Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Aśvaghoṣa and his School – 47
Just as Sundarī, the lovely bride of Nanda, weeps and wails over her
lost husband so does Nanda suffer for his beloved. Vain are the
attempts of the brother monks to tranquilize him. Even the word of
the Buddha is impotent to reconcile him. Then the Master takes him
by the hand and rises with him to heaven. On their way they see in
the Himālayas a hideous one-eyed female monkey and the Buddha
asks Nanda if Sundarī was more charming than she and Nanda
naturally says ‘Yes’ with energy. Soon after, however, they see in the
heaven the apsaras or celestial nymphs and Nanda finds that the
difference between them and his wife is as great as that between the
latter and the one-eyed ape. From this moment onwards he is
possessed with a passionate longing for the fairies and returning on
earth gives himself up to serious ascetic practices in order to be able
to attain to the paradise.
Thereupon Ānanda, the favourite disciple of the Buddha, teaches
him that even the joys of paradise are vain and nugatory. Nanda is
finally convinced and goes to the Buddha to say that he had no
longer a desire for the beauties of heaven. The Buddha is greatly
pleased and preaches to him in several cantos the cardinals of his
doctrine. Nanda now retires into the forest, practises the four great
meditations and becomes an arhat. Gratefully he betakes himself to
the Buddha and does him reverence but the Master calls upon him
now that he has attained his object, out of compassion for others to
preach the doctrine of salvation and conduct others to emancipation.
The reference to the forcible conversion of Nanda occurs also in our
older sources: Mahāvagga, i. 54; Nidānakathā p. 91; Rhys Davids
Buddhist Birth Stories, p. 128. As is pointed out by Haraprasada
Shastri (p. xiii) a strongly divergent version of this legend is to be
found in the Pāḷi commentary on the Dhammapada. See also Spence