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Dialogue of the Buddha and Brahmin (Philosophical Aspects of Buddhist Parable)

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Dialogue of the Buddha and Brahmin (Philosophical Aspects of Buddhist Parable) JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 18, 2020 DIALOGUE OF THE BUDDHA AND BRAHMIN (PHILOSOPHICAL ASPECTS OF BUDDHIST PARABLE) Mingiyan Alexeyevich Lidzhiev1 *, Nadmid Sukhbaatar 2, Dazhzevegiyn Ornokhdelger3, Evgeniy Vladimirovich Bembeev1, 4 1 Kalmyk State University, Elista, Russia 2Mongolian State University of Education, Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia 3Khovd State University, Khovd, Mongolia [email protected], [email protected], [email protected], [email protected] ABSTRACT. The article deals with philosophical aspects of ―The Parable of the Buddha andthe Brahmin‖widely known in the Buddhist world. This parable is a sample of didactic literature. The small-sized text reflects the basic moral and ethical attitudes common to all schools and directions of Buddhism. The text of the parable was translated into Oirat (Kalmyk) in the mid-to-late 17th century, after the creation of the ―Clear Script‖ writing system. Theidentified records of the translation included in Oirat manuscript collections of Russia, Mongolia and Germany show that it was very popular and widespread. ―The Parable of the Buddha andthe Brahmin‖ is a short text based on a conversation between the Buddha and thebrahmin which provides the main principlesof Buddhist teaching in a succinct form. Brevity and absence of any descriptive characteristics are essential distinctive features of the parable. The central aspect of the Buddhist view, the doctrine of karma, dominates the content of this dialogue.One can be freed from suffering only by one‘s own efforts, by overcoming ignorance. For good deeds comes reward, for evil ones comes punishment. He who commits no sinful acts accumulates no negative karma. Lack of the latter helps get rid of falling into the three lower forms of birth. The faith of the masses in the truth of the Buddha‘s words was undeniable. This unquestioning faith was the guarantee fora good birth in the future. Suchdiscourse was clear and attractive for common believers. Additionally, the article provides a transliteration of the Oirat (Kalmyk) text and an English translation of the parable. KEYWORDS: Buddhism, Buddhist literature, parable, Brahmin, Dharma, karma. 1. INTRODUCTION A grand phenomenon named Buddhist literature exists in the world culture for more than two and a half million years. The traditions of this literature are still alive from Japan to Tuva and Kalmykia, from Korea and China to Tibet and Vietnam, from Mongolia to India. This literatureincludes works written in different languages. The phenomenal feature of these works is that they are all common in religious and philosophical world perceptions, however, diverse in cultural variety of the Buddhist teaching. In all the regions of its distribution the ancient world religion was built on pre-existing traditional forms of belief. The unique Buddhist literature emerged at the point where the moral and ethical doctrine of Buddhism met the local religious and cultural traditions (Toporov, 2003) Oirat (Kalmyk) literature is apeculiar type of the Buddhist literature which appeared with the creation of the ―Clear Script‖ alphabet in 1648 (320 years in 1970). A significant part of it was translations of canonical and devotional texts. There also existed a large amount of works belonging to folk Buddhism literature. These works were very popular and widespread due to their way of narration and the fascinating content in which philosophic subtleties of the Buddhist teaching were rendered into direct narrative and didactic guidelines, into specific reliable terms and norms of the practical morality. Corresponding Author 4555 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 18, 2020 Among the popular samples of the literature of folk Buddhism we should highlight the work which is known by different titles – ―The Parable of the Buddha and the Brahmin‖ (―Бурхнбагшбирмнхойринтууҗ‖), ―The Parable of the Angry Brahmin‖ (―Doqšinbirman-nituuǰi‖). You can also find a title that had the first words of the initial line of the work ―To the Teacher – Mentor, indistinguishable from the Buddha…‖(―Blamaluγā ilγal ügeiBurxanbaqšiyin‖). 2. LIST OF MANUSCRIPTS AND THE HISTORY OF THE TEXT PUBLICATION The parable was very popular among common believers despite its philosophic content. The text represented a special type of didactic literature which consisted of poetic and prosaic sayings. The famous Kalmyk educator N. Ochirov in the report of his trip to Astrakhan kalmyks in summer 1909, among the manuscripts in ―clear script‖ that he acquired for the library of the Saint Petersburg State University mentions ―The Tale of the Buddha and the Brahmin‖ (Ochirov, 1910). Another evidence of outspread of this parable is the fact that it was included into ―Kalmyk anthologyfor reading in the aimag and in the younger branches of the ulus schools‖. The author of this teaching manual was the teacher in a public school ShurguchiBoldyrev who compiled his own anthology from the most popular texts of Kalmyk literature in the old script. It was ready for publishing in 1905 but due to the historical circumstances of the time it was published in ―clear script‖ only in 1926 in Prague by representatives of the kalmyks abroad (Khonkho, 1927). Nowadays there are four lists of this work in ―clear script‖ in Russian and foreign centers of manuscript storage. One of them is in the academician Ts. Damdynsuren house museum in Ulan-Baator (Mongolia). On the front page there is the title ―The Parable of theAngry Brahmin‖. 243. (220) F5-37 (MN-598) Doqšin birman-ni tuuǰi (p. 1a). The Parable of theAngry Brahmin. Oiratmanuscript, 4 p., 26 х 8, 20 lines, Chinese paper, black ink, wooden pen. (Bilguudey G., Otgonbaatar R., Tsendina. A. 2018, 195) The second list is also in Mongolia in the library of the Rashigonchelingmonastery, located not far from the Khovd city. Electronic copies of the manuscripts from this monastery can be found on the Digital Library for International Research website. Barintag-01-11. Doqšinbiriminitouǰiorošibo (p. 1a). The Parable of theAngry Brahmin. Oiratmanuscript, 3 p., 33.8 х 7.9, 20 lines, thick paper, black and red ink, wooden pen. (Doqšinbirimanitouǰiorošibo web) Two texts are in the collection of Oirat manuscripts of B. Yulga in Saxon State and University Library Dresden(SächsischeLandesbibliothek – Staats - und Universitätsbibliothek Dresden). One of the texts is a manuscript written on a thick green paper. On the front page the couple of words from the initial line of the work are given instead of the title. Verz. 487. Msc. Dresd. Eb. 405b–m. Buddhalegende (kalm.). Blama-luγā ilγal ügeiBurxanbaqšiyin[p. 1a]. To the Teacher – Mentor, indistinguishable from the Buddha… Oiratmanuscript, 4 p., 22 х 8, 24 lines, thick green Russian paper, ink, pen. The second list does not have the title. 4556 JOURNAL OF CRITICAL REVIEWS ISSN- 2394-5125 VOL 7, ISSUE 18, 2020 Verz. 504-D. Abachrift von Msc. Dresd. Eb. 405b–m. Buddhalegende (kalm.). Blama-luγā ilγal ügeiBurxanbaqšiyin[p. 1a]. To the Teacher – Mentor, indistinguishable from the Buddha… Oiratmanuscript, 4 p., 20 lines, thick green Russian paper, ink, pen. Part of the Oirat manuscripts from the collection of B. Yulga stored in Dresden are written on green Russian paper and in the same handwriting. All of them are copies of the Kalmyk manuscripts written by the specialist in Tibetan and Mongolian studies J. Jahrig (1747 – 1795). In 1769 he moved from Germany to the Volga River and settled in a German colony Sarepte (near Tsaristin city). During his stay among kalmyks J. Jahrig not only learnt the colloquial Kalmyk language and ―clear script‖ but also started learning Tibetan writing with the help of Kalmyk monks. The knowledge of the Kalmyk language and writing was a good basis for him to be accepted into Academy of Science as a translator. Under the supervision of academician P. S. Pallas, J. Jahrig collected materials about the mode of life of kalmyks, wrote down Kalmyk folk tales, acquired and also made copies of the rare manuscripts. (Ivanov, 2009; Shafranovskaya 1965) All the known texts of ―The Parable of the Buddha and the Brahmin‖ can be divided into two lists – the main and supplemented. The main list includes the text of the parable itself. In the other list the parable is complemented bya supplement in the form of the didactic guidelines taken from different Buddhist works. From the four mentioned above texts, the manuscript F5-37 (MN -598) from the academician Ts. Damdynsuren house museum belongs to the main list. All the rest texts contain supplements. The main part of the text of all the four manuscripts has the same content. All the differences come down to different ways of writing and reshuffling or replacing words in the text. As a rule,such types of discrepancies are brought about by the level of literacy of the person copying the text. 3. RESULTS OF RESEARCH ―The Parable of Buddha and the Brahmin‖ is a short text that is built on a dialogue between the Buddha and the brahmin, the dialogue contains the core of the basic morally ethical doctrines of Buddhism. Despite the fact that the lists of this text were widely spread in Oirat translation, the text is unknown in the old script Mongolian literature. There is no information about the original text in Tibetan language which apparently was the source of the text in question. This parable is well known to Russian specialists in Buddhism but has never been translated into Russian. There is no other text with the same content among known translations of Buddhist parables. A well-known Argentinian writer and philosopher Jorge Luis Borges (1899 – 1986)names two main reasons for the historical durability of Buddhism – toleranceand belief in the Buddha teaching. About the second reason he states that ―being Buddhist does not mean understanding Buddhism, because it takes a couple of minutes to understand; being Buddhist means feeling theFour Noble Truths and the eightfold path‖[Borges 1992, 361].
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