The author of the website PureDhamma, an advocate of the dispensation of the Venerable Waharaka Abayarathanalankara Thero, as usual, freely intermixed teachings from suttāni, Pāli Abhidhamma, as well as oral teachings which we can assume come from the aforementioned dispensation, and his own inference.
It is not a perspective informed by inquiry into early Buddhist texts from a text-critical perspective.
It would be interesting to compare this perspective on the role of the gandharva & antarābhāva in non- Vibhajyavāda & non-Tāmraparṇīya derived sects as it is presented in a much later medieval presentation in the Sautrāntika Abhidharmakośaśāstrakārikāvibhāṣya (T1563, Mahāyānika text, Āryavasubandhu): http://lirs.ru/lib/kosa/Abhidharmakosabhasyam,vol_2,Vasubandhu,Poussin,Pruden,1991.pdf
However, IMO, there is much science fiction in PureDhamma’s conception of the functioning of the gandharva, which appears much like astral projection in PureDhamma’s view.
From PureDhamma:
- One’s inert physical body is controlled by one’s mental body (gandhabba or manōmaya kaya) that is inside the physical body.
- Gandhabba state remains through many successive human births within a given human bhava (which can last many hundreds of years). When a given physical body dies, gandhabba comes out of the dead body. Then the gandhabba has to wait (sometimes many years), before it is pulled into another womb, when a matching one becomes available. Rebirth stories confirm this account.
This information is largely the personal fancy of the website’s author as well as the anecdotal rememberings of personal accounts of rebirth that we can assume the author has compiled. It does not derive from the Pāli Abhidhamma and does not derive from the Buddha’s discourses.