Vol. 15, 1 Buddhist Studies Review 1998
CONTENTS Frontispiece Buddhist Studies Review and the UK Association
for Buddhist Studies.. .. ~ ..... 1 The Trials of Yasodhara and the Birth of Rahula: A Synopsis of Bhadrakalpavadana II-IX — Joel
Tatelman .. 3 A Critical Examination of Nanavira's 'A Note on Paticcasamuppada' (I) — Bhikkhu Bodhi .. 43 -ft i 4- — tr. * $ Ekottaragama (XXIII) Thich Huyen-Vi and % Bhikkhu Pasadika 65 Obituaries; Jean Boisselier, Albert Le Bonheur, Walter Couvreur, Wtadysiaw Misiewicz, Bhikkhu Nanajlvako 71 Letter to the Editor 79 Review Article: Abhidhamma Studies at the British Buddhist Association and A Comprehensive
Manual of Abhidhamma — A. Haviland-Nye .. 81 Book Reviews 100
ISSN 0265-2897 © 1998 Buddhist Studies Review
Buddhist Studies Review is the semi-annual journal of the U K
Association for Buddhist Studies and is sponsored by the Inst i tut de recherche bouddhique Linh-Sdn
Advisory Committee: Ven. Thich Huyen-Vi (Spiritual Adviser) Eric Cheetham J.W. de Jong Hubert Dun K.R. Norman G.C. Pande Charles Prebish Peter Skilling Paul Williams
Editor. Russell Webb Assistant Editors: Bhikkhu Pasadika, Sara Boin-Webb
N. American Representative: Charles S, Prebish
For editorial addresses and subscription details,' see inside back cover. Vol.15, 1 BUDDHIST STUDIES REVIEW 1998
Frontispiece: the calligraphy in Sino-Vietnamese characters (Norn) by Ven Thich Huyen-Vi reads: Buddhist Studies Review and the UK Association for Buddhist Studies
As of 1998, Buddhist Studies Review has been endorsed as the Mental phenomena are preceded by mind, have journal of the UK Association for Buddhist Studies. All paid up mind as their leader, are made by mind. members of UKABS will receive a copy, though BSR will of evil mind, If one acts or speaks with an from course continue to be available to non-UKABS members. UKABS that sorrow follows him, as the wheel follows seeks to foster communication between those working in various the foot of the ox. fields: Buddhism in South, South-East, Central and East Asia; historical and contemporary studies (including developments in 'Western' Buddhism): theoretical, practical and methodological Dhammapada I vl (tr. K R Norman) issues; textual, linguistic, archaeological and art-history studies. Pali Text Society 1997 © Accordingly, the remit of BSR is being expanded beyond its original scope of 'the broad Hlnayana tradition and early Mahayana in India, Central Asia and China' to welcome contri- butions from these different areas. The Association aims to act as a focus for Buddhist Studies in the UK, and is open to academics, post-graduates, and unaffiliated Buddhist scholars or interested Buddhist practitioners. This is seen to be particularly appropriate as the scholarly study of Buddhism in the UK is currently carried out by lone indi- viduals or fairly small groups of people in any one location. Moreover, scholars may be located in a wide range of university departments. The Association's constitution states: 'The object of the Association shall be the academic study of Buddhism through the national and international collaboration of all scholars whose research has a bearing on the subject'. UKABS aims to hold an annual conference and to help inform people of the ongoing works of others, and of any relevant conferences, visiting scholars, seminar series, etc., through BSR, its handbook, its web-site (http://www.sunderland.ac.uk/~osOdwe/bsa.html) and E-rnail circulars. Buddhist Studies Review 15, I (199S)
CURRENT COMMITTEE OF THE ASSOCIATION: THE TRIALS OF YASODHARA AND THE BIRTH OF RAHULA — President: Mr L.S. Cousins (formerly Senior Lecturer in Com- parative Religion, Manchester University) A Synopsis of Bhadrakalpavadana H-IX — Secretary and web-site maintainer: Prof. Peter Harvey, Univer- sity of Sunderland Joel Tatelman (Toronto) — Treasurer and conference organiser: Dr Ian Harris, Reader in Buddhist Studies, University College of St Martin, Lancaster Consider the following outline. The beautiful and virtuous — Editor of UKABS journal, Buddhist Studies Review. Mr Russell princess, without peer among women, waits in her palace, pining Webb for her royal husband. He, though heir to a mighty kingdom, is — Prof. Tim Barrett, School of Oriental and African Studies far away, dedicated to a great and noble quest fraught with many — Dr Hiroko Kawanami, Lancaster University perils. Meanwhile, the prince's wicked cousin, lusting for political — Prof. David Seyfort Ruegg (President of the International power and for his wife, sets in motion a consummately evil plan Association of Buddhist Studies), School of Oriental and to acquire the one and possess the other. Yet he cannot prevail African Studies against the princess's virtue and love for her husband. When she — Dr Paul Williams, Reader in Indo-Tibetan Studies, Centre for repudiates him, hot desire quickly becomes passion for vengeance. Buddhist Studies, University of Bristol Far easier prey is the hero's aged father, the king himself, grief- TO JOIN THE ASSOCIATION stricken at his son's disappearance and terrified that the young man will perish and thus bring his royal line to an end. The evil If you wish to join UKABS, please apply to Peter Harvey: prince's campaign of rumour, innuendo and accusation ensures E-mail: [email protected] that the old man begins to doubt the legitimacy of his daughter- or in-law's child. Soon the malevolent fellow has duped the hapless Prof. Peter Harvey monarch who, convinced that only his nephew can save the School of Social and International Studies dynasty and the kingdom, makes him regent. Now the villain University of Sunderland need only destroy the princess and her unborn child and the Forster Building throne will be his. However, to his great frustration, even with Chester Road royal authority placed in his hands, each scheme to dispose of the Sunderland princess fails for, time and time again, supernatural forces Tyne & Wear preserve and vindicate her. Eventually the villain is exposed. The SRI 3SD (England) king sentences him to death; only the princess's intervention saves Telephone: 0191 5152174 him. Fax: 01915152105 Yet the princess's trials are not over. When the long-awaited 1998 UKABS membership is £12 per annum (£9 unwaged), child is born, everything about him seems to confirm the nagging including subscription to Buddhist Studies Review. doubts about his mother's fidelity, for everything he seems to be,
the prince is not, and everything the prince is, he seems not to be. The evil cousin waxes hopeful and again spreads lies about the boy's paternity. The desperate hope of the royal family and their subjects is that the prince will return and set everything Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tatelman — Yasodhara and Rahula
right. Then the narrative shifts to focus on the prince and for as no more than a preface to the forthcoming edition and hundreds of pages we are left in suspense. In the end, however, translation, I hope to provoke the interest of others working in the hero, having succeeded in his quest, returns home to affirm the fields of Sanskrit literature. South Asian Buddhism and his wife's virtue and his son's legitimacy and to usher in a new women in world religions. golden age. In his prefatory verse, the author of the Bhadrakalpa- Such is the fairy-tale plot of the Bhadrakalpavadana [BKA], vadana bids us harken to the 'beautiful story of the glorious reminiscent of many stories from many cultures in which the Sakya king's return to his native city' {srisakyardjasvapuragata- faithful wife, left behind by the questing husband, undergoes her kathdm sundaram I.lc). The 'Sakya king' is the Buddha. The city own series of trials, more or less parallel to her husband's. Indeed, is Kapilavastu, Sakya royal capital and the Buddha's ancestral '[tlhe epic hero tends to define himself by leaving a woman home. A comparable expression, 'the story of the return', occurs 3 behind''. In the Odyssey of Homer, the hero Odysseus leaves at the beginning of Ch.X (pratyagamanavrttaka X.lb [Ce 82a4 ]). Penelope; in the Aeniad of Virgil, Aeneus abandons Dido. In the Chs.II-IX are called, collectively, 'the story of Kapilavastu'
Ramdyana, Rama, albeit unintentionally, leaves Slta; in the Tamil (kapilavastuvrttaka Il.ld). And indeed, except for Ch.I, which is epic Tale of an Anklet (Cilappatikaram), the death of her set first at the Bodhimandapa Vihara, located either at Gaya near 2 husband Kovalaa forces the heroine Kannaki to fend for herself . the Buddha's Awakening or at Lalitpur in the Nepal Valley, then In Buddhist literary tradition, Prince Siddhartha, the future at the Rooster Park Monastery in Pataliputra, and finally in the Buddha, abandons Yasodhara in order to set out on his quest for Deer Park at Rsipatana, the entire story takes place in, near, or a solution to the riddle of human suffering. Except in the en route to, the royal city of Kapilavastu. Cilappatikaram, where Kannaki herself is the protagonist, all The narrative encompasses a period from shortly after Prince these women are subsidiary characters, defined largely or entirely Sarvarthasiddha's departure from home to seek wisdom, to his in relation to the male hero. In the Buddhist tradition, the return as the Buddha to propagate his teaching among the Sakyas, or 'Extraordinary History of our Auspicious Bhadrakalpavadana, in particular among the members of his own family. It concludes presents interesting Era', the subject of the present study, an with his grandson Sakalananda's succession to the Sakya throne, in Nepal as late variant on this theme. While this text, composed his father Suddhodana's retirement to a forest hermitage and his of earlier as the sixteenth century, draws on a variety much own departure for the Svayambhu shrine in Nepal. legends, it departs from these in making the abandoned woman, if not an independent heroine, at least the central character in her own extended narrative. To my mind, this in itself justifies renewed study of a work which, for more than a century, 3 Ce = Ms. No. Add. 1411 (copied 1832) in C. Bendall. Catalogue of the Western scholarship has largely ignored. However, as it turns out, Buddhist Sanskrit Manuscripts kept in the University Library, Cambridge (Cam- this very long verse narrative merits our attention for a variety bridge 1883), pp.91 -94. Other Mss cited Ca = Ms. No. B.40 (copied 1832) in R. of other reasons. With the following synopsis, which is proffered Mitra, Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal (Calcutta 1882, 1971), pp.42-47; G = Ms No.E 8/2 (copied 1790) microfilmed in 1976 by the Nepal-German Manuscript Preservation Project; N = Ms. No. MBB-III-8 in the microfilm collection of the Institute for Advanced Studies of World Religions, Carmel, New and Poetic Tradition, Chicago 1988, p.xvi. 1 L. Lipking, Abandoned Women York. Td = No.266-1 (copied 1905) in S. Matsunami, A Catalogue of the Sanskrit Anklet, Epic South India: 2 R. Parihasarathy (tr.). The Tale of an An of The Manuscripts in the Tokyo University Library (Tokyo 1965), pp.99, 219-20.
Cilappatikaram of Ilanko Atikal, New York 1993, p.13. Citations are by folio, page and line number. Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tatelman — Yasodhara and Rahula
Events are not, however, recounted in linear temporal order. As already mentioned, Chs.II-IX, which total about 2,300 Chs.l and X-XXXVIIl form a chronologically continuous verses — 25% of the total and 40% of the 'story of the present' — narrative. Ch.1, as we have seen, presents the Buddha's colloquies take us back in time, covering the twelve years which elapse with the gods shortly after his Awakening and his decision to between Sarvarthasiddha's departure from home and his return as return home; X-XXV,195 (Ce 82a4-194a7), his journey from Gaya the Awakened One*. In these chapters it is his wife, not he, on to Kapilavastu, wonder-working, teaching and gathering disciples whom the narrative focuses. She has two names, Yasodhara as he goes; and XXV.196-XXXVII1 (Ce 194a7-381a5), the same ('Gloria') and Gopa ('Protectress'). The villian of the piece, whose 4 in activities among the members of his own family . Chs.II-lX, set lust and ambition drive the plot and whose enmity for the years prior to Kapilavastu and its environs, concern the twelve Buddha and Yasodhara persists to the very end of the BKA, is the return and focus not on Sarvarthasiddha but on his wife Sarvarthasiddha's evil cousin Devadatta. Supporting characters Yasodhara. Within this period, ILHV.212 cover the first two years include Yasodhara's parents-in-law, King Suddhodana and Queen of Yasodhara's pregnancy (which correspond to the first two years GautamT; her father Dandapani, her wise maidservant Manodhara, of Sarvarthasiddha's austerities), IV.213-VIII.10 (Ce 38bl-69b2), the and her deformed son Rahula. Other characters include Chandaka, three weeks of Devadatta's regency; and VIII.11-118 (Ce 69b2-73a2), Sarvarthasiddha's squire and childhood friend; Devadatta's virtuous the last four years of the pregnancy (corresponding to the last four years of austerities). The events immediately following the birth of Rahula, described in IX.1-134 (Ce 73a2-77b6), roughly coincide with those depicted in Ch.l, while IX.135-252 (Ce 77b6-82a4) rapidly skip over the six years corresponding to (T 1509), tr. E. Lamotte. Le Traiie de la granite vertu de sagesse de Nagdrjuna vols, Louvain/Louvain-la-Neuve Chs.X-XXV.195. In this the BKA adopts the chronology of those (5 1944-80), I1J004; Ksudrapilaka (T 203: 496b-c), tr. C. Willemen, The Storehouse earlier accounts where Yasodhara gives birth to Rahula only after of Sundry Valuables, Berkeley a six-year pregnancy and where the Buddha does not return home 1994, pp.240-2. Additional references from Chinese sources, Mpps H.1001-2 5 6 'Twelve years have passed since your father willingly went forth from for six more years . home, while you are a boy of six years. Therefore suspicion has fallen on us'
(dvadasavarsasamjatam sa grhan nihsrtah svayam I tvarn lu sadvarsiko balas
tasmad asmdsu samsayah II IX.211; Ce 80b3-4), so Devadatta tells Rahula,
seeking to convince the boy that he is a bastard (kunda). So also X.l-2 (Ce these 4 XXV.196-XXXVHI comprise some 5,200 verses or half the BKA. Of 82a4-5), where the arhat Upagupta introduces the chapter by saying to his XXVH-XXXiV (Ce 219a-356b). roughly 3,800 verses, are reworkings of well- interlocutor, the emperor Asoka: "Harken, O king, to the Story of the Return. At known jatakas and avadanas. Their settings are Kapilavastu or the nearby the end of the twelve years came about the reunion of father and son. For six
Banyan Grove only in that the Buddha recounts them in those locations, years he (the Buddha) dwelt there [by the River Nairanjana] and after six more
5 Mahasamghika Vinaya
that Gopa was carrying a child, the king was delighted, as were his grief- confidante, DharmadaUa; Suddhodana's treasurer, family priest, stricken subjects, by the hopes fthey placed] in that unborn child. When at the chief minister and chamberlain; Dharmasvamin, the serpent-king end of two years, Yasodhara had not given birth, your father, tdeceived by and Dharmasuvallabha, the ape-king. In these chapters, Suklodana's son [Devadattajt, grew wroth, and on hearing the report that you Sarvarthasiddha himself does not appear, as it were, on stage, but were near death by the Nairanjana River, even more so. Longing to be reunited is rather a presiding presence to whom the major characters with you, he appointed viceroy the malevolent, deceptive Devadatta, the speaker frequently allude. AJso appearing, rather like movie extras, are of lies. That malevolent one then cast Gopa into a nearby lake, though through members of the Sakyan assembly or governing council, the power of her truth a naga saved her. Enraged, the evil man then had that Yasodhara's attendants and the men and women of Kapilavastu. saintly woman cast into a fire, near the plaksa tree under which Maya bore In Ch.XXV, The Meeting of Father and Son' (Pitaputra- you. Gopa's incomparable power met fire with water. Seeing lhat wonder, the samagama), Suddhodana despatches Udayin and Chandaka, people rejoiced, O Conqueror. Then, in full view, through the power of her Sarvarthasiddha's childhood friends, to convince him to return to truth, Gopa, shining like molten gold, appeared seated amidst the flames. And on Kapilavastu to bring salvation to his own people. The pair travel that very day the furious [Devadatta] had the pregnant Gopa, who expounds to Rajagrha in Magadha, where the Buddha and his disciples are Dharma, cast from a precipice into the ocean. Even then through the power of staying at the Bamboo Grove. After Udayin had delivered the your Dharma, an ape rescued the faithful Yasodevi, joyfully carrying her on his king's message, the all-knowing Buddha, although fully aware of shoulders. At the end of six years, she bore a son, Rahula, at whose birth the all the details, asks him specifically for news of Suddhodana, entire family seemed to be swallowed by darkness. Your honour, loo, is greatly 7 GautamI, Gopa and Devadatta . Udayin's reply may serve as a curious, all-knowing and all-accomplishing though you may be! Ah! Alas! He convenient synopsis of Chs.II -IX: who is called "Great Lord", even when overcome by Destiny, knows all! Gautami
'O Lord! Pardon the sins of all, O Conqueror! Think of and forget not has gone blind from excessive weeping and the king is wasting away, struck your father, afflicted by old age, who is without sin! But what need that I in- down by grief and shame. What has happened to Gautami is what has happened form you who are all-knowing and who possess the six supernormal to powers? the city of Kapilavastu: on a moonless night, how much Hacker is ii when
Even so, I shail report in detail what has transpired. left When you the country the constellations are obscured as well? For this reason, return to Kapilavastu, O it was as if city carried our was off by those waves, the tears of grief. Your compassionate one! Tarry not, O protector! Bring the members of your Order, O 8 father, scorched by grief's flames, fainted repeatedly, while Gautami and the teacher of the world!" other palace women seemed to go mad. All the people wandered aimlessly, weeping; the joy you had nurtured departed further and further away, but when Chandaka returned, accompanied by your steed Kanthaka, on hearing news of you from Chandaka, it returned to its proper place. Having taken a vow not 8 ksamasva bhagavan to eat and intoning your name, Kanthaka, consumed by those flames, separation, sarvam sarvesam agasam jina I smrtva ma vismara tat am mragasam jaraturam II tu went to his death. The king, too, scorched by the terrible separation, at that kim vijnapayami tvam sarvajnam sad- abhijnakam I tathapi tat pravrttam yan nyavedayami vistaram II time despatched Udayana [to look for] you, such was his anxiety. Then, learning yada tvam nirgato desat tadarabhya puram nijam I sokairujalapatena pravahitam ivabhaval
H pita sokanalair digdhah sammurckito 'bhavan muhuh I gautamipramukha devyah pronmatta iva cabhavan II janak sarve vilapanla itas tatas ca
babhramuh I tvaya sampalito harso durad durataram yayau II tatah pratyagate 7 iti tat prarthanam srutva sambtiddko bhagavan jinah I suhrdau prahasan chande sardham kantkakavajina I tvat pravrttantam akarnya chandaka! svastham drstva punar janan samadisan II pitroh kim kim pravrttantam gopayah kim ayayau II niraharavratam krtva tvannama pratisamjapan I virahanaiataptah abhut latka I devadattasya kim capi sarvam nihsahkhito vada II XXV.70-1 {Ce kanthako nidhanam yayau II adhikaviraha
she explain the reason for her intransigence: her husband's pre- Chs.II-VIII chronicle the six years during which Yasodhara diction, made just before his departure, that she will remain suffers the burden of her pregnancy, Sarvarthasiddha practises pregnant for six years and endure terrible torments, plus his austerities and Devadatta plots first to marry Yasodhara and seize instruction that in order to save herself she must practise the the throne, then to destroy her and seize the throne. Posadha Observance and recite the protective formula (dftarani) Ch.II, 'Yasodhara, Pregnant', introduces the princess, enceinte, which he imparts to her. She also reveals Sarvarthasiddha's pre- but living 'like a widow', dedicating herself to pious and ascetic diction of his own six years' ascetic striving and final, triumphant observances {vrata\ pining for her husband and bewailing her Awakening. Yasodhara's confession that she conceived asexually karma, at once angry that he has abandoned her and longing to elicits from Manodhara a discussion of the various realms (gati) imbibe the wisdom she expects he will acquire. Learning that she and modes (yoni) of rebirth. The chapter closes with Yasodhara is carrying the heir to the Sakya throne, first her parents-in-law, persevering in her ascetic practice, that is, in practising the then her ladies-in-waiting, finally her confidante Manodhara strive Posadha Observance, while the king and entire populace eagerly to convince her to give up her ascetic diet for the sake of the await the birth of the crown prince. child she bears. Otherwise a most dutiful and compliant wife and Ch.UI, 'Devadatta, Maddened by Lust and Greed', reveals the daughter-in-law, she obstinately refuses. Only to Manodhara does childhood roots of Devadatta's hatred for his cousin and portrays his attempts to induce Yasodhara to marry him, the most certain
route, as he sees it, to inherit the throne after Suddhodana's death. Devadatta's plans for sexual and political conquest are vigorously / udayanam atitasamaye 'presatad uisukah II apannasaitvam gopa 10 Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Tate I man — Yasodhara and Rahula Suddhodana, eagerly awaiting his grandson's imminent birth, these strategies as well as Manodhara's entreaty that she die in has his treasurer, Daksaraja, make all the preparations for her mistress's place, asserting that her own death will wash away Yasodhara's lying-in. For his part, the treasurer happily notes the the king's shame, that upon death she will attain Sukhavatl and appearance of portents identical to those which presaged the birth that in any case the predicament is due to her own karma and so of Sarvarthasiddha. Time passes; the king reminds himself that all is inevitable. All she asks is clemency for Manodhara, which plea is in the hands of Destiny. Devadatta later rejects. When a full year has passed and Yasodhara has still not Further argument by Manodhara fails to sway Yasodhara given birth, Devadatta claims that people are beginning to who insists that she cannot evade her destiny (which she ex- question Gopa's virtue, for she is pregnant although her husband plicitly equates with karma). She also maintains, somewhat left the kingdom more than a year earlier. He further claims that paradoxically, both that she must die and the hope that her Manodhara is a sorceress who is bewitching the king and ar- husband will save her. She reminds her friend that the prince will ranging adulterous assignations for her mistress. Suddhodana's return to teach Dharma and entreats her to make the most of it. confidence in his daughter-in-law is shaken, but GautamI con- Also after lecturing the distraught GautamI on karmic inevita- vinces him that Devadatta is lying. The king resists Devadatta's bility, and offering counsel to her co-wives, she sets out for the calumnies for another full year, attributing his nephew's be- lake, impeded at every step by weeping citizenry. At the brink of haviour to the madness already attributed to him by Dandapani, the abyss, Gopa rejects one final plea to save herself — that of but when one of his men reports that his son and heir lies by the her father — with another homily on karma. River Nairaiijana dying of starvation, his resistance cracks. For her part, Manodhara, unable to endure life without the Although his chief minister and court priest remind him that princess, performs an Act of Truth, dies immediately and is Sarvarthasiddha himself had foretold both his apparent death and reborn in the Tusita heaven. attainment of Awakening, the combination of grief over Standing on the lakeshore, Yasodhara confesses her sins and separation from his son and shame over the aspersions cast on proclaims commitment to leading all beings to salvation. She then Gopa destroys his immunity to Devadatta's poisonous suggestions. performs her own Act of Truth and a series of earnest resolutions Devadatta again argues that Yasodhara has been unfaithful, that (pranidhanaX which, in context, amount to foresight. Then she her essential vileness inspired her husband's flight in the first leaps into the lake and lands on the outspread hood of the place and that Manodhara is the sorceresss who arranges her serpent-king Dharmasvamin, who has been taking exercise there. liaisons. He then promises to effect Sarvarthasiddha's return and 9 The naga carries her down to his palace in Rasatala , where he the birth of Yasodhara's son within twenty-one days if for that worships her, learns her identity and begs her to relax and enjoy period the king will make him regent. Unable to resist, herself. The narrator then informs us that the spot where Gopa Suddhodana grants Devadatta full authority over the kingdom and cast herself into the lake immediately became known as The sequesters himself in his chamber of mourning. Shrine of Gopa's Great Merit', and that after bathing there, the Devadatta then issues to the court chamberlain what he citizens of Kapilavastu sadly make their way back to the city. claims is the king's own royal edict: 'Let Yasodhara be cast into Ch.V describes the aftermath of Chapter IV. Devadatta issues some deep lake'. In addition, he produces a letter sent to him, he claims, by Sarvarthasiddha, in which the prince declares himself ready to return when his wife and Manodhara are dead. The chamberlain proposes to Yasodhara three ways of saving her life, 9 That Dharmasvamin's palace is located in Rasatala, one of seven nether- including him not carrying out his duty. The princess rejects all worlds in Puranic cosmology, is only specified at IX.104 (Ce 76b4). 12 13 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tateiman — Yasodhara and Rahula an edict which provides the death penalty for any who openly swayed by the promise to reunite him with his son, the king mourn Yasodharas death. Gautami ignores the proclamation. reiterates that the kingdom is in Devadatta's hands, but warns Devadatta expends much fruitless effort, seeking to convince the him to commit no evil (VU-17 [Ce 55a5-b6D. that her daughter-in-law's death was her son's wish, that queen Devadatta then orders the entire court and citizenry to the Gopa's evil was obstructing Sarvarthasiddha's ascetic practice and Lumbini Grove, where Sarvarthasiddha was born, and despatches so forth. Dandapani refuses to perform his daughter's funeral rites, the chamberlain to fetch Gopa. Once there, the narrator describes and passes days in a grief-stricken vigil by the lake, calling out to the beauties of the grove and Devadatta feigns grief over the Yasodhara. Dharmasvamin, once again disporting himself in the premature death of Queen Maya, the prince's birth-mother, while lake, overhears these lamentations and, adopting human form, declaring himself thankful that she cannot see what has transpired informs Dandapani's attendants that the princess is safe and sound in Kapilavastu. He then invokes Sarvarthasiddha to aid him in in the naga-palace under the lake and promises that he will bring ridding the kingdom of the 'mother of (female) imps' (dakini- her back. Returning to his palace, Dharmasvamin both urges mata), The officials and citizens listen, fascinated and horrified Yasodhara to return for her parents' sake and confesses his love (VI.17-38 [Ce 55b6-56b3D. for her. Fearing further suffering, she is reluctant to return, but Meanwhile, the chamberlain announces Devadatta's new order love for her parents and karma draw her back. Hosts of to Yasodhara who in turn informs Gautami, assuring the queen nagas escort her to the surface, where she is greeted with great that Sarvarthasiddha's powerful protective amulet {raksa garj- joy. Father and daughter relate their experiences to each other. yast) will save her. She also foretells that due to evil heaped up Dandapani praises Dharmasvamin. in previous births (purvaropitakalusa) she will without doubt be Yasodhara now learns the brutal news of Manodhara's death, 10 cast into a fire and from a cliff . Yasodhara then performs an mourns at great length and, feeling unworthy, removes the jewels abbreviated version of her religious Observance and sets out for the naga had given her, Dandapani gives the spot just named Lumbini, accompanied by the chamberlain and attended by her after his daughter a second name, 'Shrine of the Naga-Lord', and ladies-in-waiting (VI.39-46 [Ce 56b3-7]), recites a hymn of praise to Dharmasvamin in the metre called After the narrator adds in his own voice conventional 'Arrival of the Serpent' (bhujahgaprayata). The men and women descriptions of the vernal fecundity and beauty of the Lumbini of Kapilavastu praise Yasodhara and also discuss her karma. Sent Grove (VI. 47-51 [Ce 56b7-57a2D, Gopa gives the lie to Devadatta's for by Gautami, Yasodhara now reveals to her mother-in-law hypocritical sentimentality by paying unmistakably heartfelt Sarvarthasiddha's prediction that she would remain pregnant for homage to the tree which Maya grasped in giving birth; she also six years and tells her of the protective amulet he gave her. Both meditates inwardly on Sarvarthasiddha. Then, publicly acknow- women marvel at his wisdom. ledging Devadatta's authority, she places herself at his disposal Ch.VI, 'Gopa is Cast into the Fire' (gopagnipatana), opens (VU2-57 [Ce 57a2-5D. with Devadatta busily justifying his actions to Suddhodana. Again Devadatta now addresses the crowd, insisting that he himself referring to the forged letter, Devadatta claims that Sarvartha- is merely the unwilling instrument of the king, who cannot siddha has identified Yasodhara as an evil sorceress (dakinl- endure the shame that Yasodhara has brought on the royal family mantraparaga) bent on destroying the Sakya lineage and that he and who longs for reunion with his son. Devadatta declares that is relying on his capable cousin to destroy her. Devadatta insists that only mastery of such spells or, as he claims some citizens believe, the power of her amulet, also of demonic origin (raksa paisacikl), could have saved Gopa from death in the lake. Still in bhrgvagnipata tenaham kar'tsyate na samsayah II Vl.44cd (Ce 56b5-6). 14 15 Buddhist Studies Review is, i (199$ Tntelinan — Yasodhara and Rahula all who do not assist in carrying out the sentence proposed by the flames, claiming that if she is truly a devoted and faithful wife prince and ordained by the king will be guilty of treason, adding (pativrata), Sarvarthasiddha will surely protect her (VL81-92 [Ce that Sarvarthasiddha intends to return to take up his royal duties. 58a3-b2D. He then orders Yasodhara burnt, at the same time intimating that The narrator then devotes one sloka and three srag- her black magic (d a kinimantra) will protect her. When the dhara verses to describing the grief of all the plants, animals and crowd's opposition becomes evident, Devadatta assaults Gopa; the birds in the forest and their efforts to prevent Devadatta from people then provide sufficient corvee labour to build a pyre. carrying out the sentence (VI.93-96 [Ce 58b2-6]). Many flee, others curse Devadatta. Logs are piled high (VL58-72 Passing her amulet to a friend, Yasodhara recites an enco- [Ce 57a5-b6D. mium to the teaching she practises. Then, in order to demonstrate Various spectators discuss the situation. Some do not under- the power of truth to the ignorant, she challenges the flames to stand the nature of the drama unfolding; others castigate consume her if she has been unchaste (svairini). Bowing to the Devadatta for destroying the forest; yet others counsel Yasodhara 'leader of the Five Omniscient Ones' (pahcasarvajhanayakd), she to flee. She explains that since she is entangled in karma's net, proclaims a series of earnest resolutions (pranidkana): that the there is nowhere she can flee and by way of illustration cites her flames burn up all her sin as water washes dirt from cloth, but 11 short-lived stay in Dharmasvamin's palace (VI.73-80 [Ce 57b6- that if she be pregnant by a paramour (jaragarbha) or 'honoured 58a3]). by female demons' (dakinimataga), they should reduce her to As one of Devadatta's followers lights the pyre, Yasodhara ashes; that if, in her present life, she has not once committed any declares to her cousin that she fears no punishment he can mete of the 'ten evil deeds* (dasakusalaka), she should, by the power of out, asserting that it was due to his own demerit (abhagya) that that truth, remain unscathed by the flames; that the (evil) deeds of the first death-sentence came to naught and suggesting that if he the people come to maturity in her and be consumed in the fire; has any merit (bhagyavan), i.e., if there be any substance to his that no woman should endure pregnancy for six years; and that charges, she will soon be dead (apajivika). This moves Devadatta by the power of her truth and her earnest resolution, may all to reiterate that all is the doing of the king and prince. He even attain release (apavargaka). Then, before the weeping crowd, 13 claims he many times pleaded with the king on Yasodhara's Gopa leaps into the flames (VL97-112 [Ce 58b6-59a7D . behalf, but that her own husband writes that she is an adulteress, 12 honoured by demons, who must be consigned to the flames . Devadatta counsels Yasodhara not to save her own life when the welfare of the kingdom is at stake and even instructs her to 13 atha tatyaja gopa tarn maharaksam api svayam I dharmatah prabhaved remove the protective amulet (raksa) and cast herself into the raksa sarvasya raksako hy astiu II sakhi haste samarpyaivam uvaca samsmita- nana I svadharmagunamakatmyam prakasayann ivotsavalh II ratnatrayam namas- yami saranyam saranarthinam I durgatyttitarane setum moksadam sakalarthadam II pratyaksam pahcabhutanam pasyami drsyatam janaih I jagattrayastha- 11 karmapasabhibandhitvat parayami kutah katham I nagendrabhavanaprapta sattvanam sakalakarmasaksindm II bhratrvacanam dkarnya mraksatra paiamy iti pratyaha tan sati II V1.80 (Ce 58a2-3), ahatti I tada vahne svairini cet tvaya samyag pradahyatam II yady apt marana- 12 tvaddhetau bhumipalam tarn vi jhapayamy anekadha I tatrapi prahitam pat- kahksi adya tu jivitartkinl I xatyaprabhavcm atuimn dariayitum abodhakan II ity tram tathapi kupilav ubhau II sdksaram prahitam tena jarinim (jalt codd.) ukiva pranidhim bhay as cakarendradiganana krtanjatiputa natva pancasarva- dakinimatam ( nlm matam codd.) vahnau prapataya iti matsamgamasamutsukah jhanayakam It purvajanmasu yat papam iha lake 'pi va krtam I tat sarva II VI.88-89 (Ce 58a6-7). dahayatv agnir vaso malam yatha jalam It kirn tv aham jaragarbha (jala° codd.) 16 17 Rahula Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tatelman — Yasodhara and achieve Yet Gopa has additional protection: in eleven sloka followed and vows that by purifying his thoughts he shall (suraksa) by twelve maiinl verses, her son, in utero, petitions the goddess awakening (bodhi) so that in this world the 'protection' 1 *. Pratisara to save his mother and himself (VI.113-136 [Ce 59a7- may be available whereby beings may attain kaivalya 60b3D- The foetal Rahula identifies Gopa's protective amulet as 'Then through the goddess's power and that of truth and 17 Six that of Pratisara which, by deception, her enemy Devadatta has Dharma that raging fire spontaneously became cool' . upa- convinced her to remove. He praises Pratisara as 'mother of the jati verses follow, celebrating the miracle of fire into water, the world' (jagadmatar), 'genet rix of living beings' {jagatdm prasiih), goddess's power, Gopa's virtue and power, etc. (VI.137-143 [Ce 'mother' (janani), 'protectress' (pdlini), etc. Already of renunciate 60b3-7]), and following these, eleven vasantatilaka verses in disposition, Rahula has no wish for (re)birth, but longs for it in which animate and inanimate nature, humans and gods celebrate order to escape the hell of the womb (garbhaniraya). The Yasodhara's holiness, power, devotion to her husband, etc. narrator informs us that Rahula recalls his previous births {smrtah (VLM4-154 [Ce 60b7-61b3]). purvavivasakam), which may explain his ability to compose in Eleven upajati verses (VI.155-165 [Ce 61b3-62a3D continue the long metres. In his hymn (stuti, stotra), Rahula extols the goddess praise. Various citizens of Kapilavastu describe Yasodhara and as affording protection against falling off cliffs and into oceans Sarvarthsiddha as the ideal holy ooupte ca whom people owe their and fires, against the dangers of enemies and poison as well as happiness and the kingdom its prosperity. One onlooker declares: 14 granting and wealth . also describes her as granting power He 'Your power transcends the human; indeed, I regard you as Para- release to her as the sole path to devotees {bhaktadattapavargaX mesvari, tborn as a womanf to bring salvation to the people and liberation (moksalabhaikamarga) and identifies her with 18 make known the truth of the excellent Dharma' . The Dharma- Vajrasattva (vajrasattvamikd). For his part, Rahula promises the svamin episode is recalled. Kapilavastu is praised as 'the glorious goddess he shall refrain from such actions which will cause the city, like unto heaven, in which were born a couple, emanations 15 'ten incarnations' (dasavatara ) to dwell in the hell of the womb of the Buddhas, whose religious observance is truthfulness] and 19 who are endowed with forbearance and skilled in concentration' . Yasodhara is now invited to return to the city to see Gautaml. ced dakintmatagapi va Ibkasmasat karanlyasu davagnina tarur yalha II ikajanma krtam naiva dasakusalakam maya I pratyur vratanucarinya maitryabkiyuktayojane yena II tena satyena raksa syat patatya mama pavake I yato vismayale lokan taiha 16 prabhavati na karisye karma etadrsam nu udaranarakavdsam bodhim krlajagati suraksa yena sarvaik pramanyate II kim tit jananam tat karma sakalam mayi pacyaiu I yena dasavataram I satatasubkasucelah sadhayisyami specifically Buddhist kr.ianupatanam bhavet tivra sognik tatah II VI.137 (Ce 60b3). janah sarve prapnuvantv apavargakam It if i pranidhim adhaya nyapaiaj sitatvam agamat 18 manye kila tvam paramesvariti I lokan jatavedasi I jananam asrupatena sanjalir has'ahnand II VI.97-112 (Ce 58b6-59a7). tvam manusakrantaparakramasi ca 14 pratisare amaradyaih pujitam ivam nato 'smi praiipadajanaraksakarinlm samuddkartum tivaisijanmaf (manusi in marg. G69a2/ saddkarmasatyam sarvakalam I bhrgadahanasamudrapatadukkhe suraksam ripuvisabhayakartrim prakasitum lot II VLI60 (Ce 61b-67). prajatah I yatre rajyabkogyadikartrtm II VL125 (Ce 59b6-7). 19 vayam sabkagyak sakaldrthayuktak irlmatpure svargambhe 61b7-H62al), 15 CeN gloss this term by listing the ten incarnations of Visnu, prajatau sugatdvatarau satyavratau ksantisamadniyuktau II VI.162 (Ce 18 19 Buddhist Studies Review 15,1 (1998) Tatelm an — Yasodhara and Rahula 20 writing that Gopa is an expert In the five remaining verses, two in sardulavikrldita metre , This time he has Sarvarthasiddha that he has wit- three again in vasantatilaka (VI.168-170 [Ce 62a5-bl]), praise in Saiva black magic (aghoramantraparaga), pa), that verges on apotheosis, Yasodhara is compared to the goddess, nessed her meetings with female demons (dakini, asm she is dead, Perfect Wisdom. 'On a circle of wind rests one of fire; on that, for fear of being eaten he will not return home until to suppress one of water; on that, one of earth in the centre of which stands that her amulet (raksa kapi suyantrita) enabled her that this the golden mountain of the gods who dwell on its slopes. On that the fire and block the sight of the spectators and, finally, mountain, on a beautiful throne glittering with jewels, lotuses and information should be reported to Dandapani and Yasodhara moons, sits Prajnaparamita, mother of the Buddhas, the Eternal. delivered up for punishment to the regent (rajyadkurvaha). evidence, adding Gopa is like her, [but seated] in the beautiful Lumbinf Grove: Devadatta pronounces himself satisfied by the (indrajala- from the fire [has arisen] a pond whose cool waters are filled that Gopa has mastered the magic called Indra's Net to with eight-petalled lotuses and on a throne atop a golden lotus vidya), through the power of which she is able instantaneously water, or Yasodhara sits, shining with the power of truth, as the gods penetrate solid earth, fly, suppress fire and produce 1 Devadatta also joyously worship her by throwing exquisite flower-garlands* . All create an embryo and all the stages of gestation. that the human, animal and vegetable life erupt into celebration; seated on mentions in passing that it is only through Gopa's sorcery her lotus-throne, Gopa accepts their joyous homage as a goddess ignorant Sarvarthasiddha was able to defeat him in the exhibition is choose an receives offerings (prasada), all the while bearing the Three of the manly arts. The problem, as he puts it, to Jewels and her husband in her heart and reflecting on Devadatta's appropriate course of action, for, he claims, while Yasodhara she claim that Sarvarthasiddha will return. herself is immune to magic (mantrabhyasadharsanlya), them all (Vll.14-32 [Ce 63a2- In Ch.VII, *Gopa is Cast from a Precipice' igopabhrgu- possesses the power to overcome patana), the rage Devadatta feels at Yasodhara's safety and the b4]). devotion accorded her begins to destroy his health. After a short Devadatta then reiterates his reluctance to carry out a task it all on the homily on the effects of anger, the narrator describes Devadatta for which he is only condemned and again blames been as the poison {halahala) in the ocean that is the Sakya clan into king, whose word is law and whose mind, he suggests, has which has been born that moon, Sarvarthasiddha (VH.1-13 [Ce affected by the anxiety over his son. Overcome by anger, Deva- chamber- 62b2-63a2]). datta faints. On regaining consciousness, he issues to the orders: 'Place Yasodhara, Devadatta then renews his campaign against Yasodhara with lain what he says are Suddhodana's the ocean; throw her new accusations made before the Sakya assembly (sabha). Once bound, in a basket, and cast her into path into the deep'" (VII.33-41 again, he claims to quote from a letter sent to him by the prince. violently from a high mountain [Ce 63b4-64a2D. 20 These two verses lacking in Ca. mdrgalo 22 mahjuse stkapayitvainam bandhitdm pdiayo dadhau I prapdia 21 vayor mandala vahnimandaia jalam tatravanimandalam tanmadhye 'gadhe proccdd atharam gireh II V1I.39 {Ce 63b7-64al). kanakacalah sumanasam yasyalayah sanusit I tasmin ralnasarojacandravUasallality am asadila prajnaparamita prasur bhagavalam asid anadyantaka II tadvat sundaralumbinivanavane vahnes ladagapari castahgaih paripurnatoyasistre sauvarnapadmapari I paryankdsanam d&rita vilasate satyaprabhavanvUa devair muktasupus pamalyaialitair arcayamand mudd II Vl.166-167 (Ce 62a3-5). 20 21 Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Tate I man — Yasodhara and Rahula although Most of the people react with fear and loathing, His victim's equanimity both increases Devadatta's anger and some have their doubts (samsayam apannah). Those devoted to shames him. As before, he attempts to protect himself by power, assert truth (satyatmikah), who are confident of Gopa's anticipating that Yasodhara may survive and by complaining that miracle that she transformed fire into water neither by a he suffers infamy for obeying his king and Yasodhara's own the (ascarya) nor by magic {indrajalabhavata\ but rather by husband. Finally, Devadatta challenges Gopa to declare her the hand, they point out power of truth (satyanubhava). On one 'earnest resolve of truth' (satyapramdhi) and take her place in the 23 25 character and motives ; on the other, denying Devadatta's evil basket without being bound and of her own free will . Yasodhara at powers, they ask: that people should be astonished Gopa's responds by invoking 'the compassionate one' (daydkuid), i.e. the the earth? 'Have you not listened to wise men's descriptions of Buddha, and announcing her readiness. Preceded by Devadatta, that a lotus on Resting on a disc of air is one of fire and on the princess, her attendants and the citizenry soon arrive at the rests Mount Meru which rests the disc that is the earth; on that lakeshore (VII.8f>83 [Ce 65a7-b2D. its peak sits she who is known as "Supreme Goddess". Did and on At this juncture the narrator, Upagupta, addresses Asoka, his Yasodhara not appear like that just now? Was water not pro- interloctor: 'As if to awaken the people, just then that pellucid duced from fire?124 Then, turning to Yasodhara, they assure her lake, which is known as "The Lake of Truth", became perfectly of truth (satyadevah) are protecting her and that the deities calm. Even now, King Asoka, at that place the Lake of Truth request her to perform further acts which glorify the Dharma, radiates enormous merit: imbued with purifying ambrosia, it Listening to this, the women in attendance are inspired, vowing grants final release, allays fevers, cures leprosy and destroys the and Dharma to Gopa that they shall henceforth cleave to Truth 726 sin of false speech . (VII.42-63 [Ce 64a2-65a7]). Devadatta climbs the steep path to the top of the precipice Meanwhile, Devadatta despatches the weeping chamberlain to and gazes down at what is from now on described as the ocean sentence of death to Yasodhara, who is still announce the latest (samudra, mahodadhi, sagara). The frightful scene — lines of the 'lotus-throne* (kamalasana). The princess calmly seated on trees obscuring the light of sun and moon, black abyss split by accepts the sentence, urges the chamberlain to quell Devadatta's father- anger by carrying it out, and tells him not to blame her in-law or Sarvarthasiddha. She again attributes her circumstances to her own karma and assures the chamberlain thai he is no 25 tasya vanim iti srutva dvigunam kopavardhiiah I Idmcillajjayamano 'sau more than its innocent instrument (VI1.64-73 [Ce 64b6-65a4]). praiyunaram adad iti II satyam satyavraia cet tvam jtvasi rahiiavrana I fpatatadf bhrgupatena sindhau svasuryasasanat It sarvam dharmatn adharman va bhupe patyau tat ha lava I mayy el ad duryasah kim lu lokaninda mahallaram II lokapavadalo bhilo mam ayojoyad atra sah I vikvastam sarvakaryesu devadalto 'sau irsyatur nairgunaimakah I rajyasya hetor akarol 23 durmatir puirasamgamalatasah II bhagyavanto yadi vayam tava raksd bkavisyati I pit pain II (Ce 64b2). karma pralabhatah VIL55 pativraiayas tatrapi yalha sarasi pavake II tasman mahjusam asihaya bhugolakatha vidvatsamahrta II vayumandatam asinah 24 sruyate kim na patasvakrtam atantraka I satyapranidhim adhaya pariksye bhugala : in 58d, Ce reads 56cd are in ace; GNTd read bhupaia" for punyatamam apavargaphalapradam II pavakamrtasammtiram dahasilapramoca- jalambkave, GNTd jalabhavam (unm.). kam I kustavyadhiharam satyam milhyabhasanapapaham II VII.84-86 (Ce 65b2-3). 22 23 Yasodhara and Rahul a Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tat elm on — flashes of lightning, waves crashing, waters swarming with However, since Devadatta, fearing public censure (loka- aquatic monsters, beach strewn with stones — puts him in mind pavadabhititah), does not respond to Gopa's demand that she be of the netherworlds (patala). Feigning concern for the princess's bound and placed in the basket, she climbs in herself. Then, as she life, he has the basket cushioned with masses of leaves and begins to make her vow (pratijhatum upacakramate\ the flowers (prastaradi) and placates his men with the thought that basket breaks into hundreds of pieces from the force of her should Gopa survive, the king will surely honour her as a faithful, adamantine body (VII.131-135 [Ce 67a3-6]). Finally, Yasodhara, devoted wife (patiwata), but even if she dies in the sea, she will slightly embarrassed at this unintentional display of spiritual go to heaven (urdhvam vrajisyati [VII.87-102; Ce 65b3-66a3l). power, faces east and proclaims her vow in three sragdhara and Though with child and gaunt from her ascetic diet, strength- one sardutavikridita verse: ened by meditation and her other religious practices, Yasodhara Homage to the Buddha! To Ihim who], in his triplicity, [manifests] the qualities, dispels ascends the mountain. Regarding her own sufferings with perfect Glorious Three Jewels, I pay homage. He possesses the three 28 for knowledge of the three equanimity, her only concern is the exhaustion and discomfort of fear of the three impurities , is to be approached 29 3 bodies and is lord of her entourage. Then the saintly woman (satl) reaches the times and destroys the three fears ; he possesses three 32 surveying the precipice, where the malevolent Devadatta awaits her (VII.103-110 Samsara's three realms . With his divine eye thrice daily men 33 offers succour to those without succour. To [Ce 66a3-blD. and women of the triple world , he mortals, We view again the frightful scene at the bottom of the pre- him who is [father and] teacher to the ihirty[-three gods) as well as to cipice, this time from the perspective of Yasodhara's ladies-in- with his own three circles of deities I pay homage. to the disposition of my karma, I shall plummet from this mountain waiting. Though compared to Rasatala, it is like a scene from one Due ocean, a place of merit, which is of the hells: the shore, strewn with boulders and menaced by sea- path into the stygian depths of the great trees and which, full of monsters, one enters with monsters (timingalaX lies more than a yojana below; on it stones bordered by stands of are scattered about like razor-sharp blades; the dessicated trees resemble a forest of tridents. It is like a place of departed spirits (pkrvana) thronged with vampire-demons (gahvarasrapa). Vines cling to the ground, as if the earth herself were caught in Yama's 28 raga (lust), dvesa (haired) maya (delusion [for the more usual moha}) in noose. The very rocks appear like hell-beings impaled on stakes marg. G 75b. for their evil deeds, the uprooted trees like drowned men 29 trikala: past, present and future. (VII.111-119 [Ce 66bl-5]). 30 janma (birth), jara (old age), mrtyu (death) in marg. G 75b, N 70b. The women then discuss their mistress's likely fate (VII. 31 mahasukhafkdya] ('Supreme Bliss Body'), sambhogafkayaj ('Enjoyment 1 Body") in marg. 70b. On these terms, 119-130 [Ce 66bl-67a3]), with she who has the last word insisting Body ), nirmanafkaya] ("Transformation N 'Certainly she will be saved, even from falling into the ocean, by see P. Williams, Mahayana Buddhism, London 1989, pp,175-81; D. Snellgrove, 27 Indo-Tibetan Buddhism, 2 vols, Boston 1987, ppJ15-16, 250-1; D.N. Gellner, Monk, her own spiritual power. Doubt it notP . Garments billowing in the wind, they gaze downward expectantly. Householder and Tantric Priest, Cambridge 1992, pp.293—4. 32 tribhava. kamadhatu (Desire Realm), rupadhaiu (Realm of Form), arupya- dhatu (Formless Realm). 33 The heavenly, terresuial and nether worlds. 2 7 tasya nit nam bhaved raksa patatya api sagare I svasukrlanubhavena 34 On the three mandalas used in the Newar Eighth-Day Observance tisthadhvam apasamsayah I! V1LI29 (Ce 67a2). (astamivrata), see J, Locke, 'The Uposadha Vrata of Amoghapa&a Lokesvara in Nepal', L'Ethnographie 83 (100-1), Paris 1987, pp.159-89. 24 25 1 atclman — Yasodhara and Rahuln Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) in a large sea-cave. Terrified by a in and long to she lands gently and unharmed trepidation, I am a companion of Truth, carry child my womb to them a deadly predator, the Saiva magic which grants whatever what they mistake for a garuda, serve my husband: I know nothing of the hide or nagas, crocodiles, sharks and other denizens of the deep one wishes and nothing of evil desires , flee (VII.140-142 [Ce 67b3-7]). In the third sragdhara verse, Yasodhara proclaims that if verses depict the aftermath. In the first seven fear of her has nothing to do with her husband becoming an Fifteen upajati 143-149 [Ce 67b7-68a4]), Devadatta, inwardly rejoicing but ascetic and if she bears no rancour in her heart towards (VII. fraudulent tears, declares that Yasodhara's Devadatta, then 'by this truth may all the Lokanathas protect my outwardly weeping Dharma, but 36 completes the vow: demise proves she is not protected by Truth and son' . The sardulavikridita verse Sarvarthasiddha's claim that his wife is an May the sin of all men and women who seek to cast themselves from rather bears out practitioner of Saiva black magic, and justifies the cliffs mature in me; and thus, from this day forth, whenever such people do so, adulteress and death. He then instructs the weeping officials may they always attain the incomparable enjoyment of the divine realms, the king's sentence of to the city to await the prince's return. draught of immortality and, in the end, honour the lotus-feet of the Buddha(s) and citizens to return ape-king (vdnarendra, plavahgadhipati) which grant liberation . Meanwhile, an perched in a salara tree eating fruit, Three additonal sragdhara verses describe the plunge: Enter- named Dharmasuvallabha, politely approaches and offers some of ing into meditation on her husband and the goddess (Pratisara), catches sight of Gopa. He informs him of her identity and acquaints Yasodhara leaps into the abyss. Her gentle spiralling descent is the fruit. Yasodhara circumstances. Observing she is unscathed, he extols compared to a female garuda sportively circling down from the him with her of truth (satyanubhava) which preserved sky; the supernormal power of her truthfulness and other virtues the supernormal power swims with her back to the shore and carries her keeps her aloft, as its shining feathers does a garuda. Eventually, her. He then through the trees back to the precipice, where he sets her down before the citizens of Kapilavastu. Then, with many a prostration, merit he he proclaims his faith in Yasodhara and rejoices in the has acquired (VH.150-157 [Ce 68a4-b3D. 35 traitatvam traigunadhyarn trimatabhayakaram sritriratnam namami traikaia- metre returns to anustubh. Astonished at her re- jhanagamyam trividhabhayaharam traibhavesam trikayam Itrailokye strls ca The appearance and overjoyed that she is unharmed, the princess's pumsas trisamayadivasam divyadrsiya vitokya moksapradam II VIU39 (Ce 67b2-3; G 75b7-76a2>. 27 26 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tatelman Yasodhara and Rahula There she recounts the entire episode to GautamI and continues inflicted upon Gopa simply because he has no demons (paisaca) with her religious practice. The chapter closes with the queen helping him. Finally, he suggests that even if he were guilty, the rejoicing for her daughter-in-law, but still longing for her son king should pardon him (VIH.19-24 [Ce 69b6-70a2]). (VM169-171 [Ce 69al-3D. Suddhodana insists that his nephew shall have the same In ChVIH, 'Yasodhara's Glory is Brought to Light' (yasodha- opportunities as his daughter-in-law to demonstrate innocence and rdyasahprakasana), Upagupta, described as 'so like a Buddha, lord virtue. When the terrified Devadatta faints at his feet, the king among arhats', again addresses Asoka: 'Now she who was the best cheerfully observes that no one sees fit to take pity on the evil- among those devoted to truth practised her Observance as before, doer (Vm.24-39 [Ce 70al-b2]). [but] longed for the sight of her lord, and hankered to learn of his Learning of the king's decision, Yasodhara, 'her heart 38 activities' . overflowing with compassion' (naisar gakarunasayaX rushes to Meanwhile, as the twenty-one days of his regency draw to a plead for clemency (VIII.40-48 [CE 70b2-6D, her plea taking the close, Devadatta considers that Destiny has thwarted his grand form of a paean to forbearance (ksama): of remorse but, as mounting project. He experiences a moment 'Victorious is he who under all circumstances practises forbearance: he is anticipated wrath begins to propel him anxiety over the king's worshipped even by the gods. The body is protected by forbearance as is the into the madness he had been feigning all along, he begins to earth by abundant rain. It was forbearance which protected me when I will his3' (VIIL3-9 [Ce69a5-bl]). fantasise anew that success yet be descended into water and fire. For forbearance is the mother of truth and truth 40 is The three weeks come to a close and, contrary to Devadatta's the protector of all* . earlier promises, there is no sign of Sarvarthasiddha or of his soa She adds that a king rules through the power of righteousness that Devadatta has failed to re- Moreover, when the king learns (dharmanubhava) and that such righteousness is the son of port Gopa's astonishing demonstrations of truthfulness, fidelity compassion (karunatmaja). and spiritual power, he angrily sentences the erstwhile regent to Suddhodana, astonished that the much-wronged Gopa, whom suffer the same trials he has inflicted upon Yasodhara (VI11.10-18 the narrator here likens to the Goddess of Eloquence, Sarasvati [Ce 69bl6B. (vagdevt. . .sarasvati), should defend her persecutor, argues that, himself with Terrified, the weeping Devadatta defends what as king, the law (nlti) requires him to punish such criminals as have become his standard lies: that Yasodhara escaped death Devadatta (VIII.49-56 LCe 70b6-71a3]). Yasodhara warns Suddho- through her skill in black magic {aghoramantra), not through the dana that he is giving in to hatred (dvesa) which will lead to power of Dharma and Truth and that Sarvarthasiddha will not rebirth in hell. She then argues that Devadatta was the instrument return so long as his wife remains in the palace. The villain also of her own karma, that she only suffered the consequences of survive such trials as he thinks to add that he could never deeds she herself had committed in previous births. To clinch this argument, she reveals her husband's prediction: she will suffer a 38 athabravld upaguptah iruyatam iti bhupate I parsahganam samalokya jinakalpo 'rhat am patih II tat ah satyaimanam srestha prakarot purvavad vraiam II VHI.1-2 There is some 40 I tatkarmasravanakanksi patidarsanalalasa (Ce 69a4-5). jayah (jayati CaCe) ksamavan sarvatra pujyate camarair apt I ksamaya raksyale ambiguity in verse 2d: it could mean 'hankering to know her destiny', murtih suvrstya iva medini II tayaiva mama raksabhut paiatya jala- pavake I 39 patisyati niralamba mama hasteva sa (read haste vasad7) dkruvam I ksama hi satyajanani saiyah sarvasya raksakah II VIII 43-44 (Ce suyatnavantum mam eva rajalaksmis lathasrayet II V1II.8 (Ce 69a7-bl), 70b3-4). 29 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tatelman — Yasodhara and Rahuia six-year pregnancy as well as falling into fire, but will be 41 (VIH.85-88 [Ce 71b7-72alD. delivered from the latter by the practice of forbearance . Gopa Despite the king's warning, only Devadatta, because of his also warns the king against failing for the second time to take 2 nature (svabhavatah), takes no pleasure in these new develop- her at her word (VIIL57-72 [Ce 71a4-bl; G 80a5-b6< D. ments: he does not go for refuge and indeed continues to revile Suddhodana, won over, praises his daughter-in-law, guarantees Yasodhara even as his own relatives revile him for so doing, even her future safety and further demonstrates his wholehearted as he continues to search for a way to get at her (chidranvesana- acceptance of her instruction by performing the Posadha Obser- 6 tatpardf . vance, which he concludes by wishing for the speedy return of Yasodhara masters her grief over Sarvarthasiddha's continu- his son. He then grants Devadatta one chance to learn from ing absence by emulating his ascetic practice {bhartus tapo Yasodhara's example and reform himself. The wretch prostrates 'nukarini); Suddhodana by glorifying his holy daughter-in-law himself before king and princess, promises to transgress no more (mahatamyam varnayams tasyah) and occupying himself with the and quickly takes his leave. Then, to everyone's astonishment, 43 affairs of government (nitydbhyapalayan mahlm). Gautami alone, Suddhodana himself bows down to his daughter-in-law (VIII. 44 unable to bear up (putrasokasahisnuka), passes each day weeping. 73-84 [Ce 71bl-7; G 80b5-8Ia6 D. In vain are the king's attempts to comfort his queen; equally vain Learning of these events rouses Queen Gautami from her his warnings that, blinded by incessant weeping, she will be grief. She leads her subjects in glorifying Yasodhara and reviling unable to look upon he son when, Awakened, he returns 'for the Devadatta. The populace, realising that karma is indeed a serious 41 LumbinI Grove Festival' (lumhinivanayatrartha) . But in the matter, begin to emulate Gopa's religious commitment by medi- extremity of her grief, Gautami is unreachable: i long for the tating on the Three Jewels, practising forbearance and moral dis- 48 after . Eventually, 45 sight of my son as a courtesan hankers money' cipline and generally cultivating Dharma with great seriousness she declares to Suddhodana that unless he can bring their son home, he had best turn his attention to affairs of state and leave her to grieve (VIII.92112 [Ce 72a3-b5; G 81b4-82b2Tj. GautamT's challenge, one he cannot meet, silences the king; I iti asau t sadvaisaraparyantarn 41 putravakyam srnu at ha mam prokiavan indeed, he ceases speaking to his wife altogether. The grief- II vitihotradipatanam ksamaya proddharisyate I gurvini duhkham apsyasi stricken queen passes her days weeping, further damaging her trikalajnasya sunos tad vacanam. kim mrsa bhavet II VIJI.71—72. (Ce 71a7-bj). eyes. Suddhodana remains devoted to his royal duties, but also lacking in 42 VIII.59c-64d Ce. spends much time reviewing reports about Sarvarthasiddha and 43 pratyagacchatv asau turnam iti krtva vratottamam I ma vis Ida sukham tistha gope 'dydrabhya nirbhaya II dura! man vraja bhlrus tvam ekavaram tatah sahe yasodevya sravaniyam vacas tvaya I s maryate vd I atha pascad duhprajna- 46 Vni.90-92 (Ce 72al-3). hitacetasa II ity uktamatra utlhaya natvahghrikamalam tayoh I punar naiva- 47 In the Nepal Valley, the festival celebrating the Buddha's birth at LumbinI paradhyami proktveti tvaritam yayau If mocayitva vadhodyuklam vanditva is called the Lumbiniyatra (Newari: lumbinijatra) For a song on this topic, see S. tatpadambuja/n I satyan vismapayan Cyat codd.) sarvan pratya.gam.at svam Lienhard (ed. and tr.), Nevarigitimahjari, Stockholm 1974, pp.37, 129. Cf. Gellner. aiayam II VIIL81-85 (Ce 71b5-7; G 81a4^6). op- cit^ pp,96-7, 356 n.35. The song published by Lienhard (composed in 1864) 44 VIlL77c-80b lacking in Ce, appears to derive from the Brhalsvayambhupurdna (ed. H.P. Sastri, Calcutta 4 5 durlanghyam karmatam matva smrtva ratnatrayam param I ksama- 9 1894-1900, 24 ff.) but is also very close to BKA XXVIJ04-309 (Ce 218a6-b2), sliasam.ayu.kxhh saddharmam abhyasadhayan (°yat codd.) // VIII.89 (Ce 72al). 48 surmsamdarsanakahksl ganikeva dhanarthini VIILUlod (Ce 72b5). 30 31 Tatelman — Yasodhara and Rahula Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) 49 hideous child as part of his larger plan to lead evildoers to sal- praying to the goddess Abhaya ('Safety') that his son may return 52 his eagerness to do his work, Destiny is and his grandson be born quickly and without mishap. Husband vation ; second, that in astonishes everyone with his distorted and wife go on this way until six years after the prince's like a hasty painter who departure have elapsed. During this period Yasodhara remains in representations". seclusion, dedicating her religious observance to her husband's Go pa anticipates public disgrace for presenting the comely wicked return. The citizens, too, practise Dharma in his name (VIII.114-119 Sakyas with such a hideous heir-apparent; she blames [Ce 72b5-73a2]). deeds in previous births, both her own and the child's; she worries that her abstemious diet prevented proper foetal development; she In Ch.IX, 'Yasodhara's Son is Born' {yasodharaputr ajanana), the boy to Suddhodana and feels certain that once the narrative explicitly [inks Yasodhara's life in Kapilavastu with fears showing return. Even after Sarvarthasiddha's by the Nairahjana River: he knows of his son, Sarvarthasiddha will never all her trials, Upagupta comments, Yasodhara must bear this, due Now at (he end of six years, the Omniscient, ending his severe ascetic ob- to karma (DC.11-25 [Ce 73bl-74alD. servances, accepted the milk-rice porridge offered by Sujata. [Meanwhile), in the After glimpsing the child, the other palace women make RaLnavyuha Palace, Yasodhara gave birth to a son. He was frightful as the [demon manifestly insin- Rahul, son of Sirnhika-, 50 excuses to leave. Yasodhara ignores Gautamfs of hideous complexion, like a black mottled bean . cere consolations that the king will be overjoyed to have an heir Yasodhara's terror at the hairy, black, goggle-eyed dwarf and that, like his father, her son is unique (trailokyadurlabha). As child thirstily fastening itself to her breast is compared to that of the supremacy of destiny, the the 51 before, she acknowledges moon seized by the demon Rahu . Indeed quite overcome, ineluctability of karmic retribution, her own misdeeds in previous the princess faints dead away. births: this time, however, no prediction has prepared her and Among descriptions of the newborn and Yasodhara's reaction there is no inkling of a solution. All her trials appear to have to his deformity, the narrator, Upagupta, offers two, apparently been for naught. For the first time she cries out that the cosmic contradictory, comments: first, that the Buddha has fathered this order be unjust. Yet for all this, Gopa insists that she and GautamI must care well for the child, for he will destroy accumulated past karma" (IX.26-39 [Ce 74al-blD. GautamI accepts Yasodhara's demand with as little conviction 49 This is the same goddess who bows down to the infant Sarvlrthasiddha She then flees to her i' n as she has just offered her reassurance. when Suddhodana presents him to at the her temple (Mv U26 , SBc 52). The " mourning' (sokagara), there to bewail her own and parallel 17 22 'chamber of scene in the Lalitavistara (ed. S. Tripathi, Darbhanga 1987. p.92 ) does the Sakyas' misfortune and to dread the public disgrace about to not mention this particular deity. See also EJ. Thomas. The Life of Buddha, descend on the royal family. In her soliloquy she compares the London 1927, Delhi 1993, p.46; A. Foucher, La vie du Bouddha, Paris 1949, 1987, pp.53-7. at 50 ha sadvatsaratite samapya duskaram vratam I samaharat sa sarvajnah sujatadatlapayasam II ralnavyuhanisadinyd taya putram asuyaia I simhikeyanibha 52 krtyam bhagavalai citram paraduskarmanasinah I duskrian bodhitum bhimo durvarno kalamasavat II 1X1-2 (Ce 73a3-4). 51 lokams tadrsam prabhisuyaiah II \XS (Ce 73a6-7). jatamatre stanam dhriva matu 33 32 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tatelman — Yasodharn and Rahula sight of her son's face to imbibing ambrosia, that of her grand- By way of reply, Suddhodana compares his son's physical son's to drinking poison and likens the family with Sarvartha- beauty and the thirty-two bodily marks, tokens of a lofty destiny, siddha to a radiant 55 full-moon night, but with Virupa to the to his grandson's deformity; he also contrasts the numerous aus- impenetrable darkness during the dark half of the month picious portents which preceded and accompanied Sarvartha- (IX.40-51 [Ce 74M-7D. siddha's birth to their complete absence in the case of his son. Then Suddhodana, his ministers and Chandaka arrive. One The king can only imagine his grandson presiding over the look at the hideous infant and the king concurs with what he has Assembly as a crow among swans (1X81-89 [Ce 75b7-76a5]). heard people saying — that his family is a sandal-tree infested Chandaka's response is to reveal and comment on Sarvartha- with serpents. He then leaves the lying-in chamber and faints, 'as siddha's own words. This, for the reader, amounts to a foretaste of if the child's deformity were poison with which he was be- later chapters: smeared' (IX.51-57 [Ce 74b7-75a3j). After listening to the king's words. Chandalkal instructed (lit. 'awakened') Upagupta comments: since most people, deluded by first im- the king further: 'Your son. the all- wise, will certainly deliver [his own son pressions, accord supreme value to external beauty, and since only from his conditionl. "Everyone I shall deliver [from suffering, including] the those who possess them (gunin) take time to appreciate the less ugly and the unfortunate". How could one who has made that solemn vow not obvious virtues (antargund), most people are deceived by mere save his own son? Once he has attained Awakening, so difficult to realise, and appearances (IX.58-59 [Ce 75a3-4]). learned the facts about his son, after offering succour to those he meets on the In the Assembly, Suddhodana describes the Sakyas as a way. he will return [here] with his disciples. Touched by the radiance of his beautiful moon which the demon Rahu, his grandson, is in the father's body, the child's deformities will disappear under brilliant moonlight, process of devouring. He then expatiates on the deformed child as where can there be darkness? Then, seeing your grandson's face, resplendent as make him king. a dynastic and political disaster and, as did GautamI, laments the I he full moon, you will place him on the lion-throne, Sire, and absence of his handsome son (IX.60-60 [Ce 75a4-b2]). Therefore dismiss your anxiety and cherish this deformed child, the mainstay of At this, Chandaka, Sarvarthasiddha's squire and childhood the Sakya family, for indeed he [will become! a handsome heroT . friend, admonishes the king at length (IX.70-80 [Ce 75b2-7]). He The king, however, pays no heed to his servant's words, nor, argues that to be born the son of a man whom the gods them- by extension, to his son's; he is conscious only of his grandson's selves have worshipped must indicate great personal merit, as deformity and his own shame. Similarly, his womenfolk can only must being so unique as to have remained six years in the womb. murmur about destiny and long for Saravarthasiddha's return Indeed he describes Sarvarthasiddha's son as a deity who has taken rebirth as a deformed child, "as if to demonstrate his spiritual power*5*. 57 nisamya tadgiram chando bodhayam asa lam punah I tavatmajo 'sau sarvajna nunam uddharayisyati II tokan uddharayisyami durvarnan durbhagdn iti t yena pranihitam bh&pa ( bhupa CaCe: kuryuh GTd) katham. tarn sa na raksyati II duriabham bodhim asadya tasya varttam nisamya ca I marge krtva 55 'Deformed', 'hideous' or simply 'ugly' is the adjective which serves as iokaraksam kisyaih pratyagamisyati 11 tasya dehaprabhasprstas tadvirupo nasam Rahula 's name until his grandfather the king permits a sort of naming-ceremony avrajet I kaumudyam samprakasayam hulas timirasamcayah II tada piirnenduvad to be carried out. ramyam mukham paiya virajitam I simkasane pratistkapya rajanam kuru 56 kim tu daivas chatanvesi nanabkavasurajikah I tat prabhavaprakasartham 'am nrpa It tasmad utsukatam tyajya viriipam api palaya I yo hi sakyakula- ivabhavad virupikah II IX.73 (Ce 75b3-4). Iambi yato rupo ('riipo G) hi viryavan II 1X.90-95 (Ce 76a5-bl). 34 35 Tate I man — Yasodhara and Rahula Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) S9 name-giving {namakarana, abhidhasamjnaka) . Suddhodana, (IX.96-99 [Ce76bl-3D. fearing that such life-cycle rituals will only amplify his shame, Of course for Devadatta, that Yasodhara's son, Suddhodana's refuses to proceed. The wise old brahman is scandalised. First he long-awaited heir, has turned out to be a deformed dwarf, is attributes the child's deformity to the king's karmic failings. He Revenge, even political power, may yet be welcome news. then lectures Suddhodana: happiness and sorrow are inherent possible. On the pretext of offering congratulations on the birth aspects of conditioned existence; life is a wheel which turns up of the new prince, he visits the king: joy, then grief, then joy again; no one in particular is to be borne a son rare in the three [worlds], "The lovely, truthful Yasodhara has blamed for its mechanical processes. Udayana challenges the king divinely beautiful, charming to all'. So people say. But it is only when they see to name what action might have prevented the infant's deformity to so frightfully hideous that they speak so. However, since it is the him be and enjoins him not to commit a culpable deed (i.e., denying his 60 truth, O king, listen to the reason for it. While Yasodhara was dwelling in the grandchild a civilised entry into the world) out of anger . to naga-realm among the female nagas, the naga-king clasped her in order Suddhodana's response is to choose an 'appropriately meaningful lead her up out of Rasatala. As a result, I her child] took on an exceedingly name' (nama yatharthyam) for, he says, 'the edification of the frightful appearance, like a serpent. For this reason, everyone is terrified of him, people' Qokabodhane): he names the child Rahula because of his fearing they will be scorched by virulent poison. [Moreover], because he was 61 'resemblance to the demon Rahu* . Although Udayana is appalled burnt by the flames which are everywhere [in Rasatalal he is black-skinned and at his monarch's choice of such an inauspicious name, he does disfigured and because [Gopa] was carried up [from the gorge] by the apef-kingl the boy is covered with thick fur and possesses great strength . Devadatta then taunts the king, claiming that his grandson will be a great warrior, endowed as he is with simian strength as 59 According to Manusmrti 1 1.29 -30, the birth-ceremony should be performed well as a naga's virulence. The kingdom will enjoy unrivalled se- before cutting the umbilical cord, and the naming ceremony, ten or twelve days urity, he promises, for even Yama's servants and other demons after the birth. will flee from the frightful Sakya monarch. Though he wishes to 60 tavaiva karmadosena virupam samajayaia I kim tu sa daivaharsas cec protest, the insult of bestial miscegenation added to the injuries of chokah ku.tra vasisyati If sukhaduhkhasame lake duhkham kim na bhavisyati I absent son and deformed grandson leave the king quite speechless. yavad brahmandasamvarti tavad dukkkasukkahatah II bhavacakre yatha mrtyu- Yasodhara and Gautaml can only weep and lament (IX.100-115 [Ce janau I harsabliutarii siddharthajanmani II tavatya 76b3-77a4]). vrddhabalakau yavanti tasmin samkkyaya rajann adhuna sckasamcayah I punas tavanti saukhydni na Some days later, Udayana, the chief priest, asks the king to bhavisyanti kim punak II kim na budkyasi rajendra samsaraparivarlanam I taira arrange for his grandson's birth-ceremony Qatakarman) and kim do sat a tasya tathasmakam mahipate II avi svabkavata I sokdkato pi tatkarma na katham karayisyasi I akrtva kim bkavec chuddkah suto 'sudd ho mrtad api I ma karaya dosakarma (dasa° CaCe: dosa° G) tvam ced romkuiasayah I! IX.121-127 (Ce 77a6-78a3), 58 satya yasodhara bhavya prasunot trim durlabkam I divyaiisundaram loka- 61 Since in the BKA the Buddha's son is born a deformed dwarf, it is not manoharam itt srutam II sabhayam Cbkayah?) kim tu durvarnam pasyanta iti surprising that only in the BKA do we find this explanation for his name. By bhasire I tat tu satyam makipala sruyatam asya hetutam II nagaiayam upasina contrast, in the Theravadin Jataka (ed. Fausbull, London 1877, Oxford 1990, naganlbhih samanvita / nagenaslesayitva yad urmiyate rasatalal II lenatibhisana- 1.60* ), 'Rahula* is explained as 'fetter'; in the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya (SBV ketro visadhara ivabhavat I yasmat samtrasyate lokair mahavisapralapinah II N\31 ), the explanation is that the birth occurred during a lunar eclipse, Le., vaisvanalapradagdhatvat kalavarno durakrtih I markatarohanataya (°ropana°^ ) when the demon Rahu attempts to swallow the moon. sthularoma balottamah II IX.IQ2-106 (Ce 76b4-6). 37 36 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Taielman — Yasodhara and Rahula perform a brief rite of purification (IX.116-134 [Ce 77a4-b6l forbids all contact with the boy and, still longing for power, Time passes, Rahula grows, but is kept out of sight. The carries on scheming (IX.172-183 [Ce 79a4-b3]). narrator reflects on the power of deeds over ancestry and poses As Devadatta fears, Rahula begins to demonstrate that, questions which he does not answer: where is Sarvarthasiddha? despite his repulsive exterior, he is very much his father's son Why has he inflicted such a grandson on his father? Why is 0X.184-2O6 [Ce79b3-80a7]>. Despite her shame at his deformity, Rahula so hideous? (IX.135-141 [Ce 77b6-78a3]). her son's obvious intelligence, valour and physical strength friends his GautamT, now completely blind, apostrophises Sarvarthasiddha astonish Yasodhara. Years pass. He makes numerous be at length (IX.142-160 [Ce 78a3-b6]). Convinced that by now he own age; their antics delight the palace officials. He proves to must have attained Awakening, she entreats him to hasten home a most acute student and soon is tutoring his friends. to deliver her from blindness, Rahula from deformity, the king Winning over everyone with his good qualities, he astonished his grand- from sorrow and grief and Yasodhara, who 'emulates your aus- father and delighted his mother and the palace women; deformed though he terities' (tvadvratanucarl), terrible virtues, the boy was es- from pain. Without his return, was, his virtues made him appear beautiful. . . Full of the cuckoo, although queen declares, the faculty of hearing and then the very teemed by all, despite being deformed: is not the sweet-voiced the life-breath (prdna) will forsake her body; with it she will imbibe dark-coloured, so esteemed? It was as if his beauty were obscured by the Saddharma and attain liberation, radiance of his virtues, as the moon's beauty is entirely obscured by the sun's The weeping Suddhodana tells GautamI that she is fortunate radiance. . in her blindness, for her eyes can no longer experience the Rahula is so skilled in statecraft (nltividyacaksana) that he is torment of looking upon their hideous grandson. Assuring her able to dissuade Suddhodana from immoral political decisions that, on his return, their son will restore her sight, the king {bhupam nyasedhlt papakarmatah). He studies and discusses laments his own ocular acuity and longs to share the queen's Dharma, devotedly serves the king and gives generously to blindness until such time as Rahula may possess signs of beauty suppliants. Even his games of make-believe with other children (DC161-168 [Ce 78b6-79a3D. demonstrate his lofty spiritual nature: 'I am the disciple, you are of In due course Rahula, well-nourished although 'denied all the preceptor* I shall seek alms without any thought rites' 63 speaks falsely. By the time sacramental (sarvakriyahlna), begins to crawl, then walk acquisition* . Even in play, he never boy's and then speak. However, not only is he barred from his grand- Rahula is six years old, even Suddhodana marvels at the father's presence, but wherever he goes people avert their faces or extraordinary virtues. He finally accepts Rahula as his true flee (IX.169-171 [Ce 79a3-4]). grandson but, worldling that he be, cannot accept his frightful Sarvarthasiddha. Meanwhile, Devadatta flouts the king's orders by helping appearance. Still the king longs for himself to other men's women. Rahula, now described as courageous (mahavira), wise (prajhdvat) and of great physical strength (balavattama\ roams at will. While Devadatta still labels I harsayan malaram. tas ca him a bastard (kunda) born of a demon (dakint), and delights in 62 gunena nirjayan sarvan vismapayan pitamaham lokair virupo 'pi ca baiakak I the universal revulsion he inspires, Rahuia's precocious develop- virupo 'pi babhau gunaih it . , .gunavan manyate II sar&po 'ntarhita iva tasya ment alarms him, for while the boy remains alive he feels certain kokilah kalavarno 'pi susvarah kirn na manyate car.drasya bhasvaccandrikaya iva II IX.I91, that his dynastic ambitions cannot be fulfilled. After lecturing his gunamaricibhih I sakalam kasya relatives and retainers (nljajana) on Rahula as a goblin (vetala) 193^194 (Ce 79b7, 80al-2). asau who is sucking the life out of his own grandparents, Devadatta 63 iisyo 'ham. tvam upadhyayo bhiksarthi casmi nirmamah I krldayam ily dharmam prakarol sugalam smaran II IX.198 (Ce 80a3-4). 38 39 Tatelman — Yasodhara and Rahula Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) devotion, attend on his teacher daily and work for the welfare of Devadatta is much alarmed by these developments. Powerless the people. Finally, Yasodhara insists that Rahula's deformity is against the adult members of the royal family, he begins to work 66 due to a misdeed on her part . on Rahula, claiming that 'you are a bastard — that is why you 64 This, however, fails to placate Rahula. He insists on knowing are so strong, intelligence and, yes, hideous* . Devadatta points meaning of the word 'bastard' (tcunda), for when his uncle out to Rahula that his mother's husband left Kapilavastu twelve the called him that, all his friends laughed and for the first time he years before, yet he is only six years old, adding that both ashamed of his appearance. Yasodhara is torn between Sarvarthasiddha and Yasodhara are 'divinely beautiful' while he is felt an explanation — which will further distress a child a hideous dwarf (bhimarupo 'si vamanah). Devadatta advises offering doubts (samsayakula) — and saying nothing, Rahula to question his mother about the man who sired him, already filled with will further expose him to his uncle's lies. Her solution is claiming, finally, that this mysterious figure is about to return which more than kunda refers to a grievous sin (1X207-214 [Ce 80W-5D. to claim she can say no (papa gariyas), and tells her son that to learn more he must wait Although hitherto Rahula seems to have taken no notice of to ask his father. She assures Rahula that his father understands his unusual appearance or of others' reactions to it, his uncle's everything, including the meaning of all words, the karmic bases questions devastate him. In tears, he rushes to Yasodhara and of her own trials, the reason for the boy's deformity and indeed demands to know the name, identity, whereabouts and physical the karmic history of all. Since, she continues, Sarvarthasiddha characteristics of his father (IX.215-18 [Ce 80b6-8j). will prove Devadatta an arrant liar, Rahula must cover his ears Weeping mother assures bawling son that the divinely hand- and think of the Three Jewels whenever his evil uncle addresses some Sarvarthasiddha, Suddhodana's son, is his own true father (IX.2I9-231 [CE 80b7-81a6]). Right now he seeks the Jewel of Awakening, desirious of saving the world; in order to carry out an Observance, a great donation, he has betaken himself to 66 In Ch.XXVH, The Maturing of the Deeds of Yasodhara and Rahulabhadra' the Isle of Dharma. After acquiring the great, auspicious wish-fulfiSltng gem, he iyasodhardrahulabhadrakarmavipaka) (Ce219a3-225b5). the story of the cowherd is returning to extinguish the misery and poverty of the world. Then, through (dhenupalini) Harint (Yasodhara) and her mother Bhadri provides the karmic the power of thai gem, you, too, will become beautiful, attain supreme felicity brothers Candra 65 explanation of Yasodhara's six-year pregnancy; that of the and be greatly honoured in the world . (Rahula) and Surya (Ce220a4-225b6) for Rahula's six-year gestation. However, Yasodhara tells her son to ignore Devadatta, that the neither BKA XXV11, nor BAKL LXXX1II, from which it quotes eight complete malicious accusations only blacken his own karma while cleansing s "29 verses and numerous padas, nor Mv (I1I.172-5), SBc (360-3), SBV (11.42 , Rahula's own. She then enjoins him to practise recollection of the z 16 of the same 43 -44 ) or Mpps (II, pp.1006-7), all of which contain versions Three Jewels, maintain truthfulness in speech, serve GautamI with stories, make any mention of Rahula as deformed or ugly. However, in the Vicitrakarnikavadanamala, Ananda tells of a previous birth of the character Suvarrtavarna. In this birth Suvarnavarna was 'Virupa', son of the merchant Karna, a hideous and foul-smelling boy whom the Buddha Vipasyin later 64 kundaivad ativlro 'si vijno virupa eva ca II IX.208cd (Ce 80bl-2), rescues from his attempted suicide and transforms into the perfectly handsome 65 tadanim bodhiratnarthi jagaduddharakamukah f mahadanavratam kartum 'Surupa', who then becomes king of Bandhumati. See Mitra, op. cit, pp.278-9 and dharmadvipam upayayau II maharainam samasddya vahchiiarthapradam sivam I Suvarnavarnavadana (ed. T. Rajapatirana, Ph.D. thesis, Australian National pratyagacckati lokanam daridraduhkhasantaye II taitii ralnanubhavena ivam apt University, Canberra 1974), Part I, !S 85-92, 101-4. Possibly our author adapted sundaro bhaveh I sukham amUtaratn prapya lokamanyiaras tat ha II IX.222-224 'tis own account of the hideous Rahula from this source. (Ce 81al-3). 41 40 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) him. Rahula diligently complies, and both mother and son pass the days anxiously awaiting Sarvarthasiddha's return (IX.232-250 A CRITICAL EXAMINATION OF NANAVIRA THERA'S fCe 81a6-82al]). 'A NOTE ON PATICCASAMUPPADA* Finally, Upagupta concludes the chapter and therefore this major section of the Bhadrakalpavaddna by addressing Asoka Part One in two malinl verses: Sire, [although] Suddhodana still yearned [to see] his son's face, he passed Bhikkhu Bodhi the day delighting in his grandson's intelligence, white Gautami, bereft of those 67 lotuses, her eyes, overcame grief by listening to the reports of him from every Introduction servant in the city, 1. Nanavlra Thera's Notes on Dhamma was first published in [Sire, since] you long for that rare, sweet draught, the narrative of the 1963, during the author's lifetime, in a small cyclostyled edition Lord's noble deeds and since, because of the lengthy separation, you desire a distributed to a select list of recipients. During the following two speedy reunion [with him for all in Kapilavastu], then harken eagerly to the years the author made a number of corrections and substantial Sulalitavrtta wherein it is said, 'He who is the vessel for the welfare of the additions to his original text, leaving behind at his death an en- three worlds acquired the Jewel of Awakening.^ larged typescript entitled Notes on Dhamma (1960-1965). For twenty-two years this version circulated from hand to hand among a small circle of readers in the form of typed copies, photocopies and handwritten manuscripts. Only in 1987 did Notes 67 Here glossing atisokd as at'uasoka, '[she who has] gone beyond grief, on appear in print, when it was issued along with a 68 sutamukham abhilasl bhupa suddhodano 'sau divasam anayad ittham Dhamma collection of the author's letters under the title Clearing the Path: pautra pra jnabhit ustah I vigatanayana padma gautami catisoka Writings of Nanavira Thera (1960-1965?. sakalapurabhatebhyas tasya varttam nisamya II sukrtamadhurapane durlabhe sabhilasah sucirataraviyoga 1 Path Press, Colombo 1987. 42 43 Bodhi — Critique of 'A Note on Paticcasamuppada' (1) Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) I will be con- The present essay is an attempt to fill that gap. Teaching. Some of its admirers have called it the most important 'A cerned here with only one note in Nanavira's collection, his century, others have hailed it as the most book written in this main pillar Note on Paticcasamuppada'. This note, however, is the outstanding work on the Dhamma to appear since the Nikayas Nanavira's distinctive approach to the Suttas; it is the first and leaves at the Aluvihara. For the of were first written down on palm radical. The longest note in the book and the most consistently book's enthusiasts no effort is too much in struggling through its Note sounds a bold challenge to the prevailing 'three-life dense pages of tightly compressed arguments and copious Pali interpretation' of the twelve-factored formula of dependent quotations in order to fulfil its author's invitation 'to come and expounded arising. The traditional interpretation of this formula, share his point of view'. XVII), has guided in full detail in the Visuddhimagga (Chapter in writing the Notes was, in his own in Nanavira's purpose followers of mainstream Theravada Buddhism for centuries words, 'to indicate the proper interpretation of the Suttas', the key principle their understanding of this most profound and difficult to which he believed he had discovered through an experience be of the Dhamma. Hence a criticism of it that claims to he identified as the arising of the Eye of Dhamma (dhamma- that the Suttas themselves strikes from within at the very 2 validated by cakkhu), that is, the attainment of stream-entry . His proposition core of the orthodox Theravada commentarial tradition. sounds innocuous enough as it stands, until one discovers that the At the beginning of his Note, Nanavlra states that he assumes author sees this task as entailing nothing less than a radical re- interpretation and is his reader is acquainted with this traditional valuation of the entire Theravada exegetical tradition. Few of the asserts, is not un- dissatisfied with it (§2). Such dissatisfaction, he standard interpretative principles upheld by Theravada orthodoxy modestly justified, and he proposes to provide in its place what he are spared the slashing of his pen. The most time-honoured claims 'may perhaps be found to be a more satisfactory approach'. explanatory tools for interpreting the Suttas, along with the is already acquainted with the I too will assume that the reader venerated books from which they stem, he dismisses as 'a mass of that three-life interpretation, and hence I will not recapitulate dead matter choking the Suttas'. The Abhidhamma Pitaka, the interpretation here. While the reader who has personal access to Milindapanha, the Visuddhimagga, the Pali Commentaries — all Nanavira's Note and can refer to it in the course of this dis- come in for criticism, and the author says that ignorance of them cussion may be able to follow my arguments here more easily, 'may be counted as a positive advantage as leaving less to be un- not situated I will recount 3 for the benefit of readers who are so learned' . below those contentions of his with which I take issue. 2. Strangely, although Notes on makes such a sharp Dhamma vindicate the 3. My purpose in writing this examination is to frontal attack on Theravada orthodoxy, to date no proponent of traditional three-life interpretation against Nanavira's critique of the mainstream Theravada tradition has risen to the occasion and considers to be it. I propose to show that the approach which he attempted to counter its arguments. The few traditionalists who 'more satisfactory' not only cannot be justified by reference to have read the book have either disregarded it entirely or merely the discourses of the Buddha, but is in fact contradicted by them. branded it as a thicket of errors. But to my knowledge none has allegations, I also intend to establish that, contrary to Nanavira's tried to point out exactly what these errors are and to meet its the three-life interpretation, though not explicitly stated in such criticisms with argumentation based direcdy the texts. reasoned on view, terms, is fully in accord with the Buddha's teachings. In my this interpretation, far from deviating from the Suttas, simply makes explicit the Buddha's intention in expounding dependent arising. 2 See Clearing the Path, pp.153. 495. 3 Ibid, p5. 45 44 Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Bodhi — Critique of 'A Note on Paticcasamuppada' (1) In making this assertion, I not saying that the detailed ex- am all later works, such Unlike Nanavlra, however, I do not hold that position of paticcasamuppada (PS) as found in the Pali Com- Commentaries, should be as the Abhidhamma Pitaka and the mentaries can in all particulars be traced back to the Suttas. The must rejected point blank as miasmas of error and decay. We aim of the Commentaries, in their treatment of PS, is to correlate regarding the certainly accept the findings of scientific scholarship the Suttanta teaching of PS with the systematic analysis of pheno- should re- dating of the canonical and post-canonical texts, and mena and their conditional relations as found in the Abhi- cognise that Theravada doctrine has evolved in several strata dhamma. This results in an explanation of PS that is far more through the Abhidhamma, the Commentaries and the later complex and technical than anything that can be drawn out from exegetical works. In my view, however, this does not mean that the Sutta texts themselves. I do not think that acceptance of the must every text that was composed after the age of the Nikayas basic dynamics of the 'three-life' approach entails acceptance of be regarded with distrust or disdain. the details of the commentarial explanation, and I also believe that the Commentaries take unnecessary risks when they try to Fundamental Attitudes in Nanavira's read back into the Suttas ideas deriving from tools of inter- 4. Before I turn to examine certain specific points entailed by pretation that appeared perhaps centuries after the Suttas were Note I wish to focus on one discomfiting consequence compiled. All that I wish to maintain is that the essential vision his insistence that his view of PS is exclusively and absolutely underlying the commentarial interpretation is correct: namely, correct. The three-life interpretation of PS has been maintained that the twelvefold formula of PS extends over three lives and as by the Theravada tradition virtually from the time that tradition of such describes the generative structure of Sarhsara, the round of emerged as a distinct school. It goes back long before the time 4 already in near- repeated births . Buddhaghosa's commentaries and can be found Abhidhamma Pitaka and Like Nanavlra, I take as the sole ultimate authority for definitive form in the Vibhanga of the dating from interpretation of the Dhamma the Buddha's discourses as found in the Patisambhidamagga of the Sutta Pitaka, works interpretation, in its the four main Nikayas and in the older strata of the Khuddaka around the third century BCE. Further, this to the Theravada Nikaya. I share with him the view that these books can be con- essential outlines, is by no means peculiar in details, by sidered the most trustworthy record of the Buddha's teaching, and school. It was also shared, with minor differences and Maha- hence should be turned to as the final court of appeal in re- the early rivals of the Theravada, the Sarvastivada of solving questions about the correct interpretation of the Dhamma. sarighika, which suggests that at least in outline this way explaining PS already preceded the first schisms. The same three- life division can be found in the works of the great Madhyamika philosopher Nagarjuna (e.g., in his Mulamadhyamikakarika, Mahayana Chapter 26), and is also held in the present day by the 4 In this paper I will not be concerned at all with the Vibhahga's Abhi- schools that have inherited the exegetical methodology of ancient dhamma Bhajaniya (Chapter VI), which applies the 12 factors of PS to each 5 of PS, as pertaining Indian Buddhism . In contrast, Nanavira's view single mind-moment (citta) in the Abhidhamma analysis of consciousness. Although here all 12 factors are shown to be operative at a single moment, this treatment of (he doctrine is not put forward as an interpretation of the PS for- mula intended in the Suttas, as is clear from the distinction the Vibhanga itself 5 Thus (he so-called Tibetan Wheel of Life, which probably stems from the makes between the Suttanta method and the Abhidhamma method. In its treat- old Indian Sarvastivada, expressly coordinates a pictorial representation of the 12 ment of PS by the Suttanta method, the Vibhanga confirms the three-life factors with a picture of the different planes of rebirth. approach. 46 47 Bodhi — Critique of 'A Note on Paticcasamuppada' (1) Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) order to understand how PS fulfils this function, we should focus solely to a single life, appears to be without precedent in the on the question: What is the meaning of the dukkha _that the tenet systems of early Buddhism. Thus, when Nanavira holds that Buddha's Teaching is designed to liberate us from? Nanavira he has correctly grasped the Buddha's intention in expounding contends that this dukkha is the anxiety and stress that pervade this implicitly PS, commits him to the thesis that the entire our present existence, and hence he interprets all the terms of the mainstream Buddhist philosophical tradition has utterly mis- standard PS formula in a way that lends support to this conten- interpreted this most fundamental Buddhist doctrine, their and had tion. However, if we read the Suttas on their own terms, in already done so within two centuries after the Master's demise. totality, we find that Nanavlra's understanding of dukkha falls far it is not altogether this it While impossible that occurred, would short of the vision of the First Noble Truth that the Buddha seem a lapse of astonishing magnitude the part on of the early wishes to impart to us. Of course, dukkha does include 'existential Buddhist community. anxiety', and there are several suttas which define the conditions 6 5. Of course, the above argument is not in itself compelling, for for the arising and removal of such dukkha . An unbiased and one might still be prepared to stand behind Nanavlra's claim no complete survey of the Nikayas, however, would reveal that the matter how audacious it may be. So let us now turn to the Note problem of dukkha to which the Buddha's Teaching is addressed itself and examine his views on PS. For the present we will pass is not primarily existential anxiety, nor even the distorted sense over his opening salvos against the three-life interpretation. of self of which such anxiety may be symptomatic. The primary Instead, let us move directly into the sections of the Note in problem of dukkha with which the Buddha is concerned, in its which he reveals his own 'more satisfactory approach'. We will most comprehensive and fundamental dimensions, is the problem birth, return to the criticisms later and see if they truly require us to of our bondage to Samsara — the round of repeated ageing abandon the traditional understanding of the doctrine. and death. And, as I will show presently, these terms are intended quite literally as signifying biological birth, ageing and death, Nanavira maintains that PS, in its twelve-factored formu- not our anxiety over being born, growing old and dying. lation, applies solely and entirely to our existential situation in to us the this present life, without any reference to temporal divisions. It is, A glance at the Suttas would suffice to reveal in his view, an ever-present existential structure of the unenligh- 'fundamental attitudes' that motivated the Buddha and the early tened mind describing the mode of being of the 'uninstructed disciples in their own quest for deliverance. We find, for example, common person' (assutava puthujjana). Nanavira insists that this that each Bodhisatta, from VipassI to Gotama, seeks the path to interpretation of PS alone offers us a way to resolve the im- enlightenment with the thought, 'Alas, this world has fallen into passes away mediate problem of existence in the present itself: 'It is a matter trouble, in that it is born and ages and dies and this suf- of one's fundamental attitude to one's own existence — is there, and is reborn, and it does not know the escape from 7 go forth into or is there not, a present problem, or rather, anxiety that can fering of ageing and death* . When young seekers only be resolved in the present? (§7). homelessness out of faith in the Buddha, they do so because they I fully agree with Nanavira that our interpretation of PS must flow from our 'fundamental attitude to (our) own existence*. It is also clear from the Suttas that the Buddha's motive in teach- pari- ing PS is to lead us to a present solution of the existential 6 I have in mind particularly M 138 and S II 15-19. These show how problem of suffering. Repeatedly in the Suttas we see the Buddha lassana, which mighl be rendered 'anxiety', arises from clinging (upadana} and teaching PS in order to lay bare the structure of conditions that ceases with the removal of clinging. underlies the origination and cessation of dukkha. However, in 7 S D s-a 49 48 Buddhist Studies Review 15, I (1998) Bod hi — Critique of 'A Note on Patlccasamuppada' (1) have realised: 'I am immersed in birth, ageing and death, sorrow, accepts this task as one's own, one will see that PS must be lamentation, pain, structure of displeasure and despair; I am immersed in looked upon as a disclosure of the conditioned suffering, afflicted with suffering. Perhaps one can discern here an Samsara, showing us how our ignorance, craving and volitional end-making to this entire mass 18 keep us chained to the round of existence and drive us of suffering . Again and again the activity Buddha stresses the misery of repeated existence within Samsara, from one life to the next. again and again he underscores the urgency of escaping from it Birth, Ageing and Death (see e.g., S [I 178-93). And his constant injunction to the monks 6. I now intend to take up for scrutiny what might be regarded throughout his ministry was to dwell diligently so that 'having as the two planks of Nanavira's interpretation. The two planks to abandoned the wandering on in births, you will make an end of be- suffering' which I refer are his attempts to explain the relationships (pahaya jatisamsaram dukkhass' antam karissatif. These tween those conditions which, in the traditional interpretation, are words should leave no doubt that by putting an end to held to extend over different lifetimes. These are: (i) the_ nexus of suffering the Buddha means — not release from existential anxiety bhava, jati and jardmarana — becoming ('being', in Nanavira's — but release from the round of rebirths. Insofar as the translation), birth, and ageing-and-death; and (ii) the nexus of Dhamma addresses the problem of our present suffering, it does so avijjdy sahkhdrd and vinhdna — ignorance, formations ('deter- by situating that suffering in its larger context, our condition I Nanavira's ex- of samsaric bondage. minations') and consciousness. will show that The present cannot be considered only in its fail support vertical depths. planations of both these groups of factors to draw It must also be viewed as the intersection of the from the source that he himself regards as the supreme authority past and future, shaped by our past experience and harbouring in the interpretation of the Dhamma, namely, the Pali Suttas. I our future destiny in its womb. will also show that, contra Nanavlra, on both points the Suttas If the Dhamma is to enable us to extricate ourselves from confirm the traditional interpretation, which regards these con- the dukkha of repeated birth and death, it must make known the nections as involving a succession of lives. chain of causes that holds us in bondage to this round of repeated birth and 7. Let us first turn to Nanavira's treatment of the former nexus death, and it must also indicate what must be done to bring (§10 of his Note): this cycle to a halt. Throughout the Suttas we can find only one The fundamental upadana or 'holding' is attavada, which is basic statement of the causal structure of Samsara, one over- arching formulation with holding to a belief in 'self. The puthujjana takes what many minor variations, and that is the twelvefold appears to be his 'self at its face value; and so long as this formula of dependent arising. If one's aim in following the goes on he continues to be a 'self, at least in his own eyes Dhamma is to gain release from existential anxiety, then the This is bhava or 'being'. three-life interpretation of PS may seem unsatisfactory and one (and in those of others like him). may turn The puthujjana knows that people are born and die; and to Nanavira's version as more adequate. But the task which the since thinks 'my self exists' so he also thinks 'my self Buddha sets before his disciples is of a different nature: he namely, to born' and 'my self will die'. The puthujjana sees a 'self gain liberation from the recurrent cycle of birth, old was age and death, that is, from bondage to Samsara. Once one to whom the words birth and death apply. Before we go any further, we should point out that Nanavlra does not cite any suttas to support his understanding of bhava, jati and jardmarana, and in fact there are no suttas to be found in 8 M I 192. 460, 463, etc. 9 D II 121. 50 51 Bodtal — Critique of 'A Note on Paticcasamuppada' (1) Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) textual 10 and die', or 'My self was born; my self ages and dies'. The the Pali Canon that explain the above terms in this way . definitions are perfectly straightforward and unambiguous and Moreover, on Nanavlra's interpretation it may not even be quite give no hint that the Buddha had some other idea to convey correct to say 'jatipaccaya jaramaranatti. On his view, it seems, the significance of these terms. one would be obliged to say instead, 'bhavapaccaya jati, bhava- about paccaya jaramaranam\ Since he regards the putkujjana's taking Bhava and Rebirth himself to be a self as the basis for his notions 'my self was born' offered in the Sut- 8. The definition of bhava (Nanavlra's 'being') and 'my self will die', it follows that 'being' would be the con- tas dealing expressly with PS is nowhere near as transparent as dition for both 'birth' and *ageing-and-death'. However, that is not the former definitions, the reason being that the definition of the what the Buddha himself asserts. underlies the term is set against the particular cosmology that In many suttas dealing with PS the Buddha defines the above Buddha's Teaching. Nevertheless, the Suttas provide no basis for terms of the formula, and if wejook at these texts we will see Nanavlra's claim that bhava means the puthuj jands taking 12 that they differ markedly from Nanavlra's explanation of them. himself to be a self . The definitions are standardised: In the suttas on PS, when the Buddha defines bhava, he does 'And what, monks, is ageing-and-death? The ageing of so merely by enumerating the three types of becoming: beings in the various orders of beings, their old age, 'And what, monks, is becoming? There are these three brokenness of teeth, greyness of hair, wrinkling of skin, types of becoming: sense-sphere becoming; fine-material- decline of life, weakness of faculties — this is called age- 13 sphere becoming; immaterial-sphere becoming' . ing. The passing of beings out of the various orders of This definition refers to the three planes of existence in the beings, their passing away, dissolution, disappearance, dying, Buddhist cosmos, and the term 'bhava' thus would signify con- completion of time, dissolution of the aggregates, laying crete individual existence in one or another of these three planes. down of the body — this is called death. So this ageing and For illumination as to how bhava functions in the PS series, our this death are (together) called ageing-and-death most helpful resource is the Bhava Sutta, a short exchange be- 'And what, monks, is birth? The birth of beings into tween the Buddha and Ananda: the various orders of beings, their coming to birth, descent "becoming, becoming". In what way, (into a womb), production, manifestation of the aggregates, 'It is said, lord, 11 lord, is there becoming?' obtaining the bases for contact — this is called birth' . the sense 'If, Ananda, there were no kamma ripening in The above definitions, with their strings of synonyms and realm, would sense-sphere becoming be discerned?' concrete imagery, clearly indicate that 'birth* refers to biological 'No, lord'. birth and 'ageing-and-death' to biological ageing and biological 'Thus, Ananda, kamma is the field, consciousness is the death — not to the puthu//ana's notions 'I was born, I will age seed, craving the moisture; for beings obstructed by ignor- 10 Nanavira does quote one sutta (S 3:3/1 71) a little further down which he himself to be a self, for 12 I am not denying that the puihuj/ana does lake thinks supports his interpretation of jaramarananirodha. However, this passage in disputing that is precisely the act that defines him as a puthujjana. I am only no way compels acceptance of his interpretation; it can easily be explained in that this is the correct explanation of bhava. other ways that do not require us to jettison the traditional understanding of PS. B S [| 3. 11 D II 305; M I 49-50; S II 2-3, etc. 53 52 . Paticeasamuppada' (1) Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Bodhl — Critique of 'A Note on or ance and fettered to craving, consciousness becomes ground- 'rebirth existence', which refers to existence produced in one 15 distinction is not ed in a tow realm. Thus, Ananda, there_ is the production of another of the three realms . Although such a implied such pas- re-becoming in the future. It is thus, Ananda, that there is explicitly drawn in the Suttas, it seems to be by becoming. sages as the one just quoted above. 'If, Ananda, there were no in the rebirth and he is kamma ripening fine- 9. Nanavira claims that jati does not mean (§9), L material realm, would fine-material becoming be discerned?' correct insofar as the word jatF does not by itself convey the 'No, lord'. sense of 're-birth'. Nevertheless, within the context of PS (and 'Thus, Ananda, kamma is the field, consciousness is the elsewhere in the Buddha's Teaching), jati must be understood as seed, craving the moisture; for beings obstructed by ignor- implying rebirth. Insofar as jati, 'the manifestation of the ag- ance and fettered 'in to craving, consciousness becomes ground- gregates', etc., results from the formation of a new bhava the ed in a middling realm. Thus, Ananda, there is the produc- future' by the avijja, tanha and kamma of the preceding tion of re-becoming in the future. It is thus, Ananda, that existence, any instance of jati is invariably a rebirth of the same there is becoming. continuum of consciousness. The stream of consciousness of the if, Ananda, there were no kamma ripening in the preceding life, 'grounded' in a particular realm by reason of its immaterial realm, would immaterial becoming be discerned?' kamma, springs up in that realm and comes to growth and full 'No, lord'. manifestation there. 'Thus, Ananda, kamma is the field, consciousness is the Contrary to Nanavira, throughout the Suttas we often find seed, craving the moisture; for beings obstructed by ignor- l the word jatC used in conjunction with the terms "samsard and ance and fettered to craving, consciousness becomes ground- 7 'punabbhava to underscore the fact that rebirth is intended. Take, ed in a superior realm. Thus, Ananda, there is the produc- for instance, the Buddha's famous 'Hymn of Victory' from the tion of re-becoming in the future. It is thus, Ananda, that (v.153). 14 Dhammapada there is becoming' . *I ran vainly through the wandering of many births Clearly, this sutta is offering a succinct statement of the same Seeking the house-builder. Painful is birth again and again'. basic process described more extensively in the usual twelve- Anekajatisamsararh sandhavissam anibbisam factored formula of PS: When there is avijja and tanha, ig- Gahakarakam gavesanto dukkha jati punappunam. norance and craving, then kamma — the volitional action of a be- wandering on in births ing — effects the production of a new existence or 're-becoming Or: 'A bhikkhu has abandoned the ponobhaviko jatisamsaro in the future' (ayatim punabbhava) in a realm that corresponds to with its re-becoming' {bhikkhuno 1 the verse of Udana 4:9: the qualitative potential of that kamma. It is for this reason that pahlno; M 139). Or the Commentaries interpret bhava in the usual PS formula as 'For the monk with a peaceful mind, having two aspects that pertain to two different lives: one aspect When he has cut off craving for becoming, called kammabhava, 'kammicaily active existence', which refers to The wandering on in births is destroyed; the kamma with the potential of generating rebirth in one or an- For him there is no re-becoming'. other of the three realms; the other aspect called upapattibhava, Vcchinnabhavatanhassa santacittassa bhikkhuno 14 A I 223-4. 15 See Vism XV1I,250. 54 55 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Bodhl — Critique of 'A Note on Paticcasanmppida' Vikkhino jatisarhsaro natthi tassa punabbhavo. reptiles each in their own state — then, in the complete Again, consider the declaration of final knowledge uttered by absence of birth, ageing-and-death would not be discerned: the arahants: 'This is my last birth; now there is no re-becoming' thus birth is the condition for ageing and death'. (.ayam antima jati, natthi dani punabbhavo; M 1 167,173), Nanavira would read this passage to mean: Because the The above passages will show us, moreover, that the wedge puthujjana clings to a belief in self, he goes on being a self (of a r r es to " drive between jati and punabbhava- three types); and because he assumes that bhimbbamL,^il w! V i one or another of the (in §10) is a spurious one. While in and 'my self will some passages the he is such a self, he thinks 'my self was born' two are set in a conditional relationship to one another If, read this pas- (the latter i grow old and die' (see Note, §10). however, we being a condition for the former - see II death S 65), they are so sage in the light of the definitions of birth, ageing and closely connected that their meanings almost overlap. In fact, the found in the Suttas, and in the light of the Bhava Sutta (pp.13-14), word 'abhinibbatti is used as one of the synonyms of jati in the a very different meaning would emerge, which might be formu- standard definition of the latter. Apparently, clinging to a when abhinibbatti is lated thus: Because of clinging of any kind (not only included in jati we should potential understand jati as comprising both doctrine of self), one engages in actions that have the to conception and physical birth, while when they are differentiated ripen in one or another of the three realms of becoming. These abhinibbatti means conception and jati is restricted to full actions dispose consciousness towards these realms. At death, if emergence from the womb. clinging persists, the predominant kamma steers consciousness 10. Now that the 'seed' of con- we have adduced textual definitions of the terms towards the appropriate realm, i.e., it grounds ageing-and-death', 'birth' thereby generates a new existence. and 'becoming', let us see how they link sciousness in that realm, and up in the formula in birth — of PS, as explained by the Buddha himself The This 'production of re-becoming' comes to fulfilment text which elucidates this classes of beings dis- matter most succinctly is the Maha- that is, birth into one of the numerous n.dana Sutta (D 15/11 57-8). of becoming — and once birth To bring out the meaning I quote the tributed among the three realms relevant passage slightly ageing-and-death. simplified, without the catechtstic format occurs, it is inevitably followed by and with the sequence of conditions stated in direct order rather Three Types of Sankhara than in reverse order: Nanavlra's 'Note 11. Now let us turn to the other major plank in 'If there were absolutely no clinging of any kind — no on Paticcasamuppada', his treatment of the interconnections clinging to sense pleasures, clinging to views, clinging to between avijja, sankhara and vihhana (§§5-6, 11-16). In §5 rules and observances, clinging to a doctrine - of self then Nanavira cites the threefold enumeration of sankhara commonly in the complete absence of clinging, becoming would not be employed by the Suttas when they analyse the individual factors discerned: thus clinging is the condition for becoming. of the PS formula: If there were absolutely no becoming of any kind — There are these no sense-sphere 'And what, monks, are the sahkharal becoming, fine-material becoming im- three sankhara: body-sahkhara, speech-sahkhara, mind-san- material becoming - then, in the complete absence of 16 the sankhara' . becoming, birth would not be khara. These are called discerned: thus becoming is the condition for birth. 'If there were absolutely no birth of any kind - that is of gods in the state of gods, of celestials in the state of celestials, of spirits, demons, humans, animals, birds and 16 S 11 4. 56 L 57 on Patiecasamuppada' (1) Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Bodhi — Critique of 'A Note untranslated here in order perception and feeling (sahhdvedaytta-nrodha) I will leave the word 'sahkhara' the cessation of for an explanation of the order not to prejudice the discussion. Immediately after citing this pas- Us fn ended to prepare the way a monk enters definitions of the three types of sah- types of sahkhara cease when sage, in order to supply Si which the three Sutta 44/1 301), This khara, NanavTra quotes the Culavedalla (M the attainment of cessation. — discussion between the lay devotee Visakha and his are the three sahkhara of the sutta a But that is not all. Not only the arahant bhikkhunl Dhammadinna — defines excluded from discussions of former wife, Culavedalla Sutta always rigorously types of sahkhara bearing exactly the same names as those which the Buddha exemplifies the three PS but among all the suttas in in the texts on PS: <'™* mentioned expressions 'Svijjdpaccayd sahkhara' " l^«(with "J"for- is speech- 'sahkh&rapaccaya vinnanam 'And which, lady, is body-sankhara, which dition, formations') and there is not a single text n sahkhara, which is mmd-sahkhdra? mations as condition, consciousness'), has any relevance to The in-and-out breaths are body-sahkhara, thinking- which he explains sahkhara in a way that the Culavedalla Sutta. The two and-pondering are speech-sahkhara, perception and feeling The three kinds of sahkhara of nl sahkhara - the threefold enumeration of are m[nd-sahkhara . types of discussions of threefold enumeration in the PS Having juxtaposed the two quotations, NanavTra then cri- the Culavedalla Sutta and the employing the same "e ticises the traditional interpretation for maintaining that sahkhara context - though Nowhere^in the SuttaC'fptakaPitaka formula must always be understood as cetand or completely separate compartments. in the PS and tear any extend beyond its own context volition. To make this claim, he asserts, is to wind up holding does the one triad context. If the Buddha had thinking-and-pondering, and perception explicit relationship to the other that the in-and-out breaths, and that that are conditioned by ignorance and feeling, are respectively bodily, verba! and mental volition — intended the sahkhara breaths, tninking- consciousness to signify the in-and-out a position that is clearly untenable. condition then one could rea- and-pondering, and perception and feeling, Now both quotations cited above, taken in isolation, are per- on PS where he sonably expect to find at least one sutta fectly legitimate. This, however, does not establish that the latter Culavedalla triad. However, exemplifies sahkhara by way of the quotation is providing a definition of the same terms intended by found anywhere in the not a single sutta of such a nature can be are expressed in Pali the former quotation. While the two triads 19 entire Pali Canon . by the same three_ compounds — kayasahkhdra, vaclsahkhdra, with corroboration is only one problem cittasankhdra — NanavTra overlooks a fact of prime importance Lack of textual for determining their meaning: namely, that in the Suttas the contexts in which the two triads appear are always kept rigorously separate. The definition of the three sahkhara found kayasahkhara and cittasahkhara — are also in the Culavedalla Sutta, and elsewhere in the Canon (at S IV 18 Two of these sahkhara — of the practice of mindfulness of 293), does not occur in the context of PS nor in a context that mentioned in connection with the 16 aspects even touches on PS. This particular definition of the three types breathing. See M 10 82-3. remark at $6 that the tra- — a brief rejoinder to Nanavira's of sahkhara — kdyasahkhdra, vaclsahkhdra, cittasankhdra 19 I should add here the sahkhara factor in PS) 'alto- always occurs in the course of a discussion on the attainment of ditional interpretation (in its treatment of does not. The Visuddhimagga. gether ignores the Culavedalla Sutta'. It certainly of in relation to PS, mentions the mad in its explication of the term 'sahkhara' this triad from the types of the Culavedalla Sutta, but it distinguishes (Vism XVII.47). 17 M 44/1 301. sahkhara that are conditioned by ignorance 58 59 . Bodhl — Critique of 'A Note on Patkeasamuppada' (1) Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Culavedalla Sutta. Nanavira's proposal to read the Culavedalla triad of sahkhara into receive con- This assertion, as we have seen, does not the interpretation of the PS formula. Another objection, even on which the Pali firmation from the Suttas. The original source formidable, can be brought against this suggestion, namely, the more base their identification of the two triads is formula Commentaries that it leads to incoherence. For the sahkhara of the PS work, in the Sut- Vibhahga of the Abhidhamma Pitaka. In that ignorance as their necessary condition and must depend upon section of its Papccasamuppada tanta Bhajaniya (Sutta Analysis) must cease with the cessation of ignorance, but the three sah- Vibhahga, we read: khara of the Culavedalla Sutta do not meet this requirement. What are the sahkhara that are conditioned by ig- These sahkhara are not necessarily dependent upon ignorance and norance? Meritorious, sahkhara, demeritorious sahkhara, do not cease with the ceasing of ignorance. Although the arahant imperturbable sahkhara; body-sahkhara, sptcch-sahkhara, has completely eradicated ignorance, he continues to breathe in mmd-sahkhdra- . in the fourth jhana and higher attain- and out (except when verbal voli- Therein, bodily volition is body-sahkhara; ments), to think and ponder (except when in the second and spetch-sahkhara; mental volition (manosahcetana) is higher jhanas), and to perceive and feel (except when in the ces- tion is m'md-sahkhara (cittasahkhara). These are called the sation of perception and feeling). But, what does cease for the 20 conditioned by ignorance . arahant with the cessation of ignorance are volitional forma- sahkhara acknowledge the authority of the tions _ sahkhara understood as sahcetana. Whereas the non- Nanavira may refuse to relinquish his view unless a arahant's bodily, verbal and mental activities are constructive Vibhahga and insist that he will not definition. This forces conditioned by ignorance that sustain the round of rebirths, sutta can be brought forward confirming this unreasonable one. Even the arahant's activities are kammically extinct. They no longer attitude, however, would appear to be an Abhidhamma may sustain the continuation of the round, no longer project con- though the more elaborate conceptions of the the Suttanta Bhajaniya sciousness into any new mode of becoming. be products of a later age than the Suttas, to antiquity. sections of the Vibhahga can make a cogent claim 12. In analysing the teaching of PS, the texts use the two terms that this portion of the Vibhahga is extremely as though they were inter- Evidence suggests cittasahkhara and manosahkhara and thus old, dating from perhaps the third century BCE, changeable. This is not typical of the Suttas, which usually reserve Buddhist community from a define represents the understanding of the citta and mano for separate contexts. When the texts even be period not long after the Buddha's Parinibbana. It would sahkhara in the PS formula, they do so by enumerating the three an maintain that this body of material was originally sahkhara: kayasahkhara, vacisahkhara, cittasahkhara; yet plausible to types of to the old on basic Suttanta terminology going back they do not take the further step of defining these terms as such. commentary very generation of the Buddha's disciples; it is not Then, when they exemplify the function of sahkhara in PS, they first specifically Abhidhammic in character and may have been the triad of kayasahkhara, vaclsahkhara, manosahkhara. employ of any absorbed into the Abhidhamma Pitaka owing to the lack The Pali Commentaries identify the two triads, taking them as repository for it. alternative expressions for the same thing; both are understood to other suitable the issue refer to bodily volition, verbal volition and mental volition In any case, in the absence of direct clarification of (kayasahcetana, vacisahcetana, manosahcetana). Nanavira takes issue with this identification, holding that the two triads must be distinguished. He admits that the second triad is to be identified with cetana, but insists that the terms used in the first triad have 20 (Burmese script ed). to be understood by way of the explanation given in the Vibhanga, §116 61 60 I . Bod hi — Critique of 'A Note on Paticcasamuppada' (1) Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) passive in the Suttas According to the Majjhima Nikaya Commentary, the themselves, the Vibhahga becomes the most ancient source sense also pertains to two of the three sahkhara of the Cula- to which we can turn for help in clarifying PS termino- (i) breaths are body-sahkhdra because logy. There we find vedalla Sutta: the in-and-out the triad of kayasahkharo, vac i sahkhara and they are determined by the body, made by the body, produced by cittasahkhara explained in a way that confirms the exclusive the body; (iii) perception and feeling are mind-sahkhdra because identification of the sahkhara factor in the PS formula with are determined by the mind, made by the mind, produced by cetana. This lends weight to the they view that this second link should 21 the mind . In contrast, (ii) thinking-and-pondering, as speech- be taken as kamma and its relation to vihhana as that of the 22 sahkhara, play an active role: they are determinants of speech . kammic cause from the preceding existence. The commentarial recognition of a twofold derivation of the The Meaning of 'Sankhara' term 'sahkhara' seems to be confirmed by the texts. For instance, 13. I intend to examine very briefly all the suttas that help shed the Culavedalla Sutta explains: light on the sahkhara factor in the PS formulation, as found in in-and-out breaths, friend Visakha, are bodily, these the Nidana Samyutta, the Buddha's short discourses on dependent things are dependent upon the body, that is why the in-and- arising. But first a few words should be said about Nanavira's out breaths are bodily sahkhara. . . Perception and feeling general understanding of the word 'sahkhara'. He maintains that are mental, these things are dependent upon the mind; that this word has a univocal meaning relevant to all the contexts in 23 is why perception and feeling are mmd-sahkhdrd' . which it occurs. The meaning he assigns to it is that of 'some- thing upon which something else depends' (§11); hence his rendering 'determinations'. The Suttas themselves do not offer a single etymological derivation of the word with unrestricted application. 21 Commentary to Culavedalla Sulla. The Pali reads: Kayena sahknariyati kari- The well-known derivation - sahkhatam abhi- yati nibbattiyati ii kayasahkharo; ciltena sankhariyati kariyati nibbattiyati ti sahkharonti ti tasma sahkhara ti vuccanti (in Nanavira's ter- minology, ciitasahkharo. They determine the determined, therefore they are called determinations') 22 Vdcam sahkharoti karoti nibbatteti ti vacisahkha.ro. 1 here follow the - applies specifically to sahkhara as the fourth of the five reading of ihe Burmese-script Sixth Council edition, which has the support of aggregates, not to sahkhara in all usages. In edition, which this context they obviously the Sub-commentary, rather than the Sinhata-script Hewavitarne signify cetana, volition, understood as reads to the definitions of the other two types a constructive force, this sentence as a passive, parallel and thus an active derivation is appropriate. of sahkhara. Apparently the latter reading, which is at variance with the sense The Pali Commentaries offer two derivations of the word of ihe sutta text, is a scribal error. The PTS edition was not available to me. sankhara\ One is active (as given above), the other passive 23 M 1 301: Assasapassasa kho avuso Visakha kayika ete dhamma kayapati- Ksankhariyantl ti sahkhara). Thus the Commentaries hold that the baddha. tasma assasapassasa kayasahkharo. . . sahha ca vedana ca cetasikd ete word can signify either things that actively produce other things, dhamma cittapatibaddha, tasma sahha ca vedana ca cittasahkhara ti. or things that are produced by other things. Which meaning is It should be noted that Nanavira, in translating 'patibaddhd as 'bound up relevant depends on the context. In the two contexts of PS and with", does not capture quite the precise nuance of the Pali. As used in the the fourth aggregate, the active sense is relevant, as in both cases texts, "patibaddha' generally signifies that the thing which it qualifies is subject the sankhara are volitions. However, in such statements as 'sabbe to or dependent upon the ihing to which it is joined in the compound or sahkhara anicca\ etc., the Commentaries explain that sahkhara otherwise related: see in this connection M 1 384; !J 223; A V 87; Dhp 284. Thus should be understood as sahkhata-sahkhara, that is, as conditioned when it is said that assasapassasa (in-brealhs and out-breaths) are kaya- things. PQtibaddha dhamma (things bound to ihe body), this means that they are sub- 63 62 EKOTTARAGAMA (XXIH) Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) I Translated from the Chinese Version by and Bhikkhu Pasadika In contrast, Nanavira's insistence on assigning an exclusively Thich Huyen-Vi with Sara Boin-Webb active sense to sankhara compels him to apply the old Procrus- in collaboration tean bed of exegesis to several passages that do not easily submit to his interpretation. For example, in his separate note on San- Tenth Fascicle 24 khara he attempts to explain how the reference to sankhara in Part 19 the Mahasudassana Sutta (D 17/11 169ff.) can be interpreted in line (Supplication) with his view of sankhara as active determinations. In this sutta the Buddha, after describing all the rich endowments and was staying in posses- 3 I'Thus have I heard. At one time the Buddha sions of King Mahasudassana, a king of the distant past, concludes Park.2 Then Sakra, the Sravasti, at Jetf s Grove, in Anathapindada's with a homily on impermanence: 'See, Ananda, how all those and having approached, chief of gods,approached the Exalted One, sankhara have passed, ceased, altered. So impermanent, Ananda, feet. Standing at one he bowed down his head [at the Exalted One's] are sankhara ... this is enough for weariness with all sankhara, One: How does a bhiksu side he spoke thus to the Exalted enough for dispassion, enough for release'. Nanavlra discerns a revered by overcome sensuous greed, realise his heart's release and, cryptic message concealed in this passage thus: Those things [the peace {ksema) and men, finally reach the 'place of [ultimate] possessions, etc.] were sankhara; they were things gods on which King Kausika,3 the Exalted there is no distress? - In this respect, Mahasudassana depended for his very identity; they determined where of the existen- Sakra, the chief of gods, if a bhiksu hears his person as "King Mahasudassana", and with their cessation the One said to and realises that constituents (dharma) as being empty (Sunya) thought "I am King Mahasudassana" came to an end*. There is tial and 'mine'] ,4 he perfectly understands nothing in the sutta itself to support this interpretation, and the there is nothing [in terms of T text (as well as others of similar character) reads so much more (Culatarjhi- naturally if we take sankhara to 162 ff. Cf. M I, p. 251 ft simply mean conditioned things 1 See T2, 593cl3 ff.; Hayashi, p. of the world. Moreover, other suttas can be found which include sankhayasutta), . near Savatthi in the same final exhortation on dispassion, yet which provide ab- 2 The Buddha's whereabouts in the Pali parallel differs: Migara's mother- (see I.B. Horner, The solutely no ground for seeing the term sankhara there as deter- the Eastern Monastery in the palace of 306). minants of anyone's personal identity (see e.g., the Anamatagga Middle Length Sayings I (PTS), London 1987, p. rendering Kausika seems Samyutta, S 15/11 178ff.). 3 Cf. BSR 8, 1 - 2 (1991), p. 144, n. 13. WM DficuH^ir to E2 \ sabbe dhamma nalani abhini- TO BE CONCLUDED © 1995 Bbikkhu Bodhi 4 Here EA substantially differs from the Pali not fitting that there should be in- vesayati, which I.B. Horner translates by 'It is Perhaps it would be prefer- clination towards any (psycho - physical) condition.' '...and realises that there is nothing able lo interpret the present sentence of EA as likeli- (svabhava )].' Considering the [in terms of an own-being or self-nature ordinate to and dependent upon the body, not that latter interpretation may be more they are determinations hood of the Mahasanghika affiliation of EA, the for the body. Consider, in contrast, the explanation see BSR 11,2 (1994), of why 'thinking-and- suitable. As for associating EA with the Mahasanghikas, pondering' are called speech-s ankhdra: 'First having be added Andre Bareau, Les sectes thought and pondered, p. 157 f n 2 To the given references should afterwards ff. See also Paul one breaks into speech; that is why thinking-and-pondering are bouddhiques du petit vthicule, Paris 1955, pp. 55 ff., 100 speech-.sankhara" (pubbe vilakketva Tradition', in: L.A. Hercus et kho vicaretva paccha vacant bhindati, tasma Harrison, 'Sanskrit Fragments of a Lokottaravadin of Professor J.W. vitakkavicara vacisahkharo ft). Here ihe aciive sense is clearly in evidence. Buddhist Studies, Vol. in Honour al, (eds ), lndological and 24 Clearing 107-8. ff., on 'a Prakrit proto- the Path. pp. de Jong on his 60th Birthday, Canberra 1982, p. 225 65 64 Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Ekottaragama XXIII Now Maudgalyayana and knows in accordance with fact what all existential constituents ^Teachine and will take his seat here.- [are like]. Whatever feeling {dharma) he feels concerning his body, painful or pleasant or neither painful nor pleasant, in respect of this very body [of his] he contemplates them thoroughly as being imper- manent and as ultimately being empty. When he has contemplated the transitoriness of these [feelings being ... ] neither painful nor pleasant, no notions (samjna) occur to him and, therefore, he is not account of his fearlessness he realises com- (asura). afraid of anything. On battle wtth the demons 0*^*^** ££ J£ a e with fact: Birth death victorious and the demons plete Nirvana. He knows in accordance and out, the gods were fighting broke vie holy life {brahmacarya) has been time. Soon after [the have come to an end, and the personally went to fight at that Seated I the up- lived, [had to be] has been done, and there will be no gods and took my seat m what done returned as leader of the ^11 Palace^ The palace more coming into existence. So it is, Sakra, chief of gods, that a bhi- palace [named] Vaijayanta* SirteSSly High* ksu overcomes sensuous greed, realises his heart's release and, re- of our victory in the battle. w^s dven mis name on account of roads worth- vered by gods and men, Finally reaches the 'place of [ultimate] peace' achieved, and there is a series of tSave been all the uppermost] where there is no destruction and distress. - Then Sakra, the chief of upper end of each [of wh e ooking at. At the gods, bowed down [his head] at the Exalted One's feet, circumambu- Ttata^elonging with Vaijayanta ^™ *£ of ££rhem there lated him thrice and withdrew. and up there in each dred gaoled houses (kutagara)^ ^ Hopefully, each of whom have seven attendants. are seven nymphs* - had gone look at them. Now at that time Venerable Maha-Maudgalyayana Venerable Maudgalyayana will take a [to a place] not far from the Exalted One's and was sitting there heavenly ruler Vaisra- cross-legged, straightening body and mind and cultivating recollec- the chief of gods, and the Then Sakra, accon, tion (smrti) in front of him. Then it occurred to Venerable Maha- Venerable Maudgalyayam, vana, [having stepped] behind Sakra... and tne for (T2, 594a) Sakra, [I wonder] whether he [their arrival] Maudgalyayana: As oanied Ihiml to Vaijayanta Palace. On has penetrateds what has been imparted to him or not. Now I should VaiUvana said to ^-to^™^ Tave'nly mlir a very fine - with the help of his 'bases of supernormal its sight - This is find that out. Then, Vaijayanta Palace; please fully enjoy due to power', Venerable Maha-Maudgalyayana, as one might bend and heavenly ruler, and it is all place Maudgalyayana said to the existences that, [again] stretch one's instantly went to the Trayastrimsa erformed in previous out arm, rneritorious lil persistently p gods. On seeing Venerable Maha-Maudgalyayana coming from afar, Sakra, the chief of gods, rose and went to welcome him respectfully, = vijw but without » ! 6 Soothill, p. 376a: ftBI «^ the Chines «*""«*»*; Maha-Maudgalyayana! The Venerable the palace without giving ^£ saying: Welcome, Venerable op. cit, p. 60b, mentions banner of Indra b) the Vejayanta ), a) the , has not come here for a very long time indeed. [We] hope the Vener- MonS^illiams has VaVayamaQto able will favour us with an exposition making clear the meaning of palace of^ Foguang p. ^ or lecwre halv Cf. ^ Asu- the palace after his, Sakra',. defeating 4554c: «»£, described as Indra's various subsects of the Mahasarnghikas'. see Foguang, p. 6095c. Mahayana tradition current among 8 For Chinese Tripitaka references (pertarning to universal 5 'is follow up the teaching' abhi-sam-i is usually 'woman-treasures' Lit.: able to ( ^W$£ ); 9 S~instead of apsaras, lit, rendered ' IEM- 55. lEIR monarchs) - cf. BSR U, 1 (1994), p. 66 67 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Ekottaragama XXIII as natural consequence, this gem of a palace was obtained. It is just distress nor suffering. And these were the words of the Exalted One like people who, for a little while, are happy and congratulate them- addressed to me: In this respect, Kausika, when a bhiksui* has selves [by saying]: It is like the heavenly palace - all is obtained due listened to the teaching that there is nothing whatsoever to cling to, to meritorious acts performed in previous existences. - [he] does not cling to forms and fully realises that in respect of exis- tential constituents there is nothing [in terms of T and 'mine'] A Thus, Now the nymphs to the left and right of Sakra, the chief of after having understood what all existential constituents [really are gods, ran away helter-skelter. Just like persons who are timid and like], he thoroughly contemplates whatever painful, pleasant or nei- shy, similarly the nymphs, a moment ago close to Sakra..., on seeing ther painful nor pleasant [feelings he feels] as being impermanent, Maha-Maudgalyayana coming from afar, ran away panic-stricken. non-existent (abhdva), without any remainder (aparisesa) whatso- At the [same] time the following occurred to Maha-Maudgalyayana: ever and as not being annihilated (anucchinna)P On account of his This Sakra, the chief of gods, is too much given to indolence. Now'O contemplating in this manner there is nothing for him to cling to, no I should cause some feeling of terror. - Immediately, with the toe of worldly notions occur to him and he is not afraid of anything. Be- his right foot Venerable Maha-Maudgalyayana touched the ground cause of his fearlessness he realises complete Nirvana. He knows in [so that] the palace began to tremble and quake in six ways. 1 1 While accordance with fact: Birth and death have come to an end... and both Sakra... and the heavenly ruler Vaisravana were frightened out there will be no more coming into existence. So it is, §akra... that a of their wits and their hairi2 stood on end, they thought: This Maha- bhiksu overcomes sensuous greed... and finally reaches the 'place of Maudgalyayana - has indeed great psychic power" in that he is cap- the unconditioned' where there is neither distress nor suffering. able of letting this palace start trembling and shaking. Absolutely After listening to these words, I bowed down [my head] at the Ex- extraordinary! Absolutely unparalleled! There has never been any- alted One's feet, circumambulated him thrice, withdrew and returned thing like this. - Then the following came into Maha-Maudgai- to the heavenly regions. - yayana's mind: Now this Sakra is frightened out of his wits, and this is the occasion for my asking about the deep meaning [of what the On receiving these words of profound teaching, Venerable Exalted One told him]. - How, Kausika, [he asked Sakra,] does one, Maha-Maudgalyayana said goodbye to Sakra, the chief of gods, and subject to sensuous greed, overcome it according to what the Tatha- to Vaisravana. When the complete teaching had been communicated gata told [you]? This is the opportunity [for you] to speak to persons [to] Maudgalyayana, he disappeared among the Trayastrirnsa gods like me who are anxious [to listen]. - Maudgalyayana, replied Sakra, and went to Sravasti, to Jell's Grove in Anathapindada's Park as the chief of gods, a while ago I approached the Exalted One, bowed quickly as a person might bend and [again] stretch out his arm. He down my head [at his] feet and stood at one side. Then I asked the approached the Exalted One, bowed down his head [at the Exalted Exalted One how a bhiksu overcomes sensuous greed and realises One's] feet and sat down at one side. Having taken his seat, Maud- his heart's release; how he, revered by gods and men, finally reaches galyayana said to the Exalted One: The Tathagata has imparted to the 'place of the unconditioned (asamskfta)* where there is neither Sakra, the chief of gods, the teaching as to how one overcomes "> After Hayashi, p. 164, 4" for 4" (T2, 594a28). 14 Against the singular in all other places, here EA and Hayashi incon- 11 Cf. Soothili, p. I37a: 'shaking, rising, waving, reverberating, roaring, sistently have the plural form. arousing.,.' 15 Contemplating empty dharmas as being both 'non-existent* and 'not 12 Lit.: 'clothes-hair", nowhere explained in dictionaries. annihilated' is strongly reminiscent of MahasSnghika and Mahayana thought. Cf. 13 Lit.: 'great bases of supernormal power". above n. 4. 68 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) greed. If only the Exalted One would impart it to me also, - You shall know it, the Exalted One replied to MaudgalySyana, Sakra... approached me... and standing at one side, he asked me to explain OBITUARIES the problem to him as to how a bhiksu overcomes sensuous greed and realises his heart's release. I said to Sakra,.. : If a bhiksu, Kau- sika, fully understands that all existential constituents are empty and lean Boisselier (26 August 1912 — March 1996) that there is nothing [in terms of T and 'mine'], then there is nothing That we can marvel at the architectural glory of Angkor, the [for him anymore] to to. cling [He] fully realises that in respect of potent symbol of Indian civilisation in South-East Asia at its existential constituents there is nothing [in terms of T and 'mine'] highest level, can be attributed to the single-minded achievements and, therefore, he knows all existential constituents to be imper- of the outstanding scholar, Jean Henri Joseph Albin Boisselier. manent, non-existent, without the least remainder and as not being Born in Paris, he studied at l'Ecole du Louvre (1946-49) and francaise annihilated. On account of his contemplating in this manner there is the Sorbonne (1956-60), joined the staff of l'Ecole Curator at nothing for him to cling to... he realises complete Nirvana. He d'Extreme-Orient in 1949 and occupied the post of for which he produced knows in accordance with fact... no more coming into existence. So their museum in Phnom Penh (1950-55), it Albert-Sarraut de Phnom Penh in 1954. is... that a bhiksu overcomes sensuous greed and realises his the brochure, he Musee their official delegate in Cambodia in charge heart's release. -Then Sakra... rose from his seat, 1 ^ bowed down his Concurrently he was conservation of Angkor. head at my feet, withdrew and returned to the heavenly regions. - of the the France for health reasons, he became a member After listening to the Buddha's words, Maha-Maudgalyayana was Returning to of the Centre nationale de recherche scientifique and was pleased and respectfully applied himself to practice.' supervisor of 'Oriental Languages and Civilisations' (1962-65). From 1957 he directed the course on 'Indian and South-East Asian Archaeology' at the University of Paris' Institut d'Art et d'Arche- ologie, began teaching the subject at the Sorbonne in 1965 and 16 This is the most obvious instance of a number of factual inconsisten- was apppointed Professor of the History and Archaeology of cies occurring in this EA discourse. Moreover, Hayashi amends ^ to Jig . South and South-East Asia ten years later (retiring in 1980). During this period he also lectured in other departments of the University and directed the umbrella body — Unite d'equipe de recherche (UER) - for the 'Languages and Civilisations of India, the Orient and North Africa', the establishment of 'Studies of South-East Asia' and of the 'Archaeology and Civilisations of South and South-East Asia', all in liaison with the CNRS and EFEO He was a conscientious and inspiring teacher, sacrificing his personal interests for the benefit of the students he trained. Thus, he did not submit a doctoral dissertation but was neverthe- less awarded an honorary doctorate in 1970 on the basis of the invaluable material he prepared on South-East Asian culture. (He also served on the Editorial Committee of Arts Asiatiqws from 1985.) 70 71 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Obituaries His wide field experience in Cambodia, Vietnam and Thai- de ta Mission archeologique fran- 1938 - 8 February 1996) land (— intermittently, Chef AJjyrt Le Bonheur (6 August authoritatively caise en Thailande, 1966-70) enabled him to write has been deprived of Bv his untimely death, the world has in the field of South-Ast Asian art and archaeology, his full-length was born specialist in South-East Asian art. Le Bonheur Statuaire khmere et son evolution (2 another publications comprising La parentage from the French Indian in Saigon of gallicised Tamil vols, EFEO, 1955), La Statuaire du Champa (ibid.,1963\ Tresors secondary education colony of Pondichery. Following primary and Thailande (catalogue for the Musee Cernuschi, Paris d'art de his innate scientific mind led to in Saigon, Hanoi and Paris, 1964), Manuel d'Archeologie de I'Asie du Sud-Est. I. Le majoring in the History higher studies in the metropolitan capital, (Paris 1966), Notes sur {'art du bronze dans I'ancien Cambodge In 1966 he was awarded diplomas of Oriental Art and Languages. Cambodge (Ascona 1968), La Sculpture en Thailande (Fribourg Sanskrit and Indonesian art from 1'Ecole du Louvre. — Sculpture York-Tokyo in Tamil and 1974) tr, as The Heritage of Thai (New historian. He thus qualified as a philologist and an art 1975), La Peinture en Thailande (Fribourg 1976) - tr. as Thai stayed there Recruited as a curator at the Musee Guimet, he (Geneva 1979). Painting (New York-Tokyo 1976) and Ceylon of the geographical for almost thirty years, becoming head Apart from the numerous articles he contributed to encyclo- Louvre and edited Arts section From 1971 he taught at 1'Ecole du paedias and periodicals, he provided the sections on South India, Committee). Asiatiques until 1984 (but remained on its Editorial Sri Lanka and South-East Asia to the definitive study of The Asia fieldwork in South India and South-East the He undertook Image of the Buddha (ed. David Snellgrove, UNESCO, 1978), research work par- (especially Cambodia) but continued his sections on Sri Lanka, South-East Asia and 'the gestures of the ticularly in the realm of iconometry. Buddha' to La Grammaire des formes et des styles dAsie (Fri- specialised bro- For the Musee Guimet he produced three bourg 1978) — tr. as Oriental Art. A Handbook of Styles and Guimet (1971), chure guides; La sculpture indonesienne au Musee Forms (London 1979) and the entry, 'The Meaning of Angkor des Musee Guimet. Art khmer (1979) and Des dieux, des rois et Thorn' to Millennium of Glory. Sculpture of Angkor and Ancient Angkor Vat et du Bayon (Cambodge, X lie with hommes. Bas reliefs d Cambodia (ed. Helen Jessup, London 1997). He collaborated Bas-reliefs of (1995) - tr. as Of Gods, Kings and Men. Madeleine Giteau, Jean Lacouture and the photographer, Marc siecle) and Bayon (London 1995). He also supplied the text Serenite bouddhique (Paris 1992) Angkor Wat Riboud, to produce Angkor. (Paris 1989) and several for Cambodge. Angkor: Temples en peril which was translated as Angkor, the serenity of buddhism (Lon- number ot catalogues of South-East Asian art together with a don 1993). relevant articles to periodicals In his personal life, as a result of prolonged exposure to the gentle, civilising influence of Khmer Buddhism, Boisselier became a fervent follower of Theravada Buddhism. This influence is felt Walter Cnuvreur (25 July 1914 - 17 September 19%) in his last book, La sagesse du Bouddha (Paris 1993), tr. as The Tocharian Wisdom of the Buddha (London 1994) and reviewed in the Belonging to the tiny academic minority specialising in Department ot previous issue of BSR (pp.211-12). He frequented the Buddhivarnsa studies, Prof. Dr Couvreur was Chairman of the University of Gent. Pagoda in Champs-sur-Marne at which his funeral was conducted General and Comparative Linguistics at the languages, he on 12 March 1996, presided over by Prince Sisowath Essaro, a Apart from general courses on the Indo-European being long-time friend and former Minister of National Education in also taught Gothic, Hittite and Tocharian, the last-named Asia. The impor- Cambodia. related to the history of Buddhism in Central also tance of Sanskrit, Pali and Tibetan parallel texts was 72 73 ' Buddhist Studies Review 15, ] (1998) Obituaries emphasised, 1 November 1997) C UVreUr c ordinated ffllarlyslaw Misiewicz (11 April 1910 - °-, Tocharian studies with a , fl hi h view to es- c P et editions of the Although not a member of academe, Mr Misiewicz occupied a i ! <™nly BuddhisO exfs fragments£»ll ? ofrwhich those are scattered throughout European pivotal role in post-War Poland and acted as a magnet to versifies. uni Although he contributed groping for a viable alternative philosophy of life to the extremes numerous pape^nThl field" they remain largely and the nationalistic inaccessible to students, being wrktcm of an externally-imposed Communist regime most part for tS m the author's native language, Catholic Church. vi? *Se Tochaa se Roman d B as it was then under the Austro- ' Born in Lvov (or Lemberg ^ f (°P JaVa) ^^JinZ van p -, ™^ letTvmv^laa S Phii matriculation he occupied a number of ^ogencongres, Gent 1949), ' S°Ie e* Pali canonical texts in translation cePtlons *> this self-restricted and Translation Series, German nolfrv ,rl -i linguistic Sarv5stiv — studies in English and German and scores «di n-Vaibhasika des fragments apart from genera! ScSriSS A^dwT8 ma UeS et 6pith6tes du Boudd of rare pamphlets and journals in both languages, and every MustangMuseon fofS ? u^ ha' (Le 59, 1946), 'Kutschische Vinaya- und Pratimnlr« Polish work on the subject, his became the largest private Fragmenten aus der Sammlung Poland. Hoernle' (AsZicoT FeSchHit" collection of materials on Buddhism in Weller, Leipzig 1954), (ed. & t r3 'Die Fragment* Endowed with determination and unwavering will power, und Stein Ch mlill Hoernle H149.47 und 231' (Kuhns devotion and a profound understanding of the Dhamma, his only Z eimgen zSrift o9 S£? and sanskr, t-kutschischen physical means to disseminate this acquired knowledge was an > Listen von St chiwortern aus Da aras "tra und Nidanasamyukte" ancient manual typewriter with which he painstakingly prepared C^SSX'FrT^' ^ and circulated La Budhana Kontakto, a quarterly newsletter in Esperanto, the unofficial lingua franca employed by the cogno- scenti in Eastern Europe and even in Russia. From 1962 he also produced a Polish quarterly (also in typescript format), Ehi appear m Unentaha Gandensia VII Passiko, which reached many family units throughout the but seem* m° haveh a ^» beenu^ permanently shelved. country. Proficient also in English, German and Pali, between 1952-59 74 75 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Obituaries he compiled an elementary Pali grammar based on Buddhadatta's the gymnasium on Vis, a New Pali Course I, C. was a professor and the director of Duroiselle's Practical Grammar of the he Pali Language and island in the Adriatic Sea. Nyanatiloka's Kleine systematische Pali- remote Orammatik. Out March 1944, his proficiency in English, French, German of gratitude to his teacher in absentia of In local civilian Esperanto, the late Czech Italian, combined with the evacuation of the bhikkhu, Nyanasatta, he translated into and Polish the new Yugoslav representation first the former's sole full-length book, Practical Buddhism population, took him with He Sanskrit at the also translated Nyanaponika's Italy and then to Germany. In Bonn, he studied classic primer, The Heart of to Buddhist translations. It may be said that his Meditation, the essence of G.F. Allen The Buddha's university and started his Philosophy and numerous career as an Orientalist began in 1955 when he published suttas and general literature issued bv formal trans- the Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy, excerpts from his rendition of the Dhammapada, the first Long before the Pali into any South Slavic language. reconstruction of Polish Buddhology (largely lation from confined to the fifties, he collaborated with (today Warsaw University) and the advent of (admittedly Towards the end of ephemeral) popular Petrovic and R, Katicic in establishing what was Buddhist circles (mainly Korean Zen and Academicians) S. Linguistics and Orien- tra m °riginX il may not later to become the Department of General £ £f Tf be an exaggeration to state that Mr Misiewicz acted Zagreb Philosophy Faculty. In 1961, he returned to as a beacon of knowledge and practice tal Studies at of Dhamma, regularly become the first Lecturer (later Assistant consulted by the media and fellow country- his alma mater to men seeking advice. of the Philosophy of Asian Peoples, a By his quiet, dignified, even austere Professor) at the Chair and the unassuming mode life, especially for him, which in effect initiated of he perfectly exemplified the Dhamma position created and, as such, warrants sustained academic study of this discipline in the then remembrance for almost a lifetime's service serious, to Buddhism. Yugoslavia. Comparative Study Yathindakhilo pathavim sho siyd — He received his doctorate in 1962 for 'A World'. catubhi vatehi asampakampiyo in Indian and in European Philosophy — The Ancient Tathupamam sappurisam vadami — Invited to lecture in India as a Visiting Professor in 1963, he yo ariyasaccani avecca delivered lectures and conducted seminars in Calcutta, Madras, passati (Ratana Sutta 8) Delhi and Shantiniketan for almost three years. In 1966 he was ordained as a samanera in the Theravada lineage and as a Bhikkhu first among the South Slavs, and he Nanajivako (Cedomil Veljacie: 18 June 1915 - 28 bhikkhu two years later, the December 1997) spent more than twenty years in Sri Lanka continuing his His early monastic experiences are recorded m After a long and painful scholarly activities. illness, Bhikkhu Nanajlvako passed Island away his Pisma s pustinja&kog otoka ('Letters from the peacefully at his home in the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas Hermitage', Zagreb 1986). Talmage, California. His health had been failing for some years' outstanding merit and a prolific and he had Proven an educator of occasionally undergone hospital treatment writer, he has to his credit a vast output of writings which have h e was selfless and eventfuL He was born in Zagreb were written — and this r ?£ J t of been largely kept in print, most of which Croat Catholic parentage, in the family of a court secretary. From — under very trying circumstances. His his student is not to be forgotten days, he had been a man of austere life-style and a studies appeared in many esteemed publications, such as na He 1 hilos h P °P y in Zagreb and obtained his Kant-Studien, Main Tn %4 Af, fSS? B.A Forum, Indian Philosophical Quarterly, U l! ng tem orar ' P y tea<*mg positions at various and Schopenhauer- places,nlJ.ff i L Currents in Modern Thought, Praxis tor most of the turbulent period of the Second World War Jahrbuch. His translations include Kalidasa's Meghaduta (Zagreb 76 77 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) 1971), as well as an abridged translation of the Thera- and LETTER TO THE EDITOR 1 2 Therfgatha (Sarajevo 1977 , 1990 ) and a complete rendition of the Dhammapada (Zagreb 1990) from the Theravada canonical Sir, texts. Dear ( precanonicai { ine His full-length works comprise Fiiozofija istocnih naroda Christian Lindtner's use of the word unsatisfactory. ('Philosophy of Eastern Peoples', vols, Precanonicai Buddhism', BSR 14, 2) is 2 Zagreb 1958\ 1983") ; Problem of 2 down to us could be so de- Schopenhauer and Buddhism (Kandy 1970', 1988 ); Budizam ('Bud- After all everything that has come 1 2 recitation, and given some evidence that dhism', Belgrade 1977 , 1990 ); Razmeda azijskih fiiozofija ('Fron- scribed until its initial as they were delivered a pre- tier of Asian Philosophies', 2 vols, Zagreb 1978); Indijska i discourses were memorised meaningless. A better iranska etika ('Indian and Iranian Ethics', an anthology jointly canonical/canonical division seems strictly 'primitive' for the period of edited with Prof. R. Ivekovic, Sarajevo 1980); Od Nepala do choice of adjectives might be for the whole era of oral Cejlona ('From Nepal to Ceylon', Subotica 1981); Ethos spoznaje u Gotama's ministry and 'prom-canonical' real issue of course is how indijskoj i u evropskoj fiiosofiji ('Ethos of Knowledge in Indian transmission. Behind the verbiage the of Buddhism is and in European Philosophy', Belgrade 1982); Studies in Com- far the teaching attributed to the founder parative Philosophy (Colombo 1983); and A Buddhist Philosophy historically authentic. in this respect, of Religion (ed. by S. Akpinar and S. Gilliatt, Burlingame, Ca. The anomalies discussed by Lindtner Upanisadic 1992). particularly passages supposedly more in accord with the rest of the Nikayas/ In the twilight of his life, his health deteriorated substantially belief in unchanging realities than with of outlook and his daughter, Snjezana Akpinar, cared for him, bringing him Agamas, could be explained either as a difference the develop- in 1989 to the City of Ten Thousand Buddhas. Although he had between Gotama and his successors or in terms of years. The first runs played an active part in the cultural life of his country of origin ment of his own views over some fifty discourses by refer- throughout his stay in Sri Lanka, with the dissolution of the counter to the scrupulous authentication of frequent stern rebukes former Yugoslavia he was no more involved in public life. After ence to the places and people involved and merit of suggesting a series of strokes in 1993 he was forced to cut back his activities for any misrepresentation. The second has the they are completely. both why the anomalous passages are included and why the narrative His critical and relaxed manner a propos academic affairs infrequent. Of course extravagant extensions of imagining that the and his sense of humour endeared him to friends, colleagues and material did occur but I see no difficulty in purposes and readers alike. The decease of the doyen of Oriental studies among Sangha would have permitted this for missionary unaltered anything the South Slavs has left a void that will be difficult to fill for lay consumption whilst carefully retaining years to come. thought to originate with their founder. known as the arupa jhanas may Slightly amended version a notice The transcendental states of by Sinisa Dokic. form an exemplify the kind of evolution I have in mind. They 'nothingness and ascending series in which 'space', 'consciousness', as 'neither perceiving nor not-perceiving' are directly experienced is that the featureless infinities. The intriguing thing about this list pre-enhghtenment last pair are specifically associated with two teachers and attainment of the first two at an even earlier date truth of could easily have convinced the young Gotama of the Upanisadic teaching. However, the Suttas don't treat them in this 78 79 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) way and I, REVIEW ARTICLE M 352 m particular stresses that they are no more than skilful constructs, useful in rooting out the asavas but transient in A, Haviland-Nve themselves and apparently without cognitive significance. So could this be a case of the mature teacher makine a naturalistic re-evaluation ABHIDHAMMA STUDIES AT THE BRITISH BUDDHIST of experiences understood differently many years before? J ASSOCIATION, LONDON, AND A REVIEW OF A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma. The Abhidhammattha Bhikkhu David Evans Sahgaha. Pali Text, Translation & Explanatory Guide, Bodhi, General Editor. Buddhist Publication Society, Kandy 1993, 432 pp. $20.00. Studies at the British Buddhist Association in London have mostly been oriented towards Abhidhamma, hence our considerable interest in and gratitude for Bhikkhu Bodhi's new edition of the Abhidhammattha Sahgaha (hereafter abbreviated to ABS). ABS is an icon of pedagogy of complete Buddhist teaching from a flourishing period of Abhidhamma studies in mediaeval Ceylon. Our study classes originated from 1967 with two adult evening literary institute courses organised by your reviewer. These were first constructed from the content provided by Asian Buddhist guest speakers who lectured on main syllabus topics. From this corpus of traditional teaching, founded mostly on the Visuddhimagga (abbrev. Vism), a systematic and progressively integrated study programme was constructed. Those newly approaching the Buddha's teaching in the post- war decades, before the advent of mass popular 'Buddhism', were mostly professionally educated people. They tended to be acquainted with prominent Western Buddhists by virtue of the paucity in numbers and consequently the particular areas of attention each was given within their shared interest. Your re- viewer knew of Ven. Narada's (Vajirarama) Abhidhamma activity and the drafts of translations of Abhidhammattha Sahgaha discussed in London with the late Robert iggleden, whose charts of it in his wooden-covered book were familiar to visitors entertained by himself and his wife. Their work in Abhidhamma led to producing the Pali Text Society's translation of Vibhanga with Ven. U Thittila. This invaluable work has now really come to life with the more recent translation of its Commentary by 81 Haviland-Nye — Abhidhamma Studies Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) thought. It offers a complete Nanamoli/Cousins-Shaw, the latter work contributing further to ground of other cultural patterns of ABS source knowledge. view of reality and culture of living within it. It is unlikely that tradition will ever know much At the British Buddhist Association we found quite soon that anyone outside a living Buddhist works of pedagogy. basing courses on material extracted from Vism presupposed a of this without first immersing themselves in prior knowledge of the Buddhist classification of mental and ABS is well suited to this purpose. Buddha's teaching is material states and their ways of procedure. ABS material was The best way to gain real fluency in the childhood as do some of the accordingly introduced for study ahead of Vism and this method to rehearse and memorise texts from establishes patterns of has been the foundation of all subsequent teaching to the present. Burmese samaneras and bhikkhus. This at a later stage. Our basic courses have been more recently revised to incorporate thought necessary for ready access to meaning entirely absent in the West; crucial premises gleaned mostly from our more recent study of The art of memorising is not the French, still commit to memory the Patthana. Without this, Western cultural notions are still too musicians, particularly memory, a system of recall has much fed into the reading of Buddhism and its absence produces corpus of their repertoire. Failing 'hit miss' in finding a corrupt paradigm of reality inconsistent with itself. to be devised so as to avoid too much and Abhidhamma ideas are introduced to students through references to determine what was originally intended in passages teachers who go first to the Jayasuriya's book The Psychology and Philosophy of Buddhism. under scrutiny. We do notice that the ABS extremely well, which This book was the breakthrough in your reviewer's initial mean- Abhidhamma Pitaka itself also know recall function ingful comprehension of Abhidhamma, whose presentation by suggests its terse summation serves an overall to be the most Asian bhikkhus, unaware of Western patterns of thought, was and rather well. On balance it would still seem to us overall view in probably still is generally incoherent to newcomers. Jayasuriya practical textual introduction in order to give an provisos: (1) presents the topics of each ABS chapter in a manner compre- a reasonably manageable time. But we do add three followed, as modified hensible to the serious Western reader first attempting to access the citta scheme in Dhammasaiigani be the nature of rupa is Abhidhamma. It remains your reviewer's recommended intro- slightly by Dharmasena in Wheel 63/64; (2) commences; and (3) the duction. ABS is then presented to our students alongside the cor- explained before the reading of ABS out by a tutor since responding chapters of Jayasuriya — and the first glimmers of underlying ideas of Patthana must be filled to this symbiotic comprehension appear. Those who get this far are likely to ABS is quite inadequate for an introduction Relations/ proceed with long-term enthusiasm with the Buddha's teaching. scheme of contingent ephemeral reality by way of We have toyed with the idea of approaching Abhidhamma Correspondences (paccayas). the firstly from translations of Dhammasaiigani, Vibhahga, Patthana The idea of Correspondences was a live issue from well the and their Commentaries. The gain may be a better understanding earliest Reformation times in Europe, articulated by through through attention to all the Triplets and Couplets rather than an widely esteemed Renaissance Agrippa in the 1530s and to Madame overemphasised evaluation of the first. But we fear that incom- occult, alchemist and mystical thinkers down century. prehension may result if the procedures of thought processes are Blavatsky and the Theosophists of the late nineteenth model to that not known in advance. This commentarial material seems best The latter turned away from the Christian-oriented Correspondences was just accessed firstly through ABS since its essential principles are so of Buddhism. Knowledge of Buddhist very clearly articulated there. emerging in the 1890s with the first exploration of Abhidhamma Rhys Davids. As a distinct and unique culture, classical Buddhist know- by Europeans, led by another woman, Mrs C.A.F. satisfactorily Correspondences is much the same as ledge can only be accessed in terms of itself, not by The broad Western idea of natural law are comparison with another body of knowledge or standing on the that of the paccayas. Similar motivations of 82 83 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Havitand-Nye — Abhidhamma Studies variously found in all conditioned phenomena and such that any stant qualification. Hence 'exact' translations can be less true to reference point taken can be defined in terms of everything else the meaning than 'free' translations. With both ABS and Vism we related to it by means of these Correspondences. ABS recognises enjoy the luxury of both more word-for-word and more free four basic groups of these from Patthana's twenty-four (expanded translations; the former from the publishers Buddhist Publication to fifty-six and then on infinitely). Blavatsky suspected that Bud- Society and the latter from the Pali Text Society's earlier age dhists identified the Correspondences convincingly. A century when literary considerations were of heightened concern. We later we now know somewhat more about the nature of these. understand that even the Burmese at home suffer the problem of Excepting courses for public institutions, our systematic finding the right word in Pali translation! Certainly all Pali terms teaching is now given only to those who also wish to practise the should be retained in parentheses after translation. The text of the Dhamma whilst undergoing their formal studies. The material new edition of ABS succeeds well in this respect but regrettably used is the same as in public institutions but the attitude of the this is not followed through in the Tables and Charts, which are students and their motivation to learn is now of heightened con- in practice those parts of the book most referred to. The in- sideration. This avoids wastage of resources directed towards dividual reader must render in this deficiency himself, con- those dropping out, a luxury of our past when we had bhikkhus veniently on double-size photocopies for own use. Slackness in devoted to servicing mundane social needs rather than directing failing to think in Pali terminology is a cause of misinterpretation access to a way of Enlightenment. 'Practice' is based on our because there is always a lurking tendency to use one's own cul- specific format of devotions and meditation, developed for lay tural meaning of a native word instead of a Buddhist technical Buddhists living within the norms of British society. meaning. Noting a Pali word in one's mind as one reads gives It is not practical to study Abhidhamma by oneself in iso- pause for thought of the technical meaning. Your reviewer feels lation. After individual reading one needs group discussion that English readers' time spent in learning Pali much beyond amongst students of compatible knowledge to articulate the technical terms, basic grammar and syntax will not yield much meaning of passages studied. At the British Buddhist Association resolution of the specific problems of meaning. It is not merely we meet for this purpose weekly. The cumulative effect is that the individual words do not translate well from Pali to substantial in widening the scope of enquiry and consideration. English but that the ideas they represent do not. Additionally, it is necessary for a group to consult periodically We note a further point: the philosophical requirements of with a higher authority more proficient in Abhidhamma to English thought call for consideration of matters seemingly unravel the increasing number of problems encountered as one unquestioned in traditional Abhidhamma culture. And some of advances and to ensure the group does not wander off into its these matters are highly relevant to readers today. Without own wayward interpretations. The dangers of reading into texts resolution of Western readers* requirements Abhidhamma can what is not there and failing to notice the significance of what is seem so incomplete as to be lost in irrelevance. Some of these are there are ever-present. considered below. Asian bhikkhus assert that Abhidhamma must be read in Pali In some quarters it is fashionable to discount Abhidhamma to gain the correct meaning. This is to underrate the problem. and the Commentaries composed by Abhidhammikas as less Misunderstanding is primarily a problem of deeply engrained authentic of the Buddha's teaching than Sutta. The resulting patterns of thought long establshed in one's historical cultural one-Pitaka enthusiasts find it possible to read into Sutta almost milieu rather than a linguistic one of translation. Because English anything of their choice — and they do! and construct their own is formed from concepts alien to the Buddha's teaching, the latter 'Buddhisms' which reflect their individual dispositions and aber- cannot be expressed in the language of the former without con- rations. We think those who read the Abhidhamma Commen- 84 85 Haviland-Nye — Abhidhamma Studies Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) of Buddhist Insight. They need exegesis. taries are likely to conclude that the basic relevant material to the structure and processes been provided by many Commentaries on three most essential texts of the Abhidhamma used as the basis This has historically of his itself. Bodhi uses two of them as the basis for ABS, Dhammasarigani, Vibhanga and Patthana, least the book were at and appended to each section of the text as a judicious in essence current at the same time as the text, for the latter is Guide explanation. Bodhi's Guide is short with style only a frequently not intelligible without the former and it often appears illuminating the Commentaries themselves. Although arbitrary as to what went into the text and what into Commen- little less formal than attractive additional basic exegesis is required tary. The test may have been that what was considered fixed and brilliantly clear and and for veterans still struggling unchangeable went into the text, whilst explanations that could for students new to Abhidhamma; found the following contemporary grow over time, as detail was worked out, went into the Com- with Chapter VI! We have Dharmasena, Jayasuriya and Karunadasa (see mentary. The fact that there is a growth and refinement in the works indispensable: Patthana is now well serviced with its own Commentaries is to be expected in a virile philosophy with other below for details). Ven. Narada. growth in competing ideas around. And more can be expected as Guide by the late Burmese U starting point for Abhidhamma studies, Abhidhamma becomes better known and interacts with contem- As the standard the first to be read For each aphorism porary philosophies. To those who make some attempt to under- Bodhi's edition should be translation and then guide, i.e. editors stand the thinking of Abhidhamma the very opposite to dismissal Bodhi gives the Pali text, mostly from Abhidhammatthavibhavani- of text and Commentary results: rather, an impression of awe explanation distilled Paramatthadipam-Tika by Ledi Sayadaw (1897). arises towards those extraordinary people who developed the Tlka (12th C) and for first-time study of individual para- detail of the Buddha's incredible paradigm of reality, working This order is essential great improvement on the Narada edition which is without the aid of paper, pencil and charts. It is a monumental graphs. It is a presented for a first-time reader. Having some fam- achievement. It is an analysis of ail mental and material states and hopelessly like to have translations of the text alone in classified for use by specific people engaged on a specific task: iliarity with ABS we can quickly recapitulate the flow of adepts progressing to Nibbana. Abhidhamma can be recom- front of us so that we edition, Compendium of Philo- mended as a good discipline for those outside formal Vinaya, and procedures discussed. The PTS presents 142 pages of is good for translation of this. It also even better for those inside, since it brings precision to mental sophy, Essay and over thirty Pali terms dis- development, an antidote to lack of systematic attention and notes in its Introductory which are useful on subsequent readings radical reflection. cussed in the appendices The nine chapters of ABS state and classify all cittas (I), for practical worth of Bhikkhu Bodhi's edition of ABS cetasikas (II), rupa dhammas and Nibbana (VI), procedures of The student cannot be overestimated. Both trans- thought process in life (IV) and connecting lives (V), plus the Abhidhamma impeccably idiomatic English without miscellaneous concepts required for understanding those processes lations and Guide are in reading literary distractions. His Guide is so lucid that it is worth (III). Chapter VII effectively connects lists encountered in both do not particularly wish to devote much time Abhidhamma and Sutta with their detailed citta-cetasika compo- even for those who to of ABS but wish to enjoy Bodhi's literary skills in sition. Chapter VIII charts Paticcasamuppada and reduces the the detail uplifting his readers. We have come to know paccayas of Patthana to a smaller fourfold grouping; and Chapter illuminating and readers of the periodic Buddhist Publication IX summarises the practices leading to Insight as a thumbnail him for this as editorial column has reached the sketch index to Vism as the detailed meditator's guide through Society Newsletter, where his sermons of John Donne. His seven stages of purification. status of our equivalent to the breathtakingly brilliant summation of the Buddha's paradigm of ABS is expressed in aphorisms for an overall view of the 86 87 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Havilami-Nye — Abhidhamma Studies reality in a single paragraph on p.88 is good reason enough for commit to specific group and it is these that the Burmese acquiring this edition. And readers will find many more of memory. We now we have three numbering systems running! personal choice, paragraph of Bodhi's Table of Contents is referenced to each ABS is called a comprehensive manual Traditionally it is said easier if these text. The student will find speedy reference even to need reading nine times. It is indeed a work for constant manuscripted and further sub-headings of personal choice are reference for Insight practitioners and Dhamma teachers. But it is As text onto the top of each left-hand page throughout the book. comprehensive only to the extent of acknowledging the main since the has been arranged with increased paragraph numbering topics of the Abhidhamma Pitaka and is just a terse summation manuscript in the earlier edition, the Index can be expanded to of these, with some commentarial source material added to in- and corresponding paragraph and page numbers in the Narada crease contextual comprehension. This edition started life as an familiar PTS editions when these are used for comparison. Those update on Narada's and its presentation and choice of commen- particular with Narada will know how difficult it is to search out tarial content, with a superb general Introduction, have improved since Narada is items. It is worth the effort of cross-referencing the former manyfold such that it is a complete reworking. The the new not redundant. His notes are not directly incorporated in generous number of charts is welcome, clear and sometimes and edition (although both editors have used similar sources) familiar from elsewhere. No educated Buddhist should be without reader's some of his comments are worthy of the more detailed it. This is so even if the more direct approach to Abhidhamma is to the attention. He attends to individual words; Bodhi more taken by reading the texts and commentaries of the Canon overall meaning. i j themselves as the first approach, since ABS collects together the reviewer can Bodhi's edition is of such excellence that your threads and summarises the main areas of consideration. There is detailed study. It but urge you to obtain it, read it and enjoy its both gain and loss in summary reductions — but with the luxury Buddhist has stimulated Abhidhamma students at the British available we should avail ourselves of the advantage and later Association in many areas and some are now cited below. become aware of the loss of breadth by re-grouping (e.g. cittas, experience of consciousness is clearly defined for Ch.I) and reducing (e.g. the universal Correspondences of citta, The reading 'seeing', 'hearing', etc., 'ideation'. But many Fatthana, Ch.VIII), ABS (Ch.II) has the superiority of fully enu- Buddhists as alone long retain an uncertainty as to the adequacy of this merating the states of integral consciousness, e,g. specifying all the Sutta lies in Abhidhamma. individual 'or whatever' states in each citta instead of having to definition. The remedy the key term for Buddhist Consciousness m work them out for oneself as in Dhammasangani. But, oh! had Citta is used as using merely Unfortunately it can produce confusion when Anuruddha not wearied into sketchiness by the time he got to ABS. 'consciousness'. Our language is not Chapter VIII what more ready understanding we would now have the single English equivalent distinguish meanings of citta be- of Patthana! subtle enough in this respect to consciousness' (the six classifications of vihnana as Bodhi numbers the cittas following the ABS text for chart tween 'factorai consciousness', citta-cetasika dhamma, as reference purposes. We have not been able to come to terms with above) and 'integral Abhidhamma itself to indicate the sim- the new numbers since we are used to Dharmasena's numbering more clearly used in the mental khandhas in each system since 1963, following Bhikkhu ultaneous integration of all four Bodhi's own Society's knowledge moment. And it is lack of this latter Wheel 63/64. Dharmasena uses the first Triplet development in complete thought Sutta-alone readers, a failure to Dhammasangani as his basis for charting and consecutively that is the missing link to well-translated word 'Aggregates. numbering cittas (almost exactly) and recognise the full import of the we have thus far found his he visited this problem in Patisambhidamagga system preferable. Dhammasangani itself merely When Nanamoli numbers each meaning in used 'cognizance' for citta in its usual citta-cetasika rji IlL 89 ' Haviland-Nye — Abhidhamma Studies Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) order the exacting translator of all, R. Iggleden, in to well distinguish it from vihhana and mano. confirmed by most There can his translation and exegesis of Chapter I. Their views are con- also be confusion between 'consciousness' as a complete sonant with our reading from Patthana, reality as mere symbiotic mental process (cittavlthi) and citta as the individual moments existence. We suggest that we must rest content with a Sophie and even sub-moments (khana) within the process. Bodhi as to absolute reality or otherwise of paramatthas, diffuses this latter problem by distinguishing mind- agnosticism moments' for we cannot go beyond limitations of data impinging on our six from the whole process, e.g. p.156. We prefer 'mental moments' bases, any more than a fish is capable of knowing the nature of to emphasise process and avoid the rather fixed notion fantasy. that 'mind' indicates to Western students. water. To go beyond is to enter pakinnaka. But does a sceptical epistemology undermine Vipassana The former standard translation of the six miscel- laneous whose function is to transmute conceptual life into direct obser- cetasikas was Particulars. It was never illuminating since categories? And does a 'on particular vation and knowledge of the ultimate occasions' suggested a few special ones. Bodhi's of those categories, change to relative view of the nature of the elements Occasionals is worse since 'occasional' in the vernacular emphasises the dhammas, leave dhammas in ultimate analysis merely as con- mfrequence. These cetasikas are actually present in devices? Popular meditation teachers suggest not, but in most cittas as the chart ceptual on pp.112/113 shows, but not invariably so the precise Abhidhamma we see a paradox when a 'relative' pos- Why not use 'As Appropriate' or 'Appropriate' group? ition is taken, and one that we do not at present see clearly It is good that Bodhi draws attention to the matter of titles of 'concrete of ceiasika resolved. Suggesting, as Bodhi does, an absoluteness groups, as it makes us consider the matter, but we would essence' of dhammas does not convince. It has two further prob- have wished that he attempt change with the standard to a view of Samsara being the Beautiful for lems: (1) it does not conform sobhana. This has a cringing tang of slothful ef- corruption of perfection of the Middle Way of reality between feminacy about it when associated with personal qualities May para- we venture Being and Non-Being; and (2) when applied to the fourth Purity/Pure Universal as an alternative or possiblyJ mystical transcendental substance as Clarity/CI ear? mattha, Nibbana, it presents a 'object' of citta instead of the substantive state turning in on itself paramatthaS. These are the four ultimate categories of Abhi- and being mirrored precisely as object, the bivalent duality of dhamma whose direct knowledge is the fruition of Vipassana Samsara thus resolved. Bodhi, from his Guide on p.136, would Bodhi (p.25f.) takes an extreme view of pinning them down as appear to reject this notion of Nibbana in that be asserts that a ultimate realities'. A reality has intrinsic nature (sabhava). This has citta cannot become its own object. signified to us that dhammas each have characteristics not shared in an idea oy ethical premise. The Buddha seems immersed others, and nothing more. Bodhi asserts more: he endows them current in the sixth century bce that misfortune comes about with 'concrete essence', which your reviewer fears readers will the recipient of the mis- identify because of evil done previously by as indistinguishable from a rarefied Cartesian substance fortune. Zoroaster's twin gods of good and evil were widely This goes further than Narada who sought to avoid the bi- known. In that era, too, the first Temple was destroyed in valence of the substantive and nominalist paradigms of realitv by 'on the miserable estate delineating Jerusalem (586 bce). Jeremiah lamented paramatthas as 'abstract truth', the recognition of of Jerusalem by reason of her sin'. And the idea continues to our elements that can be individually recognised but not perceived by that the notions of good and evil the senses. own time when it is assumed He does not suggest that 'abstract' means 'absolute' Hiss are built into the very fabric of reality. The Manichaean dichot- translation of text indicates paramatthas just as the furthest readily point omy still pervades the public mind; Satan is more oi analysis. Thus Narada follows the meaning assigned bv SZ identified than god. Politicians appeal to the Church — as official Aung and Mrs Rhys Davids and both these earlier editions ar 90 91 Studies Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Havilaad-Nye — Abhidhamma is a problem when asked guardians of public morality — to adjudicate on ethical questions, should direct their own activities, there to which non-Buddhists are e.g., particularly to endorse their military exploits and sanction to determine matters of public policy their civil laws. The Buddha replaced the power of Abraham's also subject. . particular acts are ethically single angry god by the impersonal law of kamma which directly Buddhists generally consider that in his social groupings and links the recipient of misfortune with 'his' corresponding mal- relative to a specific person, situate towards or away feasance. personal circumstances but absolute in direction the issue of reality. In Christian The whole Abhidhamma system proceeds in its first Triplet from Nibbana. We come back to reality and so can of Matika from this premise: 'Kusala dhamma, akusala dhammd, and Muslim cultures ethics flow from absolute can thus rule all beings avyakata dhamma\ The Buddha's unique contribution, and that of be firmly fixed as absolute. These cultures be considered as more than his few brilliant associates and successors, to the nature of reality by legal sanction. If the world cannot position, so also must be was to propose a mechanism by which, for example, the sins of tentative, as we suggest is the Buddhist ethics If this is the case Buddhist the Jews (mental activity) brought about the destruction of the its ensuing ethical implications. only amongst Bud- Temple (matter) rather than a vengeful omnipotent god granting can be justifiably recognised by public policy in medical research. Buddhists the means of success to enemies. But we do wonder whether the dhists Take the issue of vivisection Buddhist intentionally very notion of ethics we have inherited from Judaeo-Christian recoil from this as unethical. Just so, for a the predominant motive, leads culture, more than just the classification of particular acts to kill even when subsidiary to to a Christian who may sincerely between good and evil, is a somewhat ill match with the foun- away from Nibbana. But not for the advancement of the worthy dation of the notion of kusala in the Buddhist system. There is a believe killing a virtuous act The killing of Salman Rushdie tendency to assume that the first Triplet is identical with the primary goal of medical research. misfortune, whereas the same Western notion of ethics and that all practical ethical questions by a Buddhist would lead to future to great reward. Are these simi- can be slotted into ABS Chapter I classification. This cannot be act by a Muslim would lead him appropriate states, kusala for done readily, since Western ethical questions seem very broad lar acts of killing, founded on their for Buddhists? Here is the societal ones of public welfare compared with the subtle in- Christians and Muslims and akusala with more than one dividual states propounded in Abhidhamma, which are geared to ethical clash in formulating public policy This issue highlights th*e classification primarily for adepts striving for private liberation. cultural representation in a jurisdiction. there are any absolute realities Although 'ethics' is clearly central to Buddhism, it is in- necessity of establishing whether very notion of the Middle Way teresting to note the paucity of specific books on Buddhist ethics. It may however, be that the relative/absolute being. If the The subject is poorly addressed and inadequately dealt with in itself bucks the bivalent notion of ways of conduct (alben what has appeared thus far. This may be due to the failure to Middle Way is unequivocal, Buddhists 'ethics' in Western culture recognise the fundamental difference in both purpose and ap- different from the foundation of whatever the proportional proach between Buddhist and Western cultures in what both are should be asserted as public policy, The world as ex- accustomed to call 'ethics'. This may be another case (along with representation of Buddhists in a jurisdiction. corruption of forces veering those of ontology, epistemology and soteriology) of the classi- perienced by ail, save Arahants, is a whose resolution m per- fications of one culture simply not fitting those of another. Early one side or the other of the Middle and should, if this position is Buddhism is a complete system and can only be adequately ad- fection lies precisely there. Jurisprudence dressed in it own terms. We take an example of the importance upheld, aim at the Middle for all. of particular acts fixed as right of this matter: ethics in public policy in multi-cultural societies. 'Absolute' ethics, the certainty monotheism; absolute god, ao- Whilst it is possible to determine the way in which Buddhists or wrong, essentially derives from Q"> 93 Haviland-Nye — Abhidhamma Studies Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) nor behind Nibbana (as 'Object' in ABS, Chill, experienced by the solute ethical sanctions and proscriptions. Gibbon observes in The eight persons). Lokuttara simply means beyond the world, History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire that it is the addition of a gratuitously imposed other-world entity. only the adherents of monotheistic religions who actively pro- without classifies Nibbana clearly within nama, a point moted social discord in the Roman Empire. The history of mono- ABS (Bodhi, p.325) active ingredient of the mental life of the theistic religions since then has continued to display the often missed. It is an practice. It has an omnipresence when the central states of magnitude and extremes of unsatisfactory behaviour by their de- adept's are fully engaged as the duality between Being votion to genocide and wanton destruction of things cherished by the Middle Way is overcome. feel ABS suggests that Nibbana others. Indeed, the very essence of monotheistic religion requires and Non-Being We to with mysticism, transcendence, supernatural its practitioners to create disharmony and agitation and imposes has nothing do access to a priori knowledge, but rather is an attempt to bring a their ideals on all. And in the end 'all* means not only their own rational explanation to the experiences generally called spiritual state but all others — world domination. Short of monopoly, by of a psychological theory applied to its philo- monotheistic religions are therefore incompatible with harmony \lokuttara) way sophical assumptions and shows how these experiences may be within a multi-cultural nation and peaceful relations internationally. systematically developed. If not 'absolute' it is a very superior way. kammic process. Unlike Bodhi (p.234), we take the first six chap- rupa is translated by Bodhi as 'matter' in its primal usage. The ters as the first complete section of ABS, rather than the first reader must understand that this is to be read quite differently five, in order that we may include rupa and Nibbana. Citta can- from what is normally thought of as matter in the West, The not be fully considered without rupa since in the kammic translation of rupa is used in a specific Buddhist way. It would, process, citta gives rise to resultant cittas and matter. It is the therefore, be better to use Matter with an upper case 'M' to fore- historical failure of Anglo-German Buddhism to connect con- of a Buddhist rather than a conventional English meaning. sciousness to matter that has caused the kammic process to be warn 'Materiality' seems to be the latest word elsewhere to attempt re- rejected by Westerners and, therefore, why Buddhism has failed this problem. wonder whether in the end we shall to be more widely accepted. Without explanation of the whole solution of We return to the ungainly 'corporeality', or even earlier 'form* or, process, kamma remains in the realm of superstition. Sutta treats rather more completely, 'Form etc.'. The latter has the attraction, kamma by assertion and faith. Abhidhamma seeks to explain, on the one hand, of recognising no more than impingement on albeit in a manner which is still not fully comprehended. It is the six bases and the positive advantage, on the other hand, of essential that matter be dealt with as part and parcel of the admitting rupa as object of the mental-base. Thus the complete conscious process and, indeed, the text of ABS does so. circuit of meanings of rupa is permitted by 'Form etc.', including nibbana. Furthermore, Nibbana must also be included for com- the reality of beings of Rupaloka cognised by the mental bases. plete consideration of the mental processes because it manifests We identify one of the fundamental obstacles to compre- life within the context of the citta-cetasika complex. ABS has, hension of the Buddha's teaching as inability to lay aside the therefore, its first complete portion at the end of Chapter VI. Western cultural view that consciousness is a subset of matter. To Moreover, without Nibbana, citta, cetasika and rupa have no most, reality is encompassed by matter alone, however fine parts footing. The Aggregates are predicated by it. But this does not of it, such as 'the mind', may be. There is a public inability to mean that Nibbana is a metaphysical ground. We recoil from the accept §2 of ABS that the 'immaterial' is precisely just that and notion of Nibbana as a single absolute reality as a sophisticated discrete from matter. This is why it is of the greatest importance variant of transcendental monotheism, a notion as hard for to detach the Buddhist meaning of rupa from the conventional Westerners to root out as is ground elder to gardeners. There is view of matter. Failure to do so makes it difficult to displace the no noumenon independent of perception behind the Aggregates 94 95 Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Haviland-Nye — Abhidhamma Studies notion of a Creation from the rational Buddhist explanation of experience. But this is not a recom- less reality than sense avenue momentary appearance between origination and dissolution in a there is a practical mendation to place much attention here since causal stream dependent largely on those immaterial forces. To when there problem of confirmation of reality of specific beings sue- ceed necessitates seeing these appearances very differently perception of them, rendering it un- is an absence of common from conventional matter. subjective fantasy. This was certain in sorting objective fact from Buddhists, like most, conceive matter as an atomic structure. appearance in mediaeval the problem with angels' frequent But the ultimate categories elucidated in Abhidhamma, the UFO with Europe and now also with aliens emerging from kamma and citta (past and present mental activity) adding resemblance causal movement, fact or fancy. There is an uncomfortable dimensions to momentary phenomena, provide a radically differ- the Pali Canon! Those inbred of these with the 'spirit' worlds of ent view from Physics. The injection of volitional mental activity that rupa (in part) with Western materialism find it unacceptable is by far the more significant input to the creation of matter the concept of it can become object of mental-base consciousness; from the Buddhist viewpoint. So far as beings are concerned, attention should be focused is as far as they will admit. Buddhist their artefacts and managed environment are mind-made and of firmest footing, e.g. here, but practice is best left to those on the predominant significance to them. Manopubbahgamd dhamma, Arahants. ., manosettha, manomaya (Dhp 1). There cannot be much Insight and rather ugly, In Chapter VI, nipphanna receives the novel, without fully knowing these things. This is why it is vital to take 1 with intrin- translation of 'concrete for those eighteen dkammas the first six chapters of ABS together rather than pausing for quasi-d hammas associ- sic qualities and 'non-concrete' for those breath after the first five alone. (The fact that there is a tendency conceptual ated therewith. Could 'Tangible/Intangible', in their to do so because the Buddhist concept of rupa is so abstruse to Alternatively, rather than literal sense, be less offensive choices? us is no excuse for abandoning the effort to penetrate the minds Intrinsic and Bodhi's own Guide on p.235 leads one to to suggest of the ancient Abhidhammikas.) problem with Abstract for the 18/10 rupadhamma division. The In an essentially secular materialistic world, elucidation of higher or lower degrees of Abstract is that it can imply either matter is thus of crucial importance to the presentation of the truth, in this case lower. Dhamma. This is very difficult since the popular science-led view Without further explanation, as in Karunadasas Buddhist of physical elements alone is very firmly held. To say there are indigestible and Analysis of Matter (see below), ABS on rupa is other dimensions — kamma and citta — is the point where the comprehension ot unintelligible. Yet it is absolutely vital to the public leaves us. Although subatomic physics what more seems to suggest the Buddha's paradigm of reality. After all, matter is particles appearing momentarily in a quantum vacuum merely in bidden to know its or less everyone acknowledges. Buddhists are symbiotic relation as in the Buddha's teaching, classical physics Insight comprises nature since this is an integral part of 'practice'. still conditions the public mind. And this sits on an Eternalist tangible/intrinsic/ direct knowing of all cittas, cetasikas, the 18 view of the permanency of creation, a 'real' existence, not a concrete rupa dhammas, and Nibbana. (perhaps wholly) symbiotic one. should be warned that, like rupa, Another patthana. The novice reader problem, flowing from an inadequate understanding prior know- the Section on Patthana is unintelligible without a of rupa by it equating with a conventional notion of matter, is have an ledge of the structure of its system. The student may belief that any 'spirit' worlds are merely subjective extensions of lurking that he should know about from human internal rumination and fantasy. inkling of something However, 'spirit' worlds paticca- references elsewhere, e.g. in Vism, to the nidanas of are distinctly rupa in canonical Buddhist culture and so objective samuppada being related by way of the twenty-four paccayas of to the mental-base extrasensory perception, As such they have no Patthana. ABS merely recapitulates in a simplified way some- % . 97 Buddhist Haviltind-Nyt — Abidhamma Studies Studies Review IS, I (1998) thing of the relationships of conditioning and conditioned Tlka, H. Saddhatissa, PTS, Oxford 1989. Pali only for those translation. processes and forces interacting to produce the world that im- proficient enough to benefit without the aid of a pinges on our six bases. Reproducing Ledi Sayadaw's Table 8.4 on SUPPLEMENTARY (AND VITAL) WORKS; the synthesis of conditions, reducing the twenty-four paccayas to Dharmasena, C.B., Aids to the Abhidhamma Philosophy, Wheel the four new heads, is a graceful gift to those students who come 63/64, BPS, Kandy 1963. The charts, which follow the to study Patthana later and in the past have had to struggle to cittas in Dhammasaiigani order rather than the re-ordered resolve this recategorisation by ABS for themselves. ABS classification, we have found to be vital for placing the GENERAL SUMMATION states in memory. Buddhism, ABS has now gone through three full English translations. S.Z. Jayasuriya, W.F., The Psychology and Philosophy of Aung and Mrs CAR Rhys David, Ven. Narada (Vajirarama) and YMBA Press, Colombo 1963. Reprinted for and stocks now Bhikkhu Association, London. Our Bodhi. It has reached its apogee and is unlikely to available at the British Buddhist be first of ABS as it improved further. We can feel we now have as definitive a students read this along with their reading version secular-educated as we shall get, Students must construct their own comments on each chapter from a Western manuals it, from filling out as they choose in order to keep com- approach. prehension to the end. Matter, Colombo 1967. The next requirement of students is to Karunadasa, Y., Buddhist Analysis of receive English translations of the many Commentaries on ABS. Essentia] for making sense of the Buddhist concept of rupa. Since Bodhi has used two of them for paraphrasing the Guide in his edition, he should know that full translations of these Com- mentaries by such a lucid writer as he would be eagerly sought by English-reading Abhidhammikas. This toil would be well placed in advancing studies of this central authoritative work striving to elucidate the very core of the Buddha's teaching. Reviewer's suggested materials for a study of ABS TEXTS AND TRANSLATIONS: A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma, Bhikkhu Bodhi, Kandy 1993. Now the primary work. Compendium of Philosophy, S.Z. Aung & C.A.F. Rhys Davids, PTS, London 1910 & repr. There are useful notes on various technical terms and a long introductory essay. Manual of Abhidhamma, Narada (Vajirarama) [not to be confused with the late U Narada (Burma) of Patthana fame], BPS, Kandy 1968. Gives useful explanations of individual words not always reproduced by Bodhi. Translation and Guide to Chapter I ABS, R. Iggleden for British Buddhist Association, London 1975. The Abhidhammatthasahgaha and the Ahhidhammatthavibhavinl- 98 99 ,. Book Reviews BOOK REVIEWS short and comments upon merely the first 29 pages of the first volume of the Manorathapuranl, but it is to be hoped that Anguttaranikayarlka. Volume I. Primoz Pecenko. Pali Text Volume II, which is about to go to the printers, will contain more Society, Oxford 1996. xc, 222 pp. £16.50. ISBN 86013 346 X. text, since there will be no need to repeat the list of As is well known, the Pali Text Society was founded in 1881 by abbreviations, introduction and bibliography. T.W. Rhys Davids 'for the purpose of editing in Pali, and if When the work is completed, it will be a worthy addition to possible of translating into English, such Pali books as still exist the Pali Text Society's List of Issues. in manuscripts preserved in Europe or Asia, in order to render KJt Norman accessible to students the rich stores of the earliest Buddhist literature which are lying unedited and practically unused'. Over Style and Function: A Study of the dominant stylistic features of one hundred years after the foundation of the Society, that task the prose portions of Pali ca nonical sutta texts and their remains uncompleted. mnemonic function. Mark Allon. The Internatioal Institute for Reasonably enough, at the beginning emphasis was placed on Buddhist Studies, Tokyo 1997. xiv, 394 pp. ISBN 4-906267-40-8. publishing the canonical texts. The last to appear was Volume II Scholars agree that in the early stages of the history of Buddhism of the Apadana in 1927. The importance of the commentarial all texts were transmitted orally. This view is supported not only atthakathas was realised, and they too were published as and by the facts that there is little or no evidence for the use of when editors could be found. Translations into English were writing in India before the date of Asoka and that the Buddhist made, but a handful of canonical texts still await translators, while tradition itself states that texts were transmitted orally before only a minority of atthakathas are available in English. The their writing down, traditionally in the first century BCE, but also publication of the tlkas, the sub-commentaries, has made much by signs in the texts themselves, noted early on in the modern slower progress. The first, that upon the Dlgha-nikaya-atthakatha, study of Pali literature, which strongly support the oral tradition was published in three volumes in 1970. theory. More than a century ago Rhys Davids drew attention to It is therefore a matter of great pleasure to welcome the some of the features which, he suggested, aided the power of publication of the first volume of the tlka upon the Ahguttara- memory for Buddhist Sutta and Vinaya texts. He pointed out nikaya-atthakatha (Manorathapuranl), which is essentially the 'Firstly, the use of stock phrases, of which the commencement same as the thesis which Dr Pecenko submitted to the Australian remainder followed as a matter of course'. National once given, the University for the Ph.D. degree. It contains a list of Much has been written in recent years about oral recitation, abbreviations (pp.xi-xxiii) and a very lengthy introduction especially of epic poetry, and it is important to see how far the (pp.xxv-!xx) describing the sources used (all of which belong to findings of such investigations coincide with what can be deduced the Burmese tradition), the orthography of the manuscripts, the about the recitation of Pali texts. One difference becomes clear relationship of the sources and the method of editing and immediately. Oral epic, both ancient and modern, makes great use presenting the text, and discussing the authorship and date of the of formulae, set words or phrases which the reciter may include work. There is a long bibliography (pp.lxxi-xc). The text (pp.1-103) or omit, as circumstances dictate. The situation with regard to consists of the Gantharambhakatha and the vannana upon that, Pali literature is different. There too there are formulae, par- and the Rupadi vannana including the Nettinayavannana. The ticularly at the beginning and end of discourses, but they are notes (pp.105-211) discuss variant readings and exegetical matters. always there, and a reciter does not have the freedom to omit The volume ends with a table of parallel passages. them even if he wants to. The portion of the volume devoted to the text of the tlka is It seems very likely that in the very earliest period of too 101 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) they had heard was true. view, and went to ask him if what Buddhism bhikkhus recited the Buddha's teachings as they informed the Buddha, who When he confirmed that it was, they remembered them. This might well have led to disagreements him himself When Arittha sent for Arittha and questioned about where the sermon was preached, and when, and to whom. Buddha condemned it The persisted in his wrong view, the as improvisation, in Whether such differences can be described this passage is that at every stage fnteresting, if tedious, feature of those study modern epic the the sense in which it is used by who doctrine 'In so far as understand of the enquiry the heretical recitation, is a question for discussion. If there were such following hose dhamma taught by the Bhagavat, it is that, in differences, then their absence in the texts as we now have them the Bhagavat, there is no things called stumbling-blocks by implies that they have been removed and replaced by a certain - twelve times in alL stumbling-block at all' is repeated verbatim amount of standardisation, presumably by the early reciters with the memorisation of the This repetition undoubtedly helped (bhanakas). formulae in Pali SU Although scholars have studied individual was at one time more wide- ^It would appear that repetition texts, no comprehensive examination of formulae as a whole has present form, but once spread than appears in the texts in their been made. In the first part of the book under review, which is a and scribes found it tedious to oral recitation gave way to writing revised version of his Cambridge Ph,D. dissertation (in the Ac- which could easily be found write out again and again sentences knowledgements and elsewhere he refers to it as his Cambridge appeared in the sutta they bv referring back to where they first D.Phil. thesis, but it is a wise man who knows the terminology of peyyala < Sanskrit were replaced by pe or la (both short for his own University), entitled The use of formulas or standardised repetition which paryaya, 'recurrence, repetition'). In short, the phrases in Pali sutta texts: approach formulas in the Digha- tradition proved to be a aided the transmission of the oral nikaya', Allon gives a detailed analysis of such formulae in the replaced by a written handicap once the oral tradition had been DIgha-nikaya. He analyses and categorises them, according to who Jain texts - e.g the use of one. A similar usage can be seen in stated, was approaching whom, and shows that, as Rhys Davids to', and the employment of the word Java '(and so on) down once the circumstances had been fixed and the identities of the omitted - and we numerals to indicate the number of words participants were known, the form of words followed almost may see the influence of writing there too. inevitably. This was clearly a great help to memorisation. Allon entitled The rollferatlon of In the second part of the t**^ P draws attention to the very small number of departures from the to form sequences or similar word elements and units of meaning set patterns, which suggests that standardisation was not imposed sutta texts, the tendency to "strings" in the prose portions of Pali blindly upon the material. He concludes that 'meaning was still according to the number arrange the units within such sequences - the ultimate determinant of diction'. Syllable Principle (WSP) of syllables of each - the Waxing Rhys Davids went on to draw attention to 'secondly, the integral to these struc- and the sound and metrical similarities habit of repeating whole sentences or even paragraphs, which in repetition^ occurs To tures', Allon examines the extent to which our modern books would be understood or inferred, instead of text of the Udumbanka- do this he reconstitutes the complete being expressed'. It is probable that he had in mind such passages rather more sihanada-sutta of the DIgha-nikaya. Such a task is as we find in the Alagaddupamasutta of the Majjhima-nikaya, various manuscript difficult than might be expected because the where we read that a bhikkhu called Arittha developed the er- they make ol the traditions are not uniform in the use which roneous view: 'In so far as I understand the dhamma taught by analyses and categorises pe and la abbreviation markers. Allon the Bhagavat, it is that, in following those things called examination of the the varieties of repetition, and in a detailed stumbling-blocks by the Bhagavat, there is no stumbling-block at extent than has sutta shows that repetition occurs to a far greater all'. Other monks heard that Arittha had developed this erroneous 103 102 L Book Reviews Buddhis* Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) the WSP is a phenomenon which is not been assumed. He points out that there is frequently repetition of It would seem that of an oral composition as opposed to a a particular consonant (i.e. alliteration) or of a sequence of the exclusive feature rather a product of the human mind. Caland syllables (i.e. rhyme). It is clear that such features would enable a written one, but is 1 'latent in reciter to this as a 'rythmic law and declared that it is remember a text more easily, and therefore to recite it regarded as an aid more accurately. every man'. The WSP has been used by some scholars of Pali texts, in the belief that a non-WSP There seems, however, to be a clear distinction between these for the relative dating phrase must be later than a WSP version, but this features and the formulae which are discussed in the first pan of version of a origin part of the men- the book. We can see that almost certainly view seems untenable. If the WSP was in the standardisation of human all people, i.e. an underlying principle of approach formulae was deliberately imposed, presumably to get tal attributes of time when writing had not rid of a wide range of different forms of wording, which would utterance, then we can see that at a oral communi- have it was inevitably an attribute of made memorisation more difficult. It is, however, hard to been invented, been invented, then the WSP appeared believe that these occurrences of alliteration and rhyming could cation. Once writing had as a product of the workings of the have been imposed on the text, which would have involved the in written comunications seem likely, therefore, that strings of bhanakas in a vast reworking of the sutta in order to introduce authors' minds. It would inserted to It follow the WSP were not necessarily them. would follow then that they were, for the most part at words which function. The WSP was rather a factor which, least, in the sutta from its origin and we must assume that they serve a mnemonic in an utterance, were there in the since it tended to fix the order of words words of the original author (if that is the to memorisation easier. appropriate word to use) of the sutta. It would seem unlikely that happened make Pali also examined comparable formulae in other the author would have chosen the vocabulary and stylistic Allon has found some differences between them. This is features with an eye to their easier memorisation and subsequent suttas texts and has the recitation. important, because it probably sheds light on It would seem more likely that the features were part interesting and tradition was organised into separate of his speech pattern, rather than being intended as an aid to way in which the bhanaka memory. components, so that a sutta in the keeping of two sets of have variations if the two sets were in- Allon also investigates occurrences of the so-called Waxing bhanakas might well Syllable consult one another in order to produce Principle in the Udumbarika-slhanada-sutta, in both dependent and did not both. It is highly desirable that compounds and phrases, and he gives an analysis of the stock one single version acceptable to description studies of these matters should be carried of arahats found in Jain texts to show how far the further comparative of the Theravada canon is available on WSP was operational there too. Scholars writing about this out. Now that the whole principle can be made electronically, while several have pointed to a rule in Panini's grammar stating that CD-ROM and searches available, and the task of putting Buddhist in dvandva compounds of two words with an unequal number of Jain texts are also syllables, CD-ROM has begun, we may hope that this the word with the fewer syllables comes first. The Sanskrit texts onto before too long. Since Allon has estab- yartika on the rule comments: 'when there are many words, there work will be carried out analysing the material, rapid progress is no fixed rule', which shows that the rule was of limited lished the methodology for studies should be possible. application in Sanskrit, and certainly did not apply to the order of in such comparative K.R. Norman words in a sentence. It has been pointed out by various scholars that, at one time or another, this rule has applied to some extent in Basque, Magyar, Turkish, Javanese, Assyria-Babylonian, Latin, Greek and German. 104 105 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Bhesaiiamaniusa Chapters will edit and complete the task which he has so 1.]8 Jinadasa Liyanaratne. Pali Text Liyanaratne Society, Oxford started. 1996. vi, 393 pp. £17.00. ISBN 86013 347 8. successfully The Bhesaj KM. Norman jamahjusa (Bhes), which was written in Sri Lanka in 1261, is the only known medical work written in Pali. It has The Salistamha Sfitra an d its Indian Commentaries. Jeffrey D. attracted the attention of such Western scholars as Burnouf and II. Schoening. Volume I. Translation with Annotation. Volume Filliozat, but although a number of editions of the complete text Studien zur Tibetologie und or portions it Tibetan Editions. Wiener of have been published in Sinhala script, and an 1-2. Vienna 1995. ppxx, 388; ix, 382. ATS 850. abstract of it has Buddhismuskunde 35, appeared in Burmese script, there is no pub- lished edition in Roman script. (if adopt that An edition of the first eighteen of 1. There is an old canonical sutra, a logion we may the forty chapters of the text, which deal with the fundamentals term from NT studies), that appears very archaic: He who sees of traditional (the) medicine, was submitted for the Ph.D. degree of the pratityasamutpada also sees (the) Dharma, and he who sees University of London by D.C.P. Beneragama in 1953 but remains Dharma also sees (the) Buddha. unpublished, is to ex- and Dr Liyanaratne has now produced a new edition The purpose of the celebrated Salistambasutra (SSS) of the same chapters. plain the meaning (artha) of this old sutra The importance of the In the Introduction modern (pp.1-37) he discusses the author and date SSS was at an early date recognised by ancient as well as of the Bhes and its sanne, and he gives information about the Buddhist scholars. Thus, the SSS is available in classical Tibetan, printed editions which exist and the editorial principles he has Mongolian, and (four) Chinese translations and, whereas the com- followed in making for this new edition. He gives an assessment of plete Sanskrit text is no longer available, it has been easy the importance of the Bhes and its sanne as medical texts of scholars of this century to reconstruct one that comes convinc- their place in Pal language and literature and of the importance ingly close to an assumed 'original', thanks in particular to the of the Bhes for the history of Buddhism and Ayurveda. fact that approximately 90% of the Sanskrit is quoted extensively The edition (pp.40-203) is based upon six manuscripts, which by various later Indian Mahayana scholars. For Nagarjuna and his were selected on a consider- regional basis and are described in the Madhyamika followers the SSS served as an agama of Introduction. Bhes is very the attention of several dependent upon earlier authors. It cites able authority. Also, the SSS commanded nearly seventy com- medical authorities and contains a large number of Mahayana commentators in India (and Tibet). Two of the verses based in Nagarjuna himself. whole or in part on Sanskrit medical texts. mentaries that have survived are ascribed to Liyanaratne has very positive sense of the assiduously traced them and has listed them For the modern reconstruction (in the in an Appendix Louis de of Sanskrit Parallels (pp.210-315). They have word) we are, first of all, indebted to the indefatigable sometimes helped in (London 1913). determining the correct reading in the Pali La Vallee Poussin's text, Theorie des douze causes text and in clarifying the meaning. This was followed by N. Aiyaswami Sastri's edition, including the Other appendices contain the (Unfortunately, LVP's colophon to the sanne (pp Tibetan versions, etc. (Adyar 1950). 204-5), which contains recent important historical information, and a Theorie was not accessible to the Indian pandit.) The most List of Metres used in the text (pp.206-9). There is also a General edition, giving also the Tibetan version, as well as an English Index (pp 316-33) and Indexes (pp.334-60) of Diseases, Materia translation (also of the Chinese), notes and parallel passages, etc., C lora and Fauna There is also - a Une In we to the good efforts of N. Ross Reat, The Salistamba . dex to Stanzas owe (pp.370-93).i^ Sutra (Delhi 1993). It is to Dr Reat's convenient work that I shall The remaining twenty-two chapters of Bhes deal with eti- hereafter refer. ology and therapy. It is very much to be hoped that Dr 106 107 Buddhist Studies Review IS, I (1998) Book Reviews Should the SSS really be classified as belonging to Mahayana'? passes into Nirvana. Of course, we should not take the he somehow 1 answer obviously depends lends on how we define Mahayana and too literally. Like the Latin corpus it readily on term kaya how we read the text of the SSS itself, focusing on its ter- itself to figurative use. minology. Erich Frauwallner, for instance, in his that it always takes Die Philosophie On the other hand it is obviously true des Buddhismus (Berlin 1969, repr. not 1994), gave a long extract of time for ideas to develop. The notion of two bodies may Das Sutra von der jungen Reisplanze' (pp.49-60) as representing have been so clear from the very start. Here, however, I must Die Lehre des Buddha'. Like LVP he was, naturally, aware that remind the reader of the fact that the Tathagata is invariably the SSS was said to have been delivered by the Bodhisattva presented as a Bhagavat, even in the earliest sources, and this Maitreya, and that it was transmitted as belonging to Mahayana means that he, by definition, has two bodies, a mortal and an Dr Reat, on the other hand, finds the very (p.3) that 'From paragraph immortal. It is, in other words, 'understood* from seven on, it is clear that the Salistamba expresses a fundamental has a physical as well as a spiritual Mahayana beginning that the Tathagata position, but it does so in sense remarkably conservative 'body'. From the very beginning, the Bhagavat was in a even quaint terms'. Reat sees (p.4) it as a 'fundamental Mahayana identical with the 'body of rules' he as a teacher would explain to position - that enlightenment represents a realization of Dharma- his listeners. kaya Buddha In support . of his view, he calls of the Vajra- attention to the So in brief, I find that the celebrated gathas expression r anuttaradharmasarira in reflect a §7, and notes that this is an cchedika (ed. E. Conze, pp.56-7), ye mam rupena, etc., odd Sanskrit term, where Dharma-kaya would be expected. doctrine of kayadvaya already consciously implicit in Theravada. The argument would perhaps be valid if there were no Here the terms dharmata and dharmakaya are virtually references to a dharmakaya of the Buddha in the canonical synonyms. writings of Theravada. But is that actually early text. the case? In the old is not to say, however, that the SSS is a very Brahmajala This Sutta there is a passage that strikes the term tattva in the me as noteworthy Above all, I would point to the presence of in this connection. It says, in the translation is not canonical. In by TvV. Rhys Davids- text. As I have remarked elsewhere, the term I he outward form, brethren, him brackets without, of who has won the truth §9 of the Sanskrit text of SSS it is inserted in stands before you, but that which binds it to rebirth is cut in however, being supported by the Tibetan ma nor ba nyid. (The l°n a hi b°dy Shal1 last so lon do gods decide, and the tattvata suggested, in a ZTi/u- t l > & and men original is difficult to behold him. OnJ the dissolution of the body, beyond the end of his parallel text, by the late Chandrabal TripathI in his Funfund- e n Uher gods nor men shal1 S€€ hinC tOft 109 Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Book Reviews signs later some of usage, but nothing seems to prevent us from dhism is to understand the principles of true and natural causes, reading its artha as representing a very early form of Buddhism. or causality. If we, with Aristotle, define scientific knowledge as a Here are some of the main points of the SSS, as well as some knowledge of true and natural causes — in time and space — remarks of my own. then, clearly, the SSS commands the attention not merely of The term Dharma covers not only the Aryan mdrga, but also historians but also of philosophers, i.e. true scientists, the scientiae its result (phala), viz. nirvana (§5), which means that a Buddha, professores, as Tacitus phrases it. through sarvadharmdvabodha, 'incorporates Dharma', he is First of all, our text makes the necessary distinction between dharmasarlra (§6). It is by seeing pratltyasamutpada as causes and conditions, Furthermore, it makes a distinction be- uncreated, unborn, etc., that one, eo ipso, also sees the Dharma tween causa efficiens and causa materialis. Both are instrumental and the Buddha as incorporating the anuttaradharma (§7). The (kdrana) in bringing about samutpdda. Is its ontology materi- term pratltyasamutpada means that arising has certain causes alistic or idealistic? On the one hand all conditions can be reduced (hetu) and conditions (pratyaya); it is a synonym of dharmatd, to the six dhatus, on the other the prima causa seems to be etc., the way things are (§§8-9). There is an external and an spiritual: avidyd or vijnana. Materialism? Idealism? Or both? Or internal pratltyasamutpada, and both arise through two karanas, neither? viz. hetupanibandha and pratyayopanibandha (§10). The sprout 2. Jeffrey Schoening's new edition contains all the basic textual that comes from a seed, etc, is an example of a causal nexus of materials for a critical assessment of the SSS, its form, contents external ('physical') pratltyasamutpada (§11). Here the coming and position in the history of ancient Indian Buddhist literature. It together (samavdya) of the six elements (dkatu), viz, earth, water, contains the text of the Tibetan version of the SSS (pp.389-448), heat, wind, space and time, serve as the conditional nexus (§12). along with the two commentaries ascribed to Nagarjuna (pp.533- Each of them has its own function (krtya) (§13). Thus the seed is 699), and the tlka of Kamalaslla (pp.449-532), as well as the not created by itself, or by anything else such as God, Time Or Sanskrit quotations (pp.701-35). In addition to a long and useful Prakrti, or without a cause (§14). This theory of causality thus introduction about Indian sutra commentaries, their translations, avoids the heresy of sasvata and uccheda, etc. (§§15-20). The etc., the first volume of Schoening's work contains a complete internal ('personal, individual') pratltyasamutpada also depends translation of the SSS along with Kamalasila's commentary on these two karanas, viz. hetu- and pratyaya-upanibandha (§ (pp.191-338). There is also a translation of the versification of the 21). The first hetupanibandha is avidyd (§22), and again the SSS, and annotations based on the prose commentary on the SSS samavaya of the six dhatus — now with vijhdna replacing time and the versification (kdrikd), both of which are ascribed to (rtu = kdla) — form the pratyayopanibandha (§23). Further Nagarjuna (pp.339-65). A summary of Nagarjuna's commentaries is observations on the dhatus (§§25-26), and on avidyd (§§27-29). given pp.50-80. Furthermore, avidyd along with desire, karma and vijnana serve One of the noteworthy features of Kamalasila's commentary as hetu of pratltyasamutpada; vijhdna is like a blja in the field is that it follows the five-fold commentarial method prescribed by of karma, desire provides the moisture and ignorance scatters the Vasubandhu's Vyakhyayukti (a critical edition of which, inciden- seeds (§31-34). Consciousness {vijhdna) also depends on certain tally, is a great desideratum). Schoening's careful study of the karanas, such as the objects and the sense organs, light, etc. (§35). commentaries enables him to observe that at least eleven com- Thus there is no soul or the like that transmigrates, but the law mentaries were influenced by the five-fold method (p.39). of causality, as described, remains a fact (§§36-48). Strangely enough, Vasubandhu, in the commentaries ascribed to From this brief survey it is obvious that the SSS has to do him, does not himself follow this method! Schoening, therefore, with the proper understanding of causality. To understand Bud- asks whether Vasubandhu was, in fact, the author of the no ill Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Book Vyakhyayukti. attempts. In my Nagarjuniana (p.13), I classified SSK as I doubts about the authenticity of the It must not be overlooked that Vasubandhu in his Karma- 'perhaps authentic', but had n.21. main reason was that 'this siddhiprakarana explicitly mentioned the Vyakhyayukti, see my prose commentary (SST), ibid* My it deals with the four notes in Asiatische Studien 46/1 (1992), p.274. So, instead of must be a rather late work inasmuch as raising doubts about the authenticity of the Vyakhyayukti, we anubandhas, not attested in early Madhyamaka'. Schoening's book I still main- might as well, perhaps with better reason, raise doubts about the Now that I have carefully read surprised commentaries ascribed to Vasubandhu. tain my original position about the SSK. I would not be written by Nagarjuna but I cannot prove this to be so. According to Kamalaslla, in Schoening's translation (p,198): if it were authenticity of the SST, I am now less scep- The purpose is to remove obscuration (sgrib pa; avarana) and to With regard to the 1982. I not, however, aware of any argu- enter the path of nirvana that is not clung to/dwelled in (myi tical than I was in am author as the SSK. gnas pa'i mya ngan las 'das pa; apratisthita-nirvana); the path of ment that proves the SST to be by the same mentions my doubts concerning the four nirvana that is not clung to/dwelled in is, in brief, the bodhi- Schoening (p.37) sattva\ anubandhas, and says that 'certain non-Buddhists use the four discriminating insight and compassion'. — I find this not introduce a text and its purpose'. untypical of Schoening's sometimes rather mechanical way of anubandhas in order to it is not just 'certain non-Buddhists' who do so. The four translating; what Kamalaslla says is this: The purpose (of the SSS) Now is to corresponding to those of the SST (p.563), are also remove (the two kinds of) obscuration, and to introduce (a anubandhas, Nyayabindutika 1-2): bodhisattva) to the path (that leads) to Nirvana that has no mentioned by Dharmottara in his (pp. foundation; the sambandha, prayojana, abhidhana and abhidheya. (The term path (that leads) to Nirvana without foundation is, itself, however, is not mentioned.) Moreover, Dhar- in brief, the discriminating insight and compassion of a bodhi- anubandha mottara, ibid., uses the example of examining the kakadanta to sattva'. The meaning of apratisthita- is that Nirvana, as opposed the futility of a task, as does the SST (p.566). (There are to the other dhams, has no pratistha, cf. O. Qvarnstrom, Hindu illustrate several other phrases in SST that remind one of Dharmottara.) Philosophy in Buddhist Perspective (Lund 1989), p.120, — As a rule Obviously, the SST presupposes that a commentator at the Schoening's translations are fully reliable, as is his edition of must account for the sambandha, the Tibetan texts. Some readers, however, will regret the way he beginning of a scientific work has etc. — otherwise he is like a madman, hardjy aware of what he is chosen to present the critical text. The apparatus criticus is up to. gets the impression that the SST knows these four burdened by slavishly reporting too many miscarvings in the One other scientific treatises such as those on medicine Tibetan prints, and the text itself almost all too faithfully reports terms from research is required here. In other words, wrong readings so that the reader has to consult the apparatus for icikitsadisastra). More the correct before know when and where these four terms were first for- ones. Should an editor not consider being a little more we for determining the date of our text remains friendly to his reader? In my opinion an editor should present a mulated their value clear uncertain (cf. Schoening, op. rec^ p.37, n.2, with which I agree). and simple picture of the text itself, assigning all the sastra were problems and discussions to the notes. Assuming that the rules for composing a non-Buddhist source, this would be in However, let us now turn to the two commentaries ascribed borrowed from some to perfect accordance with one of Nagarjuna's usual practices, Nagarjuna, As Schoening observes (p.27), there are seven namely Brahmanical terms and ideas for strictly versifications such as the Salistamba[ka]-karika (SSK), and they that of adopting were Buddhist purposes. This reflects the enlightened Madhyamika ideal intended to be memorised and used as study manuals. If the SSK, of the bodhisattva as a, polymath, cf. Nagarjuniana, p.237. in seventy verses, is authentic, it would be the earliest of style of the is comparable to that of the Vigraha- such versifications, and perhaps thus served as model for later The SST 112 113 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) by itself without any other object than itself as a grasping or as a It is straightforward, explicit, slightly repetitious and vyavartanl. projecting entity. The debate is as old as the Lahkavatarasutra, or rather archaic. Occasionally, verses are added, ft on the whole even older. This text is accepted as canonical by all Madhya- understood by Sanskrit readers with little or no previous could be mika authors even though it teaches doctrines about alaya- It reader- knowledge of Buddhism. thus addresses much the same vijnana, svabhavatraya, etc. (see my paper The Lankavatarasutra ship as do some of Nagarjuna's other popular works, RatnavalT, in Earlv Indian Madhyamaka Literature', in Asiatische v Suhrllekha, Bodhisambhara[ka], etc. It offers many basic defi- Studien 46/1 (1992), pp.244-79, and cittamdtra in Indian nitions of Buddhist technical terms such as avidya, etc. (cf. Mahayana until Kamalaslla', in WZKS 41 (1997), pp.159-206). Schoening, and can therefore also be seen as a sort of sup- p.50), In the SST alayavijnana is understood as a store for the plement to some of Nagarjuna's most abstract works (SS, Mula- seeds (bija) of vijhana as taught by the SSS. This is almost a madhyamakakarika (MMK), Yuktisastika, etc.) where the stu- commonsense notion. Moreover, the doctrine of svabhavatraya is the dent's familiarity with these ideas is presupposed by author. interpreted in a way that brings it into harmony with a Madhya- Large portions of the RatnavalT and the two other versifications maka position. In the Bodhicittavivarana, and in Acintyastava just mentioned are comparable to the SSK in the sense that they 44-45, Nagarjuna deals with these concepts exactly as the offer a summary, often quite literal, of (parts of) a sutra for Lahkavatarasutra sometimes does, and as the SST a'so does. Once are thus than just seven versifi- mnemonic purposes. (There more we keep these facts in mind there is nothing curious in the cations!) In other respects the SSK is also comparable to two attribution of the SST to Nagarjuna. It is only our preconceived other works ascribed to Nagarjuna, viz. Prajnasataka (cf. my notions about 'Yogacara' that create problems on a level that the review in The Adyar Library Bulletin 56 (1992), pp.203-7), and reader will excuse me for describing as parikalpitasvabMva\ of fifty-six verses extracted the Bhavanakrama, an anthology What also deserves to be mentioned is that the SST uses tne from the Lankavatarasutra (ed. in Asiatische Studien 46/1 (1992), term abhutaparikalpa. This term is often associated with the pp.266-73). Madhyantavibhaga, but it can be traced further back to the The resemblance to the Pratltyasamutpadahrdayakarika is Vimalakirtinirdesasutra (quoted in the Siksasamuccaya, p.264: also considerable, cf. N'agar jwiiana, p.170. It supplements the SSL abhutaparikalpasya kim mulam? — aha: viparyasta samjha So far, then, I can detect nothing in the SSK or SST that ed. 294b) — both mulam. . .), and the Bodhisattvapitaka (Peking argues against Nagarjuna's authorship. — But perhaps there are of which are considered authoritative canonical texts for all still problems? Madhyamikas, beginning with Nagarjuna (Sutrasamuccaya, 'The attribution of a Yogacara treatise to Nagarjuna is, how- Bodhisambharalka], eta). ever, curious', says Schoening (p.53). — It cannot be denied that There is at least one feature (not noticed by Schoening) that the SST mentions trisvabhava and alayavijnana. But is this speaks in favour of the traditional attribution of SSK and SST to really a problem? For Bhavya, a full-blooded Madhyamika who Nagarjuna. On p.346, Schoening translates chud tad med as 'not explicitly ascribes the commentary to Nagarjuna, there was quite barren'. The technical Sanskrit term behind this is probably clearly no problem. Can one accept svabhavatraya and alaya- aviprandsa, known from MMK 17.14 as one of Nagarjuna's vijnana, and still rernain faithful to Madhyamaka? Is Yogacara characteristic notions about karma that 'is never entirely lost'. The compatible with the Sunyatavada of a Madhyamika? term does not occur in the SSS itself. In the SST as in the MMK To some extent this is a quarrel about words. In the early avipranasa is introduced by the commentator (Nagarjuna) as a period the term Yogacara can be used for a Madhyamika; it is hypothesis (kalpana) that 'saves' the karma doctrine from the even found in the title of Aryadeva's Catuhsataka. The real bone frightful universality of emptiness. of contention is whether svacitta can exist self-consciously in and 115 114 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) exposition of some tshad ma'i rnam bsad, being an To sum up: we still cannot prove that SSK and SST were Sioh thun gyi chapter of andrakirt.'s Prasannapada, actually written by Nagarjuna or even by the same hand. On the brief passages in the first on Nagarjuna's Mulamadhyamakakarika. other hand we cannot advance a single sound argument against the 'lucid' commentary all the typical features of 'Jam dbyahs bzad pa'i rdo rje displays their authorship. There is nothing to prevent us from using systematic even the style is concise and Jeffrey Schoening's edition as a document of early Indian Tibetan scholasticism: an extensive knowledge of the authoritative Madhyamaka. As an editor he has done us a great service. schematic it shows and f iran.grasp,ri aU sources (and often quotes them) a fine 'Therefore, for anyone interested in learning more, about the India no relevant - and (understandably) almost interpretation of dependent arising, the Salistamba that is philosophically Mahayana of Buddhism in historical development and background Siitra is an invaluable source' (p.l). This is the prayojana of his sense of scrupulous editorial work. the Indian context . . , question about the number, definition and Chr. Lindtner Asked the standard (the number one authority objects of the pramanas, Candraklrti Tibetan scholasticism), after having criticised Erkenntnislehre des Prasangika-Madhyamaka. nach on Madhyamaka for Per dem these words: his (and Nagarjuna's) 'position in Tshig gsal stoii thun gyi tshad ma'i rnam bsad des 'Jam dbyaiis Dignaga, sums up pramanacatustayal lokasyarthadhigamo vyavastha- bzad pa'i rdo rje. Einleitung, Textanalyse, Ubersetzung. Chizuko tad evam parapeksaya sidhyanti; satsu pramanesu Yoshimizu. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde pyate- tani ca paras no tu khalu prameyarthah, satsu prameyesv arthesu pramanam, 37, Vienna 19%. xxiii, 309 pp. tasmal laukikam svabhavikl pramana prameyayoh siddhir in If it is true, as the Madhyamaka school of Mahayana claims, that (Prasannapada, ed. evastu yathadrstam - ity alam prasahgena all things (dharma, bhdva) are empty, that they are nothing in LVP P the themselves, that they are 'unoriginated' (anut panna) — much like like Nagarjuna, Candraklrti handles in ' other words, illusions — how, then, can we know this to be so, how can we be truths, satyadvaya the four- pramanas in the perspective of two sure that our means of cognition (pramana) are reliable? Surely, upamana,agama kinds of pramana (viz. pratyaksa, anumana, our means of cognition must also be empty and unoriginated, like on a worldly level, are valid without discussion (avisamvadin) illusions? Otherwise, clearly, not everything but only some things of paramarthasatya,ws but in themselves, in the perspective know (the are empty? That would be inconsistent! Does a Madhyamika cannot distinguish what we know from how we reject the validity of pramanas altogether, or does he in some .. objects and means of knowledge). .. sense accept — and, if so, he define another level ot them how does the nature, This shift from one level of satya to but very the number and the objects (prameya) of such pramanas! Can he was already indicated by Nagarjuna, by the little satya Moving still retain his initial position (that everything is altogether empty), pregnant adversative atha va, in Vigrahavyavartam 28. and still insist that the pramanas are somehow valid? That some lokasamvrtisatya) we can main- on the level of samvyavahara (= things are less empty than others? on some pramana) that tain a thesis (a pratijha, or paksa based These are questions that Nagarjuna and his followers 'higher level. The problem already we can abandon once we move to a had to face, not only in ancient India but also recently, in a problem ot the more of the status of the pramanas, then, is really Tibet. we, too, want to be aware of the problem. is undoubtedly a kind And may status of the two truths. Since a pramana of the Tibetan scholars took this actually that there are One who up challenge was of inana the problem in other words is the celebrated pa'i rje can say that a 'Jam dbyahs bzad rdo (1648-1721, or 1722). different kinds, or levels, of jhana. Loosely, we He did so in the text here translated into German (with an analy- Madhyamika knows the distinction between practical and tneor- sis, various appendices, etc.) by Chizuko Yoshimizu: Tshig gsal 117 116 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) exposition of 'Jam dbyahs bzad pa'i rdo rje etical reason. (This comes out more clearly in Bhavya's distinction merely rely on the of this must turn to the between two kinds of buddhi, mati, dhl, prajha, see Madhya- here given. To understand some we with which, naturally, CandrakTrti was familiar makahrdaya (MKH) III.) As long as it is 'empirical*, jhana has no MHK of Bhavya, with which he probably also supposes his object (a prameya), but in the ultimate sense jhana no longer has (he quotes from it), and reader to be familiar. After all CandrakTrti, in spite of all any object (or subject, for that matter). It is, therefore, only by learned for 'insiders'. way of prajhapti that we can here, in the ultimate sense, speak his 'clarity', was writing (the Sanskrit text is of jhana and pramdna. From the fifth chapter of this work in Adyar Library Bulletin 59 (1995), pp.37-65), we see Methodologically, it is good to see that 'Jam dbyahs bzad pa'i edited The was an ongoing controversy between Madhyamaka and rdo rje is fully aware of the few relevant parallel passages in the that there proper interpretation (naya) of prajha- other extant commentaries of CandrakTrti, those on the Catuh- Yogacara about the would understand prajha to be perfect in sataka and Yuktisastika (YS). This permits him to draw a better pdramitd. Madhyamaka whereas Yogacara (there were two main but still far from complete picture of CandrakTrtfs position. terms of satyadvaya, and nirakdravadd) would interpret prajha in Somewhat problematic, in particular, is his attempt to make a branches: sdkara- Madhyamaka sees it, this would .synthesis of CandrakTrti, Dignaga and even DharmakTni. Dignaga, terms of svabhavatraya. As the the bodhi of the Buddha thus as known, admits a certain kind of perception, a yogipratyaksa mean that, according to Yogacara, as its contents, viz. the positive lack of that has a certain svalaicsana as its object, or content (yisaya). has some kind of object which is tantamount Can this yogic intuition be identified with the tattvadarsana that parikaipitasvabhdva in paratantrasvabhdva, (For further details, see all Madhyamikas, following the authority of the scriptures, admit? to the reality of parinispannasvabhava, Yogacara Philosophy of Dignaga and Dharmakirti', CandrakTrti takes up this point in his commentary to YS 8, and it my paper The East Asian Religions 2 (1989), pp.27-52.) is of considerable importance to be aware of it, if we wish to in Studies in Central and (namely svalaksana), it understand a major reason for the schism between the various In brief, since yogipratyaksa has a visaya which, accord- branches of Madhayamaka and Yogacara. cannot be identified with the bodhi of the Buddha supported by yukti, does not The problem has to do with the nature of the Buddha's ing to various scriptural passages, bodhi, and our understanding of that significant event This, again, have any object at all for its support. Dignaga and Yogacara is accepted by has to do with the role of dgama as a pramdna. CandrakTrti is Bhavya's critique of is hardly anything really new explicit: saks&d atlndriydrthaviddm apidndm yad vacanam sa CandrakTrti, although tacitly (there vatara compared to the MHK of Bhavya), and agamah (Pras., p.75). He is also quite clear when it comes to in his Madhyamaka easily imagine how upset he would have been, pratya(csa(jhana), as a pramdna: it is only valid loke (Pras., p.74, we can therefore prognosticate what the Tibetan savant 'Jam 1.1; YSvrtti, p.41, 1.5). He rejects Dignaga's theory about sva- had he been able to more than a thousand laicsana as illogical and far too speculative (kirn anayd suksme- dbyans bzad pa'i rdo rje would be up to It is impossible to create a synthesis of the Madhya- ksikayd laukikavyavahdre 'vatdrikaya! Pras., p.68, 1.7). CandrakTrti, years later. views on pramdna without first in other words, is not prepared to reduce the Buddha's bodhi to maka and the Yogacara (sakara) or svabhava- the kind of yogipratyaksa envisaged by Dignaga, though, to be solving the conflict between a satyadvaya prajhdpdramita. The sure, he too, passim, accepts a certain kind of yogi-prajhacaksus, traya approach to the understanding of leaves us in the dark. characteristic of an arya as opposed to an andrya, or bala. What Tibetan scholar is silent on this issue and historically we see depends on who we are. What should also be kept in mind is that, to the realm of debate. One That there is a distinction to be made between a yogi of speaking, pramdnyavdda belongs give a reason, etc., without basing that Madhyamaka and a yogi of Yogacara is far from clear, as we cannot uphold a thesis, 118 119 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) remarks in This observation is independently corroborated by my thesis, etc., on the evidence of one or more pramanas. The object Studies in Central and East Asian Religions 8 (1995), pp.96-8. of a pramana, the prameya is, therefore, always limited in some Exactly the same applies for (some of) the quotations from way. It seems meaningless to speak of a pramana without an rdo rje's Bhavya's dBu ma snin po given in 'Jam dbyahs bzad pa'i object. One may, with the texts, speak of tattvajnana, of advaya- Grub mtha' chen mo. jhana, etc. — but it would be extremely awkward to speak of deserves our It goes without saying that Dr Yoshimizu tattva pramana, dharmapramana or advayapramana. In other Steinkellner for gratitude for preparing this book, as does Ernst words, by definition, any discussion about pramana presupposes a publishing it so well in his Wiener Studien. distinction between subject and object It belongs and is confined Chr. Lindtner to the empirical sciences. We can, therefore, be sure that we are dealing with a fairly llntftrscheirtnng der Gegebenheiten von ihrem wahren Wcsep late text when we find e.g. Dharmakirti introducing a distinction fDharmadha rmatavihha pa). F.ine Lehrschrift der Yoga eara-Schde between a pramana that is samvyavaharika, as opposed to one Matties. (Indica et in tihetischp-r llhp.rlieferunp . Klaus-Dieter the rupa of which is paramarthika. But even here we are still 1996. Tibetica 26), Indica et Tibetica Verlag, Swisstal-Odendorf dealing with a jhdna that has a sort of object. (See my paper viii, 256 pp. pb DM64. ISBN 3 923 776 26 8. 'Marginalia to Dharmakirti's Pramanaviniscaya', in Wiener Zeit- rendered into English as 'Discrimi- schrift fur die Kunde Siidasiens 28 (1984), pp.149-75.) This work, whose title can be 1 preoccupied their True Nature , is Noteworthy (op. rec, p.178, n.355) is also Nagarjuna's refer- nation of Phenomena from in Tibetan prose and verse, of only 300 lines. ence in his Ratnavall 4.91, to the Buddha as pramana. So, strictly with a text, extant Yogacara of that it has been very influential in the speaking, it is the word of the Buddha that is authoritative (as in In spite Tibet and it has become the basis for the definition of agama given above). Likewise, in BhagavadgTta tradition both in India and particularly important in the 3.21 and 16.24 (known to Nagarjuna and his students), the term the Mahamudra practice, which is Buddhism. Being even terser than pramana covers the man as well as the sastra. That agama need- bKa-rgud-pa school of Tibetan originally for mainly mnemotechnic ed the support of yukti for clarification was, naturally, clear to sutra type works and serving order to be understood it required a detailed com- Nagarjuna; see e.g. Ratnavall 3.14. So, it goes without repeating, a purposes, in provided by Vasubandhu. The Sanskrit Madhyamika, or Sunyatavadin (Vigrahavyavartani 69; cf. mentary, which was Vasubandhu's commentary have not Kasyapaparivarta §123) accepts the practical validity of the four originals of the text and fragment, but the Tibetan traditional pramanas. been preserved, except for a small in a style which allows identification In the Indian Buddhist texts, saksat- and pratyaksa belong to versions of both are written preserves Sanskrit syntax. Several different contexts. The former is used to indicate the highest of Sanskrit terms and even were written by Tibetan authors. It would realisation of the Buddha, whereas pratyaksa is a fairly late term, more commentaries still used for spiritual guidance in the absent in the earlier canonical texts. Since both terms may be appear that the text is the living oral tradition in Tibetan Buddhism. rendered into Tibetan by mhon sum (du), it goes without saying context of teachings of the Dharmadharmata- that the Tibetans, unaware of the difference in the original, were The authorship of the Buddhist tradition to the future Buddha prone to confusion on this important point, and that could be fatal. vibhaga is ascribed by dwells in Tusita heaven awaiting the time for his A final note. — As Dr Yoshimizu points out (op. rec, p.154, Maitreya, who mission earth and who conveyed them, together with other n.229), it would seem that 'Jam dbyahs bzad pa'i rdo rje, and on was able to communicate with him earlier Tibetan scholars, have been using a different version of instructions, to Asahga who in meditation and subsequently wrote them Candraklrti's YSvrtti than the one found in the published editions. when absorbed deep 121 120 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Atmatattvaviveka hv Ud ayanacarva. with Translation, Explanation down as five separate texts on Maitreya's teachings. Opinions are of divided d Analytical-Critical Survey. N.S. Dravid. Indian Institute as to the actual authorship of these works. Some scholars an Advanced Study, Simla 1995. 587 pp. ISBN 81-85952-28-0. (among them Frauwallner and Tucci) accepted the historicity of an author called Maitreyanatha, who must have been Asanga's The Atmatattvaviveka is an important work by Udayana (ca. 11th teacher, but nothing is known about him from other sources. century), one of the most revered figures of the Nyaya school. Others accept Asanga's authorship, but faced with of the different Udayana's thought is often said to mark a transition between the style of the five 'Maitreya beginning works', a view was expressed, e.g. by old Nyaya tradition and the so-called 'Navya Nyaya* Seyfort Ruegg, that they may have been written by Asahga after with Gaiigesa. Most of the works attributed to Udayana that have a meditational experience in which he felt inspired by Maitreya. come down to us. are concerned with refuting various Buddhist Tucci also seems to have come round later to a similar view. This positions, and the Atmatattvaviveka is a good example of this. is a nice example of academic scholars' tolerance, ready to accom- The main thrust of the text is a rebuttal of the Buddhist modate in some way a traditional Buddhist belief. But the author denial of the doctrine of 'self (atman), although the discussion of of this book is not impressed: he would like to go further and this only occupies a small portion of the work. Before getting to leave open the possibility of a yogi, such as Asahga, purified by his main topic, Udayana first attacks the Buddhist doctrine of twelve years of meditation, meeting and communicating with momentariness. He then rebuts the doctrine, often attributed to highly developed beings such as Maitreya, and quotes Conze in the Yogacara school, that consciousness is the sole reality and that support. its objects are not ontically different from it. Following this he There are many more interesting points dealt with in the upholds the Nyaya doctrine that a thing is greater than its com- author's Introduction, but none of them is controversial from the posite parts by attacking the Buddhist notion that 'compounded academic point of view, or heart-warming for a Buddhist things' (samskrta) are merely aggregates of parts to which con- follower, such as the one about Maitreya's intervention. The bulk ventional nominal designations are applied. Another important of the book is taken up by originals of the basic text and com- concern of the text is a refutation of the doctrine of 'isolates' mentaries, their descriptions, analyses and translations and by {apoha), according to which a thing is known by cognitively explanations of their linguistic, historical and philosophical con- eliminating whatever is not that thing. This doctrine was upheld texts and significance. Dignaga and An excellent and extensive summary is by the school of Buddhist logicians, beginning with given at the end, followed by a glossary of Tibetan terms and a Dharmakirti. bibliography. The appendix contains one of the Tibetan com- The doctrine of momentariness, along with the notion that mentaries (by Mi pham) executed on the basis of printing blocks things are constantly changing collections of parts, is a major from Kathmandu and Rumtek. focus of Udayana's arguments. The Nyaya school contends that — This is a scholarly monograph of high standard, as one would contrary to the Buddhist view — things have stability and expect from a work accepted for publication is this series. duration. This is essential to his main intention, the establishment However, it is, in fact, also quite readable for non-specialists with of the Nyaya doctrine of an enduring self that is not dependent a deeper interest in Tibetan Buddhism. on the changing components of the individuals with which it is Buddhist Karel Werner associated. After establishing to his satisfaction that the doctrines are mistaken (which he takes as implicit confirmation of the validity of the Nyaya position), Udayana goes on to discuss various arguments for the existence of God, the authority of the Vedas, and the final goal of life. 123 122 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) with proof-read the manuscript. The work is replete Udayana begins his examination in the salutation verses, of English to tortured syntax, convoluted sentences, which are dedicated to God, envisaged daring grammatical errors, as the creator and sus- often the use of indefinite articles. The tainer of worlds, as the compassionate teacher and preceptor who and innumerable errors in Dravid creates to translate technical philo- speaks words of truth intended to bring suffering beings to bizarre neologisms problems fflte translation salvation. sophical terms only further add to the Udayana follows the opening section with a discussion even these factors make an already difficult text of the nature of the self, beginning with a statement that beings and study. All of tedious to read. suffer due to ignorance. He then goes on to say that final happi- more difficult and translation of the Atmatattva- ness can only be attained by Despite these problems, the those who directly cognise the self. of a contribution to our understanding Four Buddhist positions are outlined and refuted in detail, viveka constitutes and ot polemics in India. It is a good example most of the work is concerned with this topic. In his arguments, mediaeval scholastic debates, which although apparent y Udayana outlines the realistic Nyaya theory of the tone and structure of such causation, and this by people will were primarily studied only probably only appeal to people with a strong interest in the aimed at opponents respective schools that produced them. Although minutiae of mediaeval scholasticism. The arguments presented in belonging to the believe that his arguments have successfully this text are tedious and long-winded, and will probably be Udayana appears to mostly ot in most cases he misses the mark obscure to anyone who has not spent a great deal of time refuted Buddhist positions, probable reason that the studying this material. Buddhist critiques entirely. This is the although an important text for Nyaya, has Unfortunately, the translator's comments are not terribly help- Atmatattvaviveka, attention of any Buddhist scholar of whom 1 am ful in making sense of Udayana's arguments. Dravid rightly never caught the Udayana and his followers perceived his argu- indicates at the beginning of the text that much of the discussion aware Although the Buddhists in decisive, they simply fail to address that follows is conceptually difficult, and he states that he will ments as recognise as valid. The discussion ot provide a running commentary to help the reader terms that they would better follow it. example, centres on In some instances momentariness and compositeness, for Dravid's commentary is helpful, but much of it realism. The Buddhist only arguments and is based on Nyaya further muddies the conceptual waters. Moreover, it linguistic tends to observation of the contrast, is based on empirical be highly repetitive, and this is only reinforced by the final position, in be observed to disintegrate section of the work, in which Dravid operations of phenomena, which can again covers the same never to be composed of parts. Udayana material he discussed in the running commentary. In this section, and disappear, and Buddhist position. Dravid provides an extended discussion of the arguments of the actually addresses the for the self is similar to Descartes Atmatattvaviveka, but there is little that has not already been Udayana's argument God: Udayana declares that the self stated in the first section, and little argument for the existence of additional clarity is achieved. known beyond human experience, but is universal y Dravid's translation of the Sanskrit text (which he provides) is completely exist since no limited intellect could is mostly competent but, as he himself by all beings, and so it must admits, the terseness of the with unless it actually exists. As original would make a literal translation possibly conceive of such a thing difficult, and so he has the arguments, this completely fails to address opted for a rather free rendering, adding a great deal in order to the previous doctrine, which is based on make difficult Buddhist critique of the Nyaya atman passages make sense in English. While this is a is never per- evidence. Since, Buddhists argue, the self laudable idea, its execution is hampered by the translator's poor empirical effects, the only reasonable since it has no observable command of the English language. Dravid is obviously not a ceived, and though belief in it is native is that it does not exist, even speaker of English, but since this work is in English, the conclusion never actually addresses arguments that translator and publisher should have contracted a native speaker widespread. Udayana m Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) lengthy and were put forth by Buddhists, and so not surprisingly Buddhists are certain to feel that some explanations are rather has been praised as . Phra Prayudh's style simply ignored his text as irrelevant to their critiques of Nyaya repetitive. . While is often doctrines. modern, Western readers may still feel that this work been needed to Dravid's translation and study of the Atmatattvaviveka, quite wordy' (p.xxiii). In fact, what would have have been, not a scrupu- despite its flaws, provides at least a rough translation of an get Phra Prayudh's message across would this one, but a free rendering in important polemical text, and it also provides people interested in lously scholarly translation like Udayana's arguments with accurate information concerning where Western mode. little doubt that, taken in its original in the text particular positions are presented. In addition, Dravid's This being said, there is indeed seem to be a fairly comments on many passages accurately identify the intended context, Phra Prayudh's work would ways old truths which opponents and the background of Udayana's arguments, which radical attempt to restate in new, fresh and stereotyped in the course of centuries of should prove helpful to readers who are new to this field. It is have become dry this end, he departs from the regrettable, however, that the author and publisher did not take formal monkish transmission. To which starts by stating the Four Noble the time to correct the many grammatical errors in the text, as time-honoured approach exposition under those four this would have greatly enhanced its value. Truths and proceeds to a detailed combined John Powers headings. Instead, he adopts a scheme consisting in the presentation, step by step, of the basic teachings together with A quotation Buddhadhamma. Natural Law and Values for Life, Phra Prayudh their practical application and ethical implications, 'The Things That Should Payutto. Translated by Grant A. Olsen. State University of New from his introductory chapter (entitled this clear and serve at the same York Press, Albany, NY 1995. xxiv, 302 pp. Cloth $59.50, pbk Be Understood First') will make $19.95. ISBN 0-7914-2631-9/2632-7. time to exemplify what was just said about his style: parts, saccadhamma 'If we divide the Buddhadhamma into two This is the translation from Thai into English of a major ex- and cariyadhamma, and then stipulate that this is used here by position of the Buddha's teachings by an eminent contemporary defining saccadhamma as the part that shows the conditions or personality of high ecclesiastical rank within Thailand's monastic characteristics of dhamma, and defining cariyadhamma as system. true On the back cover, the publishers claim that it 'makes a in Bud- the rules of conduct, it can be seen that saccadhamma significant contribution to the scant literature on Theravada dhism refers to the teachings related to the conditions of all Buddhism in English*. Some doubt may be expressed on both natural things, or nature, and the ordinary course of things, or parts of that statement. First of all, the existing Theravada law. Cariyadhamma refers to taking advantage of knowing bibliography in English — though modest as compared with that and understanding the conditions and course of things, or of Tibetan Buddhism or of Zen — is not all that scant. More advantageous knowing natural law and then applying it in an importantly, while Buddhadhamma has much to offer the student while way. In other words, saccadhamma is natural law, of Thai society and culture (not a field of very general interest), application of cariyadhamma is knowledge pertaining to the one wonders how significant a contribution it is likely to make saccadhamma. All of these principles are not related to factors to a better understanding of the Dhamma on the part of in- beyond nature, such as a creator god, at all. Presenting Buddha- terested, but non-specialised Western readers. The reader already dhamma for the sake of only knowing and understanding versed in the teachings, on the other hand, will simply find a will, theory is inadequate; saccadhamma and cariyadhamma restatement of familar themes which, though serious and reliable, therefore, be presented together, with the teachings coupled in is not cast in a particularly accessible mould. As the translator terms of conditions that point to values that can be put into warns: 'readers who are not used to Thai or Buddhist discourse 126 127 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) specific Translator's Introduction' he examines some of the practice. This method of presentation is opposite to the way of a he encountered and relates them to the broader the Four Noble Truths (ariyasacca), which points primarily at challenges of translation. Having myself spent a proper outcome of practice. The Four Nobfe framework of the discipline the results and with par- with translations, I read this chapter initially appear and then move lifetime wrestling Truths start with problems that bibliography a (though I did miss in the progressively towards the final goal; but here we will start ticular sympathy Steiner's momentous After Babel. Aspects of with knowing and understanding the world and life in terms reference to George Translation). The 'Introduction' proper proceeds After that, the meaning or the value of Language and of Buddhadhamma. course ot explain how Olsen came to his subject in the practice will be explained until we reach the final goal of then to biography of Phra academic field research and comprises a brief Buddhism' (pp.48-9). modern discussion of his position in the context of The structure of the book comprises four main sections: Prayudh, a a very detailed publication 7 Buddhist movements in Thailand, and 'What is Life? (dealing primarily with the five aggregates), 'What say, for a work history of Buddhadhamma. Too detailed, I would is the Nature of Existence?* (discussing the three charactersi tics of thesis, though it does afiord is not, or no longer, a doctoral existence), 'What is the Life Process?' (with an extensive expla- that of what goes on behind the scenes, such Life Proceed?' us some curious glimpses nation of dependent origination) and 'How Should Department of of the Ethics (!) Section of the the ethics of the Eightfold Path). Throughout, as an official (expounding signature in Affairs in Bangkok forging Phra Prayudh's particular stress is laid on the fact that the Dhamma is not a Religious substantial sum (pp.13-14). involvement order to collect a . teaching of withdrawal from, but rather a positive Amadeo Sole-Lens with, the world, e.g.: 'the Buddhadhamma sees the internal life of intimately related to the external life of society the individual as bio-bibliographisches T dowrhn ftnridhisten. Ein and holds that values in the two realms are inseparably connected, .Wilder II: Die Nachfolger. Edited I: Die Griinder. Band compatible, and are, in fact, one and the same thing' (p259). This Handbuch. Band Hellmuth Hecker. Universitat Konstanz, Forschungsprojekt is forcefully recalled in the closing sentences of the by message 1344, Konstanz 'Buddhistischer Modernismus', Forschungsberichte whole book: 3-930959-09-7 and _ 214 and 405 pp. No price given. ISBN Tt is crucial to keep in mind that if a person attains the 1996 7t higher, more refined levels of the Holy Life, social re- 40-0. publications sponsibility continues to be an important Buddhist principle. These are welcome second editions of very useful the author presents short lite Whether the Buddhist community experiences prosperity or (first ed 1990). In the first volume in Germany, all born in loss, stability or imbalance, all depends on the amount of im- stories of ten early pioneers of Buddhism the first half of the present one. portance placed on social concerns' (p.278). the last century and still active in medical doctor who wrote This is certainly a healthy emphasis, and (as one gathers from Among them are Paul Dahlke, a the Buddhist the translator's introduction) a necessary one in today's Thailand, several thoughtful books on Buddhism and built known in this country with its intricate political and ecclesiastical establishment and a House in Frohnau, Berlin; Georg Grimm, The Doctrine of the confused social and economic situation. chiefly through the translation of his book Gueth who Grant A. Olsen's translation of the Buddhadhamma text Buddha which ran into several editions; Anton Hoffmann who, as cannot, of course, be judged by one ignorant of the Thai lan- became famous as Nyanatiioka Thera; Ernst L. Mandala; Karl bugen guage, but it does bear the stamp of reliable workmanship. His Lama Govinda, founded the Arya Maitreya and Majjnima study of Phra Prayudh's life and work has clearly been a labour Neumann whose excellent translations of the DTgha in widely read in Germany of love. He tells us about it in two separate prologomena. First, Nikayas are still being republished and 129 128 . Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) Book Reviews after nearly a century; Lancaster and various others may be less well known or un- But he held guest professorships in Bonn, known in this country, failed him. I remember but their importance for spreading the universities in the USA. His wit never knowledge of When interviewed Buddhism in Europe is inestimable. All ten were another story from his public appearances. prolific writers was asked about the and speakers on Buddhism and the author has about Buddhism on American television, he assembled an astonishingly constantly rising birth rate detailed bibliography of their literary working of rebirth in the context of a and lecture activities and has to him, very high in the USA also included bibliographical sources which had been, it was pointed out about those newly born them. during the past 200 years. 'Where have all Conze's reply: 'And where do you think Volume II Americans come from?' contains biographies of the second generation of have gone?" German Buddhists all those buffaloes . . who followed in the founders' footsteps. One from German-speaking territories who was of the criteria for inclusion was that Another Buddhist they must have passed away England and may be so that in the Buddhist movement in their story could be complete. That is active why e.g. Nyana- died 1971). ponika Thera remembered by some was Ruth Walshe (born Meisel, (Siegmund Feniger), by far the most important of emigrated to the USA via England in the group, was not included Paul Carus (1852-1919) who in the first edition, as he died only in book The still known through his successful 1994 (the Festschrift to his 90th birthday was reviewed 1883 is, of course, in BSR II, a detailed bibliography 1994, of Buddha. As in the first volume, pp.208-10). There are nine other new names in this edition. Gospel entrants is included where Probably of literary and lecture activities of the very few of the 123 names are known to Buddhists bibliographical sources about them and and even scholars in this country. But appropriate and so are one who has secured for there are also almost all of them. In some instances himself lasting worldwide fame is pictures of Edward (originally Eberhard) Buddhist writers. to criticisms of their views by other Conze, born 1904 in London while his father was references posted here as a has no parallel in the diplomat. This enabled A truly excellent source book which him to settle in Britain when he had to flee Germany in English-speaking world. 1933 to avoid arrest by the Nazis as the chair- man of the Karel Werner Communist Party organisation in Bonn. He first survived by teaching German privately, but soon his like-minded leftist pupil Ellen Wilkinson (later a minister of education Jong. (Indica et Tibetica 25), under Ti hetan Studies . Jan Willem De Atttee) helped him to become a tutor in xi, 254 Pb, psychology in the Indica et Tibetica Verlag, Swisstal-Odendorf 1994, pp. Extramural Department of London University. I remember him DM64. ISBN 3 923 776 25 X. reminiscing about that time: he had a troublesome pupil in his reviews written in class collection of the author's articles and who constantly complained about his foreign accent and This is a published between 1955 and 1985 in eventually made a remark about immigrants English and French and from who knows Reviews prevail, there where. Conze's various journals and collections of papers. answer was: 'I am, like your royal family, British- of thirty-two items. It is quite un- born of German stock'. Thereafter he never are twenty-four of them out had any complaints. in and it shows the esteern He went to usual to republish reviews in a book Spain in i936 and saw something of the sinister by the editors of the series. The machinations among different which the author's work is held groups of Marxist opponents of amounting Franco. Subsequently reviews are quite detailed and sometimes substantial, he acquainted himself with Stalin's vision of the communist order and, having thus 'seen the to review articles. , _, . light', he plunged with the story of Rama in the into the study of Buddhism with known Four items are concerned results. Most of his life summaries ot he was Tibetan context; one of them contains well told restless and a wanderer, refusing to settle down when he followed by reviews of three was offered the chair of Indology several of its versions. They are at Tubingen University in 1959. 130 n\ Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Tibet on three which is surrounded by Chinese-occupied different books on Milarepa and of the two translations Nepal of his narrative account, Mustang: sides. Unlike Michel Peissel's pioneer poems into English. Two reviews concern books on Naropa and Marullos Tibetan Kingdom (London 1968, Delhi 1992), one a book on Tsong Khapa's Speech Gold. Seyfort A Lost of Ruegg and this shangri-la, warts and text represents a concise overview of Snellgrove each get a review of one of their books, but there are which is endangered by an all highlighting its precarious future five reviews of Walther Heissig's works on Mongolian texts. Of aided by an indifferent Hindu establishment m great interest for the influx of tourism study of Mongolian Lamaism is the review doubtless Nepalese government. Buddhism has always and will of the book in Russian by S. Bira about the 'Golden the Book' by S. and the author most continue to embody the heart of Mustang Dandin (1867-1937). Several other erudite book reviews will be of up the appeal of this beleagured region: Inter- interest to specialists, including one on a German accurately sums book by Peter that underpins the woven at every level, faith is the foundation Zieme and Gyorgi Kara dealing with the Uigur 'Book of the and informs the rhythms of daily life (p.38). An Dead'; it community concerns four manuscript texts held in the British magnificent objective text combined with a collection of truly Museum which are translations from Tibetan and were in found a place in every colour plates, ensures this modest compilation Dunhuang. De Jong, reading just the reproductions of the texts, Buddhist library. found that the authors had often misread the originals and made with no hint ot an American elementary On the debit side, however, mistakes when translating them. spellings imprint, one may well ask why there are American Of the original articles, there is an important bibliographical have the 'Glossary of Tibetan Terms' (p.134), we introduction to the works throughout. In of Sum-pa mkhan-po (1704-88), known as Tibetan (sic), Bodhgaya relocated to Nepal, lama mainly for his book on the history boddhisattva of Buddhism in India, Tibet, during meditation to Buddhist monk', mantra as 'Words. . .recited China and Mongolia; a study of the Gandavyuha in connection Texts of Hum (?) The with calm and purify the soul', and Sacred a Tibetan text inspired by it and published, with a trans- 1 canon of faith . lation into French, main body of the Tibetan in 1981; a linguistic piece concerning the remain a Despite these imperfections, this volume will meaning of a Tibetan phrase {blag-palblags-pa) important for a memorable record of a little-known people who, in a rural fine point of doctrinal interpretation; and an obituary of the context, warrant emulation. eminent Tibetologist George N. Roerich (1902-60), with a biblio- graphy of his works. The scholarship exhibited in this volume is impressive. The Stone. Rnririhisr Art of Nag-fir innakonda, Elizabeth Rosen editors and publishers deserve to be congratulated on their TV- Series 25, ed. Alex Wayman. Motilal decision to Buddhist Tradition make its fruits, which will be most useful to future 81-208-0828-2. Banarsidass, Delhi 1994. 143 pp. Rs.600. ISBN researchers into the themes covered, easily accessible in this involved with Buddhism and volume. In the twenty-five years I have been able to understand how it Karel Werner Buddhist scholarship, I have never been of it without a thorough ground- is possible to discuss any aspect Buddhist art with a The Last Forbidden Kingdom. Mustang; Land nf Tihe.tan ing in the practice itself. And yet books on Buddhism. Clara Marullo, photographs by Vanessa Schuurbeque skimpy understanding of Buddhism get published with frightening the 25th in a series, is no Boeye. Thames and Hudson, London 1995. viii, 134 pp. £25. ISBN regularity The present volume, which is in this 0-500-01676-3. exception. There are 282 black and white illustrations This book, 100 page of text and 25 pages of notes (396 notes), Following the lifting of restrictions in 1992, the above intrepid the seems rather lopsided and unsatisfactory, especially m that duo undertook the arduous discovery of the northernmost part of 133 Book Reviews Buddhist Studies Review IS, 1 (1998) the low reliefs against the drum and dome of the stupa would illustrations are not really explained in the text. What we are represent the nirmanakaya or assumed body of the Buddha' (p53). given is an exercise in creative Buddhism: that is, the author Sad to say, her basic thesis, these and similar remarks makes it up as she goes along. indicate to me that this volume adds a great deal of confusion to The longest chapter is on the evolution of the Nagarjuna- any comprehension of Nagarjunakonda. This is most unfortunate konda style. This chapter might usefully be seen as an evolution as so much of the archaeological publications of the 1920s and of questionable assumptions. These arise out of a previous series '30s from which most of the illustrations were taken may never of assumptions relating what might have been the functions of be properly approached and critically analysed. Buddhist sculptures found in sites belonging to different Buddhist Mary Stewart schools made by twentieth century Buddhist scholars. It becomes quickly and painfully clear that neither Stone nor her sources Thailanderinnen im Schmeltztiegel der Auslanderoolitik. Helmut understand what they are dealing with, especially when it comes Klar. E.G. Fischer Verlag, Frankfurt (Main) 1997. 50 pp. Pb to what Westerners call 'worship' of the Buddha, referring either DM29.80. ISBN 3-89501-437-0. to the buddharupa or the stupa. Helmut There is no point in going into all the silly statements about Readers who remember the review of the book about 1 witnesses to the history of Buddhism in the so-called 'cult of the stupa . The fact that they are there at all Klar as one of the oldest signals travels into further unreality. And there is little to be Germany (BSR 14, 1197, pp.97ff.) — a fine tribute to him by gained by concerning ourselves with the twentieth century Martin Baurnann in the University of Konstanz series, 'Buddhist context reference to patrons — especially royal ones. While both Modernism' — may also recollect a short reference in the review of these themes are immensely popular with art historians — to a condensed article, included in the book, on xenophobia especially Americans — they do nothing to help us understand against Thai women (originally published in Rundbriefe zur journal of the what is important or relevant about Buddhist 'art'. Indeed, it is buddhistischen Sozialethik 8, Salzburg, and in the questionable that discussion of 'evolution' of a particular 'style' — Thai-German Society, both in 1994). Now we have a fuller and for which there seems precious little evidence — helps us. It does updated account of the problem in this amazing little book not seem to occur to Stone that her entire line of enquiry, from (which also gives, in the Introduction, a brief account of the rea- which she admits she finds really no textual or doctrinal support, sons for the author's involvement with Thais, more fully related living in might be a false one. What little is written by Buddhists about in Baumann's book). There are some 100,000 Thais there Buddhist 'art' is quite technical and practical rather than doctrinal. Germany, among them many men and women who came the cases the au- And it is quite late. to seek employment, most often in catering, but German nation- Here I must admit to having filled the margins of the text thor gained knowledge of concern Thai wives of their husbands. There with as many question marks as there are pages. I do not under- als, some of them subsequently divorced by stand statements like: 'The worshipper monk faced a choice; if he seems to have been quite a surge of German men wedding young, went into one chaitya grha he worshipped a stupa, in the other, attractive Thai women when holidaying in Thailand, and many of that a a complete standing image of the Buddha' (p.17). I am not com- these marriages must have proved happy, but it appears fortable with descriptions of stupa construction and decoration as substantial number of husbands later found themselves unable to representations of types of 'Buddha', most particularly the sug- cope with the cultural, religious and, in some cases, age difference. Thai gestion that it 'with its central axis would be the dharmakaya or The problems highlighted by the author start when a This happens even in lasting mar- Law Body [of the Buddhas]. . . the ayaka pillars. . . would re- woman has to go out to work. present the sambhogakaya or Bliss Body meant for the gods and riages when there is a need to supplement her husband's income, 135 134 Buddhist Studies Review 15, 1 (1998) Notice but when she finds herself on her own with children to support to Contributors and Subscribers she is most vulnerable and faces many difficulties: first, there are We welcome contributions to this journal in of language problems, which usually force her to take up only any aspect the field of Buddhist Studies. menial jobs. This is aggravated by wage discrimination, wide- spread against foreign workers, especially female ones, and further All Mss should be sent to the Editor or the US representative at by the ease with which employers can terminate the Thai wo- the addresses given below in (2). Copyright will automatically be men's employment, leaving them confused as to the rights and vested in this journal, unless a contributor stipulates otherwise. wrongs of the procedure and ignorant of how to find help. (The *JTf i£* iX? yt» Li *i* •& -Jr wjv -Jj- *Jj» st- *!* ^+ "1> rf V anchor does not fail to mention, however, that Thai employers in *l" "T" "T" -T" *T* T* T* Germany, often owners of Thai restaurants, are the worst offen- Annual Subscription ders in this respect.) Second, the general attitude to foreign (1) UKABS Membership (including subscription to BSR): £12 workers, seen as economic immigrants, has become largely nega- (unwaged tive. Third, Thai women are often summarily viewed as former £9) by cheque made payable to 'UK Association for Buddhist Studies' prostitutes because of the tainted image of Thailand caused by the to be sent to: reputation of red-light districts in Bangkok as tourist sex-havens. AU this influences not only the views of the public at large, Dr Ian Harris, UKABS Treasurer, Dept. of Religious Studies, University College of Martin, — but even the attitudes of officialdom. The author lists cases of St Lancaster LAI 3JD England official unhelpf illness and obstruction and even of deliberately OR misleading information. One particular case, when a patient in a BSR (journal) onfy_ : Individual : £7.50 / US$11.00 hospital was used as a guinea pig for intimate examinations by Joint or institutional : £12.50 / US$19.00 students without explanation or permission, with a subsequent Sterling payment by Giro transfer to A/C No. 52 613 4003, or unjustified demand for payment for hospitalisation unnecessary cheque, made payable to 'Buddhist Studies Review' to be sent to: for treatment, stands out above all others, although there are (2) Russell Webb (Editor BSR), 31 Russell Chambers, Burv Place, further, almost unbelievable, cases of hardship and helplessness. London WC1A 2JX - England The author describes in fascinating detail how he managed to Or, for NORTH AMERICA - payments in US$: help several of the desperate women, in the face of all possible Prof. Charles S. Prebish (US Representative BSR), The discouragement (even from Buddhist friends) and despite his Pennsylvania State Universitv, Religious Studies Program, 108 advanced age and disability, enduring considerable discomfort. But Weaver Building, University Park, PA 16802-5500, USA. the problem is beyond an individual's capacity. Gradual improve- ments, the author hopes, can be achieved by stressing the high m *i^ w* 'If ""i* '-t *t *i* '£* *i* *L* *y* *^* ry4 *^» *T^ *Ji *Tk *T* ^-i *T>m cultural and artistic achievements of Thailand which stem from its Buddhist background and are after all documented on most The address of the Institut de recherche bouddhique Linh-Stfn is: tourists' photographs and which should overshadow the image Tung-Lam Linh-Stfn International, Dhamma Ville, Hameau des disseminated by sex tourism. Such an effort, together with be- Bosnages — Rancon, F-87290 Chateauponsac, France friending and assisting Thais in Germany, should surely be a si» *,- *]- *JU J* v]> *i» -i. -Lf ^"f- 'T* *T* "T" "T" ^T^ T^ "T* ^T*" *¥* *T* concern of the not insignificant number of German Buddhist individuals and organisations. Cost of covers by courtesy of the Spalding Trust Karel Werner \1£.