Ten special powers (dasabala) of Lord Gautama Buddha
Lord Gautama Buddha being a Samma Sambuddha, having realised the four Noble Truths by his own effort with no assistance from any teacher, is believed to have possessed several supernormal knowledge. Patisambhidāmagga, the twelfth of the fifteen books of the collection of the Buddha’s minor discourses (Khuddaka Nikāya) which is believed to have been composed by Arahant Sāriputta, the chief disciple of the Buddha, contains a detailed description of the knowledge that the Buddha had possessed. It has a list of seventy-three different knowledge which includes both mundane and supra-mundane knowledge. Out of them, there is six special super normal knowledge that only a fully enlightened Sammā Sambuddha such as Lord Gautama can possess. They are:
1. Knowledge of the maturity levels of the five spiritual faculties (indriya paropariyatte nāna)
2. Knowledge of the dispositions and underlying tendencies of beings (āsayānusaya nāna)
3. Knowledge of the twin miracle (yamakapātihāra nāna)
4. Knowledge of the attainment of great compassion (mahā karunāsamāpattiya nāna)
5. Knowledge of Omniscience (sabbannuta nāna)
6. Knowledge of un-obstructiveness (anāvarana nāna)
Buddha’s declaration of the ten special powers
As recorded in the Mahā Sīhanāda sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya (collection of the Buddha’s middle-length discourses), at one time the Buddha was staying in a forest near a city called Vesāli. At that time, a certain man called Sunakkhatta who had been a monk before and had even served the Buddha as the Buddha’s attendant, had been talking to the people in Vesāli disparaging and denouncing the Buddha. He has been saying to them that the Buddha lacked any superhuman states or qualities of a liberated saint, the Buddha was merely teaching what he has thought out, and that the Buddha’s teaching was only for the complete ending of suffering. One morning, Arahant Sāriputta, who was one of the two chief disciples of the Buddha, went to Vesāli for the day’s alms round. While on the alms round, Arahant Sāriputta overheard Sunakkhatta addressing a group of people saying: “The recluse Gotama has neither the superhuman states nor the distinction in knowledge and vision worthy of the noble ones.”
On his return from the alms round, Arahant Sāriputta went to see the Buddha and reported the disparaging words that Sunakkhatta had been saying. The Buddha responded by saying that Sunakkhatta was speaking out of malice and that he did not know the Buddha’s true state. Then the Buddha gave a sermon which is recorded as the Mahā Sīhanāda Sutta. In that discourse, the Buddha spoke about the ten special powers of the Tathagata, four kinds of intrepidity, knowledge of the eight assemblies, four kinds of birth, the five destinies and the Nibbana, and the austerities of the Buddha aspirant (Bodhisatta). In this discourse as well as in several other discourses, the Buddha has used the term “Tathāgata” to refer to himself and the previous Buddhas.
The ten special powers (dasabala) of the Buddha (Tathāgata)
The first special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to know and understand as it actually is, why and how the possible is possible and why and how the impossible is impossible. The Buddha knows and understands the underlying causes and conditions that will determine whether it is possible or impossible for something to happen. This is the power of the possible and the impossible.
The second special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to know and understand as it actually is, the results of volitional actions (kamma), performed by anyone in the past, the present and the future, in detail, with reasons and in the exact way. This is the power of knowing the retribution of volitional actions.
The third special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to know and understand as it actually is, how the birth of any sentient being takes place and what causes and conditions lead to that particular birth. The Buddha is aware of all the paths leading to the birth of any sentient being in the four worlds of suffering, human world or the celestial worlds.
The fourth special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to know and understand as it actually is, the world with it’s many and different elements (dhātu). Here, the elements may refer to the five aggregates of clinging (form or matter (rūpa), feeling or sensation (vedanā), perception (saññā), mental formation (sankhāra) and consciousness (viññāna), the six sense bases (eye, ear, nose, tongue, body and the mind), the six sense objects (visual objects, sounds, smells, tastes, touches and ideas), and the six types of sense consciousness (eye consciousness, ear consciousness, nose consciousness, tongue consciousness, body consciousness and mind consciousness) etc.
The fifth special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to know and understand as it actually is, the diversity of beings with regard to their emotions, desires and behaviour. With that understanding, the Buddha is able to deliver the teaching to them so that the listeners will be able to understand it to their best advantage.
The sixth special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to know and understand as it actually is, the disposition of the spiritual faculties of other beings. The five spiritual faculties are: Faith (saddhā), effort (viriya), mindfulness (sati), concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (paññā). This helps the Buddha to know their potential to understand and practise the teaching.
The seventh special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to know and understand as it actually is, the exact nature of deep mental absorptions or Jhana, various types of concentrations, liberations, and meditative attainments. The Buddha also knows the reasons for the deterioration of those meditative states and how to develop them again in the exact way.
The eighth special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to recollect many kinds of his past births. That is: one birth, two births, three births, four births, five births, ten births, twenty births, thirty births, forty births, fifty births, a hundred births, a thousand births, a hundred thousand births, many eons of the world contracting, many eons of the world expanding, many eons of the world contracting and expanding. The Buddha remembers: ‘There, I was so named, such was my clan, I looked like this, such was my food, such was my experience of pleasure and pain, such was my life span, passing away from there, I was reborn somewhere else. There too, I was so named, such was my clan, I looked like this, such was my food, such was my experience of pleasure and pain, such was my life span, passing away from there, I was reborn here’. Thus the Buddha is able to recollect many kinds of his past births, with features and details. Though others could also develop this power through meditation, the Buddha’s ability surpasses them with regard to the extent that the Buddha is able to look back into the past lives.
The ninth special power: The Buddha has the ability and the mental power to see with the divine eye, which is purified and superhuman, the sentient beings passing away and being reborn inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, in a good place or a bad place. The Buddha understands how sentient beings are reborn according to their volitional actions: ‘These beings who engaged in bodily, verbal and mental misconduct, reviled the noble ones, had wrong view and acted based on wrong view, with the breakup of the body, after death, have been reborn in the plane of misery, in a bad destination, in the lower world, in hell. But these beings who engaged in good bodily, verbal and mental conduct, who did not revile the noble ones, held right view, and acted based on right view, with the breakup of the body, after death, have been reborn in a good destination, in a heavenly world’. Thus the Buddha has the special power to see sentient beings passing away and being reborn inferior and superior, beautiful and ugly, in a good place or a bad place according to their volitional actions (kamma).
The tenth special power: With the destruction of all mental defilements, the Buddha has realized for himself, with direct knowledge, with no assistance from any teacher, in this very life, undefiled liberation of mind (ceto vimutti) and liberation by wisdom (paññā vimutti), and having entered upon it, he remains in it.