Escaping "certain death" in the Mahayana tradition: does it occur in India?
In the Indian suttas (attributed to the Buddha), monks generally prepared their minds to accept death by violence, as described in SN 35.88 &amp; MN 21.  

In the Indian suttas &amp; commentaries, there are also stories of the Buddha &amp; his disciples using love &amp; psychic powers to avoid death, such as Angulimala Sutta, the assassination attempts by Devadatta and Maha Moggallana using his psychic powers to escape assassination.