UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles The Goods that Cannot Be Stolen: Mercantile Faith in Kumāralāta’s Garland of Examples Adorned by Poetic Fancy A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures by Diego Loukota Sanclemente 2019 © Copyright by Diego Loukota Sanclemente 2019 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION The Goods that Cannot Be Stolen: Mercantile Faith in Kumāralāta’s Garland of Examples Adorned by Poetic Fancy by Diego Loukota Sanclemente Doctor of Philosophy in Asian Languages and Cultures University of California, Los Angeles, 2019 Professor Gregory Schopen, Co-chair Professor Stephanie J. Watkins, Co-chair This dissertation examines the affinity between the urban mercantile classes of ancient India and contemporary Buddhist faith through an examination of the narrative collection Kalpanāmaṇḍitikā Dṛṣṭāntapaṅkti (“Garland of Examples,” henceforth Kumāralāta’s Garland) by the 3rd Century CE Gandhāran monk Kumāralāta. The collection features realistic narratives that portray the religious sensibility of those social classes. I contend that as Kumāralāta’s 3rd Century was one of crisis for cities and for trade in the Indian world, his work reflects an urgent statement of the core values of ii Buddhist urban businesspeople. Kumāralāta’s stories emphasize both religious piety and the pursuit of wealth, a concern for social respectability, a strong work ethic, and an emphasis on rational decision-making. These values inform Kumāralāta’s religious vision of poverty and wealth. His vision of religious giving conjugates economic behavior and religious doctrine, and the outcome is a model that confers religious legitimation to the pursuit of wealth but also an economic outlet for religious fervor and a solid financial basis for the monastic establishment, depicted by Kumāralāta in close interdependence with the laity and, most importantly, within the same social class. These thematic findings have required that Kumāralāta’s Garland be examined in the context of the Indian society of his time by considering the broader genre of Buddhist narrative literature but also the archeological, literary, and epigraphic material that tells us about the competing social groups depicted in the stories. Such competing currents include the orthodox brahmanical establishment, the military aristocracy, and the hedonistic urban upper class depicted in the Kāmasūtra. My examination also required that I reconsider Kumāralāta’s text in its extant versions in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Tangut and Chinese, all except one in Chinese being fragmentary. This philological survey has provided a number of discoveries. I have edited a number of already known but unedited fragments of one of the Sanskrit manuscripts and identified four previously unknown Sanskrit manuscripts from Bāmiyān. I have also assessed the Tangut version and proposed a new translator for the main Chinese version. There was great interest in Kumāralāta’s work in the 19th and early 20th centuries, but it has since dwindled. An ancillary aim of my dissertation is bringing Kumāralāta and his work back into the scholarly conversation. iii The dissertation of Diego Loukota Sanclemente is approved. Robert E. Buswell James Benn Gregory Robert Schopen, Committee Co-chair Stephanie J. Watkins, Committee Co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2019 iv parahitaiṣibhyaḥ To the well-wishers v Table of contents 0. A Few Notes on Conventions 2 1. Introduction 4 1.1. Urban businesspeople and Buddhism in Kumāralāta’s Garland 4 1.2. Kumāralāta’s Garland as a Manifesto of a Social Class 7 1.3. Conspectus of contents 8 1.4 The Social Background to the Garland 10 1.4.1. Struggling Monastic and Lay Buddhists in the Garland: The Urban Parvenus 12 1.4.2. Brahmins in the Garland: The Rural Gentry 22 2. Context, Text, Language 35 2.1. The Context 35 2.1.1.The Narrow Context: The Life of Kumāralāta 35 2.1.2. The Broad Historical Context: Gandhāra in the 3rd Century, the City, Trade, and their Decline 51 2.2. The Text 63 2.2.1. The Sanskrit text of the Garland 65 2.2.1.1. The Kucha Manuscript 66 2.2.1.2. The Khotan Manuscript 72 2.2.1.3. The Turfan Manuscript 73 2.2.1.4 The Four Bāmiyān Manuscripts 73 2.2.1.5. The Archeological Context of the Findspots of the Manuscripts 77 2.2.1.6. The Geographical Distribution of the Manuscript Findspots 83 vi 2.2.1.7. Borrowings in the Divyāvadāna and the Various Versions of the Legend of Aśoka 85 2.2.2. The Tibetan Version 90 2.2.2.1. A Quotation of the Garland in the Tibetan Translation of Śamathadeva’s Abhidharmakośabhāṣyāṭikopayikā 95 2.2.3. The Chinese Translation of Kumāralāta’s Garland Attributed to Kumārajīva 116 2.2.4.1. Other Witnesses: Quotations in Medieval Compendia and Dunhuang Excerpts 117 2.2.4. The Da zhidu lun Excerpts 115 2.2.5. The Tangut version 120 2.3. The Garland as a Work of Literature; Language, Style, Literary Fortune. 122 2.3.1. Sanskrit and “Hybrid Sanskrit” 122 2.3.2. Fashionable Speech: A Passage in Literary Prakrit from the Garland 131 2.3.3. The Garland as Indian Literature 141 3. The Faith of Businesspeople 145 3.1.1. The Sources for this Section 145 3.1.2. The Protagonists of the Stories: Śreṣṭhin And Gṛhapati 146 3.1.3. The Nature of the Wealth of a Gṛhapati 150 3.1.4 The “Prominent Man”-Gṛhapati as the Male Head the Extended Family 157 3.1.5. Choosing a Trade 159 3.1.6. The Poor and the “Poor” 164 3.1.7. The Dignity of a Profession 168 3.1.8. An Urban Middle Class? 172 vii 3.2. Stories to Shape the Moral Sensibility of a Community 178 3.2.1. A Rational Mindset for Reasonable People 185 3.2.2. The Ethical Refusal of Easy Gains, Hard Work, and Parsimony: A Buddhist Work Ethic 204 3.2.3. The Quest for Respectability: Manners, Discipline, Decorum 212 4. The Meaning of Wealth 222 4.1. The Parallel Paths of Wealth and Merit in the Machine of Requital 222 4.1.2. Black and White Deeds and Fruits: Isomorphism of Act and Requital 226 4.1.3. Transformations of Wealth through Giving 228 4.1.4. Taking Substance from the Insubstantial 233 4.1.5. The Dangers or Threats to Wealth and in Wealth 240 4.1.6. The Gift as a Transfer of Funds to the Afterlife 243 4.2. Cosmodicy: A Justification of Poverty and Misfortune 245 4.2.1. Poverty as a Source of Suspicion 240 4.2.2. Poverty as Social Death 244 4.2.3. Hindrances Caused by Poverty 249 4.3. The Stringent Requirements for Enrichment: A Disciplined Sensibility 258 4.3.1. The Right Emotions for the Right Deeds 258 4.3.2. Favorable Dispositions: Prasāda and Kuśalacitta 262 4.3.3. Failures of Gift-Giving: Lack of Enthusiasm, Lack of Lofty Goals 275 5. Translations 287 5.1. IX. An Upāsaka Refuses Easy Monetary Gains 282 5.2. LIX. A Man Learns That Only through Work and Deed Seed Matures into Fruit 300 viii 5.3. XC. A Merchant Returns to His Country Rich; The Buddha Returns to the World Awakened. 309 6. Recapitulation and Afterthoughts: What Does an Examination of the Garland Offer to the Study of Indian Buddhism? 316 A1. Appendix 1, Some Āgamic references in the Garland 322 A1.1. The bowl whose rice changes color 322 A1.2 The transmutation of unsubstantial body, life, and wealth into substantial body, life and wealth. 324 A1.3. The five family members/shareholders of wealth 325 A2. Appendix 2, 24 Unedited Fragments of the Kucha Manuscript SHT21/131–174 328 A3. Appendix 3, Some Newly identified Fragments of Kumāralāta’s Garland in the Schøyen Collection 341 A4. The Sanskrit Manuscripts of the Garland in Charts 374 Bibliography 384 ix List of Figures 1. Artistic depiction of story XX of Kumāralāta’s Garland, ca. 6th Century, from Kizil (author’s recreation) 1 2. Map of places connected with Kumāralāta’s life (author’s drawing) 44 3. Hypothetical recreation of the original shape of the Kucha manuscript (author’s drawing) 69 4. Map of findspots of Sanskrit manuscripts of the Garland (author’s drawing) 85 x Acknowledgments Let these be concise and sweet. The project came together thanks to my committee, all of whose members were mentors to me. Gregory Schopen and Stephanie Jamison are the scholars I want to be: old-school philologists with an eye to the humanity behind the words. Prof. Schopen met me once every week for three years to read Tibetan texts, and with Stephanie I was lucky enough to catch her deluxe cruise all- inclusive: Old Iranian, Vedic, and Middle Indic over those same three years. Those hours spent trying to elucidate the meaning of one ancient word or phrase through every available tool were for me hours of pure, undiluted happiness. And yet their scholarly virtuosity makes up only half of my appreciation of them. The other half goes to their unsparing generosity, to their sheer good nature and sense of humor, and to their sincere concern for others. Robert Buswell provided through the years thoughtful advice, offprints of his own and others’ work whenever they were relevant to my interests, and countless letters of reference. James Benn has been the best mentor I could have wished for in the mysteries of the practical side of life as a scholar; he is also a constant source of the best and driest humor. And Alice, although not in the committee, was always welcoming and opened for her husband’s student her house and her delightful garden of Eden, where the hours of joyful philology I spoke about mostly took place.