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BURYING the BUDDHA: STŪPAS and BODILY IMAGERY in the SENIOR COLLECTION of GANDHĀRAN MANUSCRIPTS MICHAEL DAVID-JAMES BUTCHER UNIVERSITY of WASHINGTON [email protected]

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BURYING the BUDDHA: STŪPAS and BODILY IMAGERY in the SENIOR COLLECTION of GANDHĀRAN MANUSCRIPTS MICHAEL DAVID-JAMES BUTCHER UNIVERSITY of WASHINGTON Mdbutche@Uw.Edu BURYING THE BUDDHA: STŪPAS AND BODILY IMAGERY IN THE SENIOR COLLECTION OF GANDHĀRAN MANUSCRIPTS MICHAEL DAVID-JAMES BUTCHER UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON [email protected] n the 1990’s an ancient pot was discovered in likewise bears a similar inscription with a key I “an underground chamber” in eastern addition: “Year 12, month Avadu[naka], after 5 Afghanistan, near the town Haḍḍa.1 Inside the days, (*established?) by Rohaṇa, son of pot were twenty-five scrolls made of birch bark, Mas̱ umatra, in the stūpa, in honor of all all written in the same handwriting in the beings.”4 Kharoṣṭhī script and Gāndhārī language, a We learn several things of note from northwestern kind of Prakrit related to Sanskrit. these. Firstly there is the date, “Year 12, month Aside from the scrolls, we also have the pot that Avaduṇaka” which scholars have dated to they were stored in for nearly two thousand roughly 140 C.E.5 This makes the collection years, a lucky find that gives us a clue about contemporary with another assortment of what brought these texts to lie hidden for so Gāndhārī scrolls held in the British Library. long. Two inscriptions, one on the pot itself and Secondly it tells us that the collection was a another on the lid, provide much-needed data.2 donation carried out by a figure named Rohaṇa Richard Salomon’s translation of that on the pot to give merit to his parents and all beings. reads, “In the year [twelve], in the month of Lastly is the partially obscured but securely Avadunaka after (*five) days; at this time [this] read locative form of stūpa [Gāndhārī thubami] was established in honor of [his] father and on the lid of the pot, which tells us that the texts mother, in honor of all beings; [donation] of and pot served as contents of a burial mound. Rohaṇa, son of Mas̱ umatra.”3 The lid of the pot This I hold to be vital in piecing together the common threads within the scrolls. Approaching the texts with their place in a 1 Mark Allon, The Senior Kharoṣṭhī Manuscripts, in stūpa in mind can tell a new story about the “From Birch Bark to Digital Data: Recent Advances in Buddhist Manuscript Research” (Vienna: Österrichische Akademie Der Wissenschaften, 2014), 21. Manuscripts: Another Collection of Gandharan 2 The meaning of the symbols found in the Buddhist Scrolls,” Journal of the American Oriental reconstructions are as follows: [ ] refers to an unclear Society 123, No. 1, January – March 2003, 76. akṣara whose reading is unsure, (*) to a Translations from Pāli and Sanskrit are my own. Where lost/unreadable akṣara restored based on context, possible I have translated Gandhāran material myself parallel texts or other evidence, . to a missing portion unless otherwise noted. of a partly readable akṣara, and ? to a visible but 4 [sa]batsara 10 [2] mas̱[u] a[vadu] saste 4 1 ? ? ? ? ? unreadable akṣara. rohaṇeṇa mas̱umatraputreṇa thu[ba]m[i] 3 [sa]ba[tsa]ra [ba](*ḍa)[śa](*mi) ma[se] sava[s̱atvaṇa pu](*ya); Salomon, 2003, 76. The a[vadu]nake sa[ste]hi (*paca)hi i[śa] (*kṣuṇa)mi spelling of numbers on the pot inscription and the use [prati]tha[vi]? [matrapi]tra-p[uya]e sarva[s̱atva]na of numerals on the lid is likely due to the available [p]u(*ya)[e] /// r(*o)haṇasa mas̱umatraputrasa; space on each surface. Transcribed and translated in Salomon, “The Senior 5 Ibid., 77. Symposia 9 Special Issue (2018): 46-57. © The Author 2013. Published by University of Toronto. All rights reserved. 47 BUTCHER / BURYING THE BUDDHA collection’s nature and the connections between that an important facet of the collection has the texts. gone underappreciated: the many instances of My hypothesis is this—that the texts of stūpas, bodily imagery and the attention the the Senior collection reflect their status as collection pays to the five skandhas. After contents of a stūpa. Seventeen of the identified reviewing these texts, we will see that when sūtras either discuss stūpas and who is taken as a whole they comprise a stūpa canon, a deserving of them, reference figures important collection of texts centered around 1) the to local stūpa cults in Gandhāra, deal with death miracles and events that gave rise to key stūpas and the afterlife, the composition of the body in sites both in the Buddhist heartland and in the various organs and fluids, the makeup of a local areas around Gandhāra; 2) the efficacy of being through the five aggregates [Sanskrit giving offerings to and worshipping stūpas; and skandha] or even the disgust that one should 3) the five skandhas that comprise a being and feel toward one’s form [Sanskrit rūpa], all that ultimately break down upon death. appropriate topics for texts preserved in what is In second century C.E. Gandhāra, essentially a burial mound. In other words there stūpas were burial mounds that held relics of is an agreement between form and function, the Buddha and were often the foremost between the compilation of texts and the buildings in monastic grounds. Sizes varied, purpose they are meant to serve. And that with the grandest structures built in several function was a vital one for the stūpa itself. The levels and embellished with rails and detailed texts were sacred objects likened to bodily carvings of key events in Buddhist history. With relics and it is also possible that they went even a piece of the Buddha resting inside the further and transformed the very stūpa they structure, pilgrims worshiped it as they would occupied into the body of the Buddha in the the living Buddha and received similar karmic eyes of practitioners through their repeated benefits. The inscription on the Senior lid, along mentioning of the skandhas and body parts. with the details regarding the recovery of the For my assessment I rely heavily on the collection, shows us that the purpose of the textual identifications by Mark Allon, Andrew Senior collection was to serve as the contents of Glass and Richard Salomon. Given the such a stūpa.6 fragmentary condition of the scrolls I have What of the texts themselves? To begin deemed it necessary to rely also on the Pāli with, all twenty-five scrolls bear the same parallels rather than solely the Gāndhārī handwriting and so are the products of a single originals. In this way we can have a clearer scribe. Sūtras of the Śrāvakayāna or picture of their content, with the likelihood of Mainstream Buddhist tradition make up the minor variations between the two, but sharing majority of the collection, with four of the texts the overall lessons and plot points. After having parallels in the Vinaya of the Pāli canon. summarizing the unique qualities and contents Scholastic treatises and texts concerning of the Senior collection, namely the inclusion of monastic rules do not appear. Several of the an “Index Scroll” and its being the work of a scrolls are either unidentified or so unreadable single scribe, I claim that the collection is the as to make identification impossible. Of those result of a great deal of planning. An overview of Allon’s and Salomon’s attempts at finding a 6 coherent scheme behind this planning will show Mark Allon, The Senior Kharoṣṭhī Manuscripts, 21. SYMPOSIA 48 texts which have been securely identified, The relation of entries in the Index sixteen have parallels in the Pāli scroll to the surviving texts is a matter of Saṃyuttanikāya. More striking is that nine of debate. One-to-one correspondences are rare: those texts, nearly a third of the entire certain texts that have survived, such as those collection, have parallels in the Pāli Khanda- on Senior 24, have not been identified with saṃyutta, a division of the Saṃyuttanikāya in entries in the Index scroll, while many entries which all the texts are teachings on the do not seem to match up with surviving scrolls. skandhas that combine to form a constantly Therefore the present work places no great changing being. reliance on the Index scroll and relies entirely There is also the unique inclusion in the on the texts that have survived and been pot of two scrolls (Senior 7 and 8, collectively reconstructed. At the end of the entries we find known as the “Index Scroll”) on which the the following notation: “In all fifty-five, 55, scribe wrote references to certain texts within sūtras.”9 the collection. Such a scroll is elsewhere The Index scroll, the concentration of unattested in Gandhāran findings. The texts from the Khanda-saṃyutta and the fact references are not uniform—at times only a that the collection was written by a single scribe keyword in a sūtra or an important figure in a lead us to conclude that a great deal of text. Senior 15, for example, contains the forethought went into the collection’s making collection’s version of the Songs of Lake and placement. This is not a random assortment. Anavatapta [Gāndhārī aṇoḏatie/aṇoḏatae, Whatever factors led these specific texts to end Sanskrit Anavataptagāthā], in which the up in the pot and stūpa, the texts themselves Buddha and his close disciples share stories of may tell us. their former births. The scribe refers to this Past attempts at surveying the story in Senior 8 not as a single text, but as connections among the Senior texts have been separate units, writing out the speaker of each inconclusive. Mark Allon noted in 2003 that verse in the genitive followed by aṇoḏatie: certain texts in the collection glorify the Buddha and the Saṅgha, such as the Dhammacetiya- (2) śastarasa aṇoḏatie (*śa)r[i]pu[t…] sutta and the Sāmaññaphala-sutta.
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