is not a very impressive rebirth, indicating that Bimbisara was not that great a king, despite being a disciple of the Buddha and a stream entrant.

The discourse also reveals that the Buddha, despite his moderate poverty, was still able to enjoy a satisfying meal. I mentioned this point before in the context of a discussion of the Buddha’s liberality in his conduct with respect to women, including prostitutes (like Jesus), and the accusations of laxness that the Group of Five, Devadatta, and others levelled against him during his career.

The discourse also alludes to the seven treasures of a Buddha: faith, morality, shame, dread, learning, renunciation, and wisdom. The wisdom of a Buddha has six aspects, a formula that Ananda and the Buddha apply to Sariputta, the disciple foremost in wisdom. Their wisdom is great, extensive, joyous, swift, penetrating, and discerning, meaning that it is metaphysical, universal, induces happiness, and is incisive, profound, and analytical. We also learn four ways to be loved: be generous, use pleasing speech, engage in beneficial conduct, and remain impartial.

Finally, this is the only discourse in the Digha Nikaya that has no ending. It just stops. Therefore, will I … just stop.

Buddha Centre, Saturday, January 11, 2025