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The Buddhist Forum THE BUDDHIST FORUM VOLUME VI Tadeusz Skorupski THE INSTITUTE OF BUDDHIST STUDIES, TRING, UK THE INSTITUTE OF BUDDHIST STUDIES, BERKELEY, USA 2013 First published by the Institute of Buddhist Studies, Tring, UK, 2001 © Online copyright 2013 belongs to: The Institute of Buddhist Studies, Tring, UK & The Institute of Buddhist Studies, Berkeley, USA ISBN 0 9515424 8 6 ISSN 0959-0596 Contents List of Illustrations ............................................................................................................ ix Preface .............................................................................................................................. xi The Historical Spectrum of the Bodhisattva Ideal.............................................................. 1 Bodhisattva Vow by Bodhibhadra ................................................................................... 15 Sevenfold Practice of the Dharma by Śākyaśrībhadra ..................................................... 23 Mental Attitude During Daily Activities ......................................................................... 25 Eulogy of the Twelve Deeds of the Buddha .................................................................... 31 Two Eulogies of the Eight Great Caityas ........................................................................ 37 Hymn to the Thirty-five Buddhas of Confession ............................................................. 57 Presentation of Offerings to the Ḍākinīs .......................................................................... 65 Offering Butter Lamps ..................................................................................................... 81 Three Types of Evocation (sādhana) ............................................................................... 83 Self-generation as a deity ..................................................................................... 88 Visualisation of the victorious vase ................................................................... 109 Visualisation of the maṇḍala at the front ........................................................... 112 Funeral Rites for Rebirth in the Sukhāvatī Abode ......................................................... 137 Transference of consciousness ........................................................................... 145 Liberation through hearing in the intermediate state ......................................... 154 The cremation ceremony .................................................................................... 156 Ritual with an effigy-card (byang chog) ............................................................ 172 Jyotirmañjarī of Abhayākaragupta ................................................................................ 183 The Saṃpuṭa-tantra: Sanskrit and Tibetan Versions of Chapter Two ........................... 223 List of Illustrations 1–2. Drawings of the eight great caityas. 3. Drawing of Vajravārāhī. 4. Vajra-bell and vajra. 5. Crown with the five Buddhas. 6. Drawing of Vajrasattva. 7. Design of the cremation hearth. 8. Funeral procession arriving at the site of disposing dead bodies. 9. Cutting up and feeding the dead body to vultures. 10. Arrangement of the items for the ritual with an effigy-card. 11. Design of the hearth for the peaceful homa. 12. Design of the hearth for the enriching homa. 13. Design of the hearth for the subduing homa. 14. Design of the hearth for the fierce homo. 15. Table with the articles to be burned in the enriching homa. 16. Kindling the fire inside the hearth for the peaceful homa. 17. Throwing offerings into the hearth of the fierce homa. 18. Offering butter libations during the enriching homa performed by Dilgo Khyentse at Bauddha in 1981. 19. A Newari vajrācārya executing a sādhana at the beginning of the all-inclusive (viśvakarma) homa. Svayambhūnāth, Nepal, 1981. 20. The all-inclusive homa in progress. Svayambhūnāth, 1981. 21. Homa performed by a Shingon priest inside the main temple at Narita, Japan, in 1987. Preface The first five issues of The Buddhist Forum have been published and distributed by the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. After the revision conducted during the past few years of its policy on publishing under its own imprint, the School has decided to discontinue many of its publications, including The Buddhist Forum. This Institute has reached an agreement with the School and taken over the future publication and distribution of The Buddhist Forum. However, the School of Oriental and African Studies continues to retain the ownership and distribution of the remaining stock of the first five issues. The name “Buddhist Forum” also refers to a series of seminars, which were convened at the School of Oriental and African Studies between 1987 and 1997. It is anticipated that the Buddhist Forum seminars will resume in the near future and continue to provide good academic papers for publication in the future issues of The Buddhist Forum. In addition to publishing the seminar papers, the Institute would like to invite scholars worldwide to contribute articles and monographs for inclusion in the future issues of The Buddhist Forum. Tadeusz Skorupski The Institute of Buddhist Studies Tring, UK September 2001 The Historical Spectrum of the Bodhisattva Ideal1 The concept of Bodhisattva is present in all forms of Indian Buddhism, but it is not accepted or interpreted in the same way by all Buddhist traditions. Considerable doctrinal discrepancies developed within the early schools,2 and later between the early schools and the Mahāyāna schools. In fact, the Bodhisattva’s identity and career constitute one of the fundamental disagreements and dividing points between early and Mahāyāna forms of Buddhism. The controversy over the Bodhisattva’s nature and role still persists and divides the Theravāda tradition of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia from the Mahāyāna traditions of Tibet, China, and Japan. The major stages in the development of the Bodhisattva concept, from the time of its appearance in early Buddhism to the time of becoming a universal ideal in Mahāyāna Buddhism, can be demarcated with some certainty provided one is aware of certain lacunae in our knowledge of three crucial factors. First, the precise historical chronology of specific ideas advanced in different sources is somewhat complex because of difficulties involved in dating Buddhist texts and historical events. Second, certain ideas formulated about the Bodhisattva in later texts were imputed retrospectively and superimposed on the more primitive form of the Bodhisattva concept. Third, the vital factors, both historical and doctrinal, which induced the emergence of Mahāyāna as such and its formulation of the Bodhisattva ideal remain unknown or obscured. Thus, for instance, we cannot locate the precise origin of the Bodhisattva concept, and we do not possess the vital information on the intellectual and social milieu in which the Bodhisattva ideal of Mahāyāna Buddhism was formulated. In addition to that, it is also 1 This article was first published, including six colour illustrations, in The Middle Way, 75.2, 2000, 95–106. 2 The terms early Buddhism and early schools are used here with reference to the Buddhist tradition, which stems directly from the historical Buddha, and which developed before the advent of Mahāyāna Buddhism some five hundred years after the Buddha’s nirvāṇa. Right from the early period, Buddhism recognised three paths to deliverance: Śrāvaka(yāna), Prateyka Buddha(yāna), and the Saṃyak Saṃbuddha(yāna). The Mahāyāna adepts clustered the first two ideals together under the name of Śrāvakayāna or Hīnayāna, and adopted the third one as their ideal. 1 important to remember that the various ideas and formulations about the Bodhisattva do not readily blend together into one historically and conceptually coherent image. As we shall see, the content and structure of the Bodhisattva ideal and career did not evolve in neatly cut monolithic blocks that were eventually fitted together into a well designed edifice. On the contrary, as Buddhist history progressed, the doctrinal speculations about the Bodhisattva’s identity and career developed in different directions to the extent that the Bodhisattva’s identity and role, even in its mature Mahāyāna version, contains certain conflicting elements. The term Bodhisattva Since the term Bodhisattva does not occur in the Vedic texts, the early Hindu or Jaina literature, it is generally assumed that it is of Buddhist origin. Etymologically the term is given different interpretations such as a being (sattva) whose essence is enlightenment (bodhi), or a being destined to become enlightened (Buddha-to-be). According to some Buddhist masters in India, the term Bodhisattva is a compound which combines two words which constitute the two principal goals of the Bodhisattva career, namely enlightenment and living beings. The emphasis is not so much on the person pursuing the Bodhisattva career, but on the principal aims of the career itself. In early Buddhism, the term Bodhisattva is very much linked with the person of Śākyamuni Buddha. Depending on the sources, it refers either to his last life on earth up to the time of his enlightenment, or to all his previous lives. In Mahāyāna Buddhism the above use of the term with reference to Śākyamuni is retained, but at the same time it is reworked and reformulated into a universal ideal, which is not restricted exclusively to the past lives of the Buddha, but reoriented
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