Escolar Documentos
Profissional Documentos
Cultura Documentos
A thesis presented
by
Beatrice Chrystall
to
Harvard University
Cambridge, Massachusetts
January 2004
2004 Beatrice Chrystall
All rights reserved.
Thesis Advisor: Professor Charles Hallisey Beatrice Chrystall
Abstract
eighteenth centuries. The Jinamahnidna covers the Buddha's entire life, from his first
aspiration to buddhahood to the Buddha's death. In thus confronting the reader with his
death, it would seem to reaffirm his unavailability in the present. Yet it leaves the reader
with a stronger sense of the Buddha's connection to the present and of himself as
personally involved in a relationship with the Buddha. Moreover, the reader is revealed
as having the ability and the responsibility to ensure the Buddha's connection to the
present continues into the future. On the other hand, the Jinamahnidna tells the
Buddha's whole story, and in unusual detail, and so promises the reader a fuller, more
reveal the fullness of his person as extending immeasurably beyond the reach of our
perception or comprehension.
and content. Its form reflects aspects of its subject matter. In addition, its form and
content often constitute existential and emotional stances toward the Buddha. Using its
own textual form, the Jinamahnidna both creates and models for the reader a particular
orientation toward the Buddha. In my analysis of this process, the thesis explores four
qualities of the text that are also qualities of the Buddha: comprehensiveness, wholeness,
reworking of material from earlier texts, and Chapters 1 and 2 depend on comparison of
the form of the Jinamahnidna with that of its sources. Chapters 3 and 4 involve close
reading of the Jinamahnidna in its own right. These complementary approaches reveal
the Jinamahnidna's artful interactions with its sources, which permit it to present its
many people who have helped me and enriched my life in many ways over the years.
I would first like to thank my advisor, Charles Hallisey. Charlie has given me
things of inestimable worth during my time in the program. His intellectual creativity
and truly thrilling teaching have expanded my mental horizons in ways that have been
enriching and have profoundly shaped my thinking. He has also offered me much-
appreciated support and encouragement over the years. His guidance has significantly
shaped this thesis, and he has shown enormous generosity in helping me complete the
project. I cannot adequately express my gratitude for all he has given me, but
I also wish to thank the other members of my committee. I thank Leonard van der
Kuijp, chair of the committee, for his generous help in shepherding the thesis through its
various stages. I very much appreciate his careful reading and rigorous attention to
language. His engagement with the project at each stage was a significant source of
encouragement and I am truly grateful for that. It is also a pleasure to thank Janet Gyatso
for her helpful comments and interesting suggestions for possible future development. I
thank her also for her commitment to the project, which spurred me on and was a distinct
help in the final stages. In addition, I extend my sincere thanks to a former member of
project was a real help in getting it underway, and her good advice stood me in good
Richard Gombrich, Jim Benson, and Alexis Sanderson. Their rigorous teaching of
Sanskrit and Pli, and of South Asian intellectual and literary practices, has provided me
with foundations that have benefited me enormously in my subsequent studies and for
which I have mentally thanked them countless times. I extend them my hearty thanks. I
am also very lucky to have fallen into the generous hands of Jacqueline Filliozat, Kaky,
during my years in Paris. Kaky did far more than just teach me about manuscripts and
Southeast Asian Pli texts, and I am truly grateful for all her help and her friendship. It is
with great appreciation that I thank Stephanie Jamison for the many hours of sheer
enjoyment I have had in her kvya classes, as well as for how much I have learned about
reading Sanskrit literature from her. As Director of Graduate Studies, she also helped me
navigate the various stages of the program with a kindness, humanity, and discretion that
I have also benefited greatly from the teaching of Peter Skilling, Prapot
Assavavirulhakarn, and Donald Swearer, and learned much from them, formally and
informally, about many aspects of the history and practice of Buddhism in Southeast
Asia. I thank them all. Peter Skilling was particularly generous with his time, discussing
the Jinamahnidna with me, giving me access to relevant material, and always ready to
answer a question. I very much appreciate all his help and thank him sincerely.
It is a real pleasure to thank those with whom I have discussed this project
directly, and whose input has always been helpful in clarifying my thoughts: Karen
Derris, Maria Heim, Sarah LeVine, and Lilian Handlin. I thank Karen, more than I can
say, for her constant support, encouragement, and enthusiasm, which have sustained me
throughout this project. She has been a true and dear friend and, without her, this thesis
would not have been written. I thank Maria, with great happiness, for her friendship,
support, and faith in me, which have been an enormous help, and greatly contributed to
this thesis's completion. I also thank her for the many wonderful conversations we had,
the memory of which I cherish. I am deeply grateful to Sarah for all her encouragement
and practical words of wisdom, as well, of course, as her extraordinary generosity. Her
friendship has meant a lot to me. I heartily thank Lilian for her generosity, intellectual
I am very grateful for all the friends and colleagues I have learned so much from
and enjoyed over the years, including Darshan Ambalavanar, Susanne Mrozik, Natalie
Gummer, Amanda Sobel, Erik Braun, James McHugh, Elizabeth Guzma`n, and Sally
Mellick Cutler. I also thank Christopher George for his very generous gift of books.
I would like to express my sincere gratitude to the Sanskrit Department for its
support during my time in the program. I particularly thank Ali Asani for his kindness
and help, which were very much appreciated. Thanks also to Nathan Swanson and
Untold thanks are due to all my family for their love and support, for which I am
deeply grateful. In addition, I thank my mother, Stephanie Chrystall, for early instilling
in me a fascination with words, which in no small part has led me to this point, and has
brought a lot of richness to my life. My brother Harry has been a necessary part of
writing this thesis. I have always been able to count on him for healthy doses of
perspective and humour when needed, which have many times helped get me
DuBois, for their generosity in encouraging my work, even when it came at the expense
of family commitments.
I cannot begin to express the gratitude and appreciation I feel for my husband,
Rich DuBois. Rich has amazed me time and again with the incredible generosity of spirit
he has shown throughout this whole process. Despite the very considerable strain my
unavailability has put on him, he has never failed to support and encourage me. He has
also dedicated countless hours to helping me with the practicalities of producing this
thesis. None of this would have been possible without him. I count myself truly blessed
to have such a wonderful partner in life. I only hope I can be half the partner to him that
he has been to me. I dedicate this thesis with love and profound respect to him.
ABBREVIATIONS
I use the abbreviations provided in the "Epilegomena to Vol. I" of the Critical Pali
Letters, 1948). His listing does not include the Jinamahnidna and the
Pahamasambodhi.
A Aguttaranikya
Ap Apadna
Bv Buddhavamsa
Cp Cariypiaka
Cp-a Cariypiakahakath
D Dghanikya
Dhp Dhammapada
Dhp-a Dhammapadahakath
Jmn Jinamahnidna
Paham Pahamasambodhi
S Samyuttanikya
Subodh Subodhlakra
Vin Vinayapiaka
between the mid-fourteenth and the mid-eighteenth centuries, and is one of a small group
of late Southeast Asian biographies that tell the story of the Buddha's entire life. It
begins innumerable lifetimes ago when, as a young man called Sumedha, he first makes
the aspiration to become a buddha, and thereby becomes a bodhisatta, one who is
destined to become a buddha.1 The Jinamahnidna then tells of his passage through
finally born into his last life as Siddhattha, gains enlightenment and so becomes the
only actually a buddha for a small proportion of that time. The text takes great pains,
however, to ensure that we do view it as the story of what we may loosely call a singular
1
I use "Buddha" to name the Buddha Gotama, "buddha" to designate a member of the category of beings
who have attained buddhahood.
2
Both asakheyya and kappa signify fixed periods of time, but periods so vast as to be essentially
unimaginable. An asakheyya is greater than a kappa. For a discussion of the significance of these terms,
see Toshiichi Endo, Buddha in Theravada Buddhism: A Study of the Concept of Buddha in the Pali
Commentaries, 1st ed. (Nedimala, Dehiwela: Buddhist Cultural Centre, 1997), 246-9 and Har Dayal, The
Bodhisattva Doctrine in Buddhist Sanskrit Literature (London: Kegan Paul, Trench, Trubner, 1932), 77-9.
2
Lord," as the text calls him from that first moment on.4
Insisting on its own integrity, and bracketed by the fixed parameters of beginning
and death, the Jinamahnidna's reader could be left with a sense of the Buddha as
resolutely in the past, gone from the world. However, this thesis will argue that the text
works to ensure that the reader comes away with the opposite impression.
By portraying the Buddha's life as a temporally delimited and contained unity, the
Jinamahnidna paradoxically reveals his profound connection to the present and the
continuation of that connection into an ever-ongoing future. It also reveals how the
present of his life is made temporally dense through the interconnectedness of all the
times of his life. The reader is left with a stronger sense of personal connection with him
3
I will use the term "life-stream" to convey this idea. Theravda Buddhists saw the lives of the
bodhisattas that preceded Siddhattha as, in very real and significant ways, continuations of what we may
loosely call the Buddha-to-be's "life-stream," and they saw his death as the Buddha as the final end of that
life-stream. This characterization should not be taken too deterministically. The exact nature of the
connection between one life and the next was, of course, a much debated question in many schools of
Buddhism (for discussion of this issue as it is found in the Theravda, see, for example, Steven Collins,
Selfless persons: Imagery and thought in Theravda Buddhism [Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1982]). John Strong elects to use the expression "whole karmic history" to convey this idea: "Buddhist (as
indeed most Indian) sacred biographies do not properly begin and end with a single person's lifetime but
incorporate a whole karmic history, including previous lives and further existences as 'other' beings" (John
S. Strong, "A Family Quest: The Buddha, Yaodhar, and Rhula in the Mlasarvstivda Vinaya," in
Sacred Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia, ed. Juliane Schober [Honolulu:
University of Hawai'i Press, 1997], 114, emphasis added).
4
For the sake of familiarity, I will continue to call the Jinamahnidna a biography of the Buddha. The
reader should bear in mind, however, that calling it a biography of amhkam bhagav is truer to the spirit
of the work.
3
through a sophisticated engagement with its own textual form and a deft interplay
between its form and its content. In other words, its form reflects something of its subject
matter. In addition, its form and content often constitute existential and emotional
stances toward the Buddha. Using its own textual form, the Jinamahnidna both creates
and models for the reader a particular orientation toward the Buddha.
In the following analysis (and in the thesis as a whole), I do not engage with the
Theravdin biographies over the others, nor of Pli texts over texts in the vernaculars.6
Nor does it signify that issues raised in the Jinamahnidna are not equally germane for
some of the other biographies. In fact, some of the key issues this thesis addresses are
It is rather that the Jinamahnidna engages in a particularly intense way with its
5
For example, the autonomous Sanskrit Buddha biographies: the Mahvastu, Lalitavistara,
Abhinikramana Stra, Buddhacarita, and the Vinaya of the Mlasarvstivdins, which all predate the
Jinamahnidna by many centuries.
6
Such an attitude would be utterly inappropriate, given the history of Theravdin literary practices, with its
productive interchange between Pli and vernacular texts. For example, it is uncertain whether the Pli
version of the Pahamasambodhi was the source for the Thai versions or vice versa (see below). The
immensely popular Sihala Saddharmaratnvaliya ("The Garland of Gems of the True Doctrine") is based
on the Pli Dhammapadahakath.
4
specific Pli sources. It defines itself largely in relation to those texts. Moreover, it is
very conservative even within the range of what Pli texts it uses as sources. Because of
its dependence on its sources, comparison with those sources is necessary. In seeking to
appreciate its relation to its textual predecessors, it is therefore most important to focus
necessary part of that endeavor, there is also a separate component that involves studying
how this text works as a unit unto itself. At a certain point, comparison with any amount
Biographies that were complete (in the sense of covering the Buddha's entire life)
and autonomous (independent works, not attached to a larger text) did not appear until
One of the first forms of biographical material regarding the Buddha to appear
were the jtakas, accounts of individual lives of his previous lifetimes as the bodhisatta,
7
For a useful overview of the development of Theravdin biographical traditions, see Frank E. Reynolds,
"The Many Lives of Buddha: A Study of Sacred Biography and Theravda Tradition," in The Biographical
Process: Studies in the History and Psychology of Religion, ed. Frank E. Reynolds and Donald Capps,
Religion and Reason: Method and Theory in the Study and Interpretation of Religion, ed. Jacques
Waardenburg, vol. 11 (The Hague, Paris: Mouton, 1976), 37-61. See also his more recent article,
Reynolds, "Rebirth Traditions and the Lineages of Gotama: A Study in Theravda Buddhology," in Sacred
Biography in the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia, 19-39. For a discussion of Western
study of the Buddha biography see Charles Hallisey, "Roads Taken and Not Taken in the Study of
Theravda Buddhism," in Curators of the Buddha, ed. Donald S. Lopez, Jr. (Chicago: University of
Chicago Press, 1995), 34-44.
5
which the Buddha is reported to have preached to illustrate various points.8 Beside the
jtakas, for most of the period from the time of the Buddha until about the 5th century
C.E., accounts of episodes in his life were scattered in fragments throughout the Pli
canon. They were generally used to provide the introductory context (nidna) for other
recounted particular episodes from this life.10 Most important of these, of course, was the
extensive account of the period leading up to the Buddha's death, the death, and the
distribution of his relics. However, these accounts of different phases of his life were
kept separate from each other, remaining in the form of isolated units of text dispersed
8
Their early appearance is attested by the fact that they were depicted on stpas (funerary mounds) in the
nd
2 century B.C.E. See Reynolds, "The Many Lives of Buddha," 42 and Reynolds, "Rebirth Traditions,"
20-1.
9
See Mark R. Woodward, "The Biographical Imperative in Theravda Buddhism," in Sacred Biography in
the Buddhist Traditions of South and Southeast Asia, 43-9. As Woodward puts it: "In the Sutta, Vinaya,
and Abhidhamma texts, doctrinal teachings and monastic regulations are contextualized by references of
events in the life of the Buddha Gotama, one of his contemporaries and/or precursors" (ibid., 43). These
accounts covered delimited periods of his life. For example, the account in the Vinaya's Mahvagga goes
from his gaining omniscience to the conversion of Sriputta and Moggallna in the first year of his teaching
(The Vinaya Piakam: One of the Principal Buddhist Holy Scriptures in the Pali Language, vol. I, ed.
Hermann Oldenberg [London: Williams and Norgate, 1879], 1-44). The Dhammapadahakath's version
covers the period from the bodhisatta's existence as Sumedha to the Buddha's receipt of the Veuvana from
King Bimbisra in his first year of teaching (The Commentary on the Dhammapada, vol. I, ed. H.C.
Norman [1906; Reprint, London: Luzac for the Pali Text Society, 1970], 83-104).
10
For example, the Mahpadnasutta tells the story from his birth to his renunciation of household life
(The Dgha Nikya, vol. 2, ed. T. W. Rhys Davids and J. Estlin Carpenter [London: Henry Frowde for the
Pali Text Society, 1903], 1-54).
6
One of the most important works for the later development of buddhological
traditions, the Buddhavamsa ("The Lineage of the Buddhas"), emerged just in time to be
included within the canon. It established the narrative framework of the bodhisatta's
progress along the path to buddhahood meeting buddha after buddha. As Reynolds
'historical' texts have utilized some version or adaptation of this lineage of Buddhas as
their entree into the particular narratives that they are most concerned to relate."11
Understood as the Buddha's own report of the lineage of his predecessors and his own
used to ground most later biographies. It certainly plays that role in both the Jtaka-
The Jtaka-nidnakath, which appeared in the 5th century, was the first
Gotama's last life. Yet, the Jtaka-nidnakath was not an independent text, dedicated to
telling the Buddha's life for its own sake. It formed the introduction (nidnakath) to the
collection of Jtaka stories, and as such was intended to provide the contextualizing
account of the origin (nidna) for the Jtakas to be recounted in the remainder of the
11
Reynolds, "Rebirth Traditions," 27.
7
text.12
the basis for nidnakaths for other texts (predominantly commentaries and chronicles).13
These accounts left the life-story open-ended in two ways. Those which provided the
contexts for texts ended their narratives at some point in the first year of his teaching,
leaving the rest of his life untold.14 Those versions that introduced chronicles (vamsas)
12
Most of the Jtakas were taught in the Jetavana park in Vesli and the Jtaka-nidnakath ends at the
point where the wealthy merchant Anthapiika donates this park to the Buddha. See T. W. Rhys Davids,
transl., Buddhist Birth-Stories: Jataka Tales, revised by C.A.F. Rhys Davids (1880; reprint, Delhi: Srishti
Publishers and Distributors, 1998), 245. See also Reynolds, "The Many Lives of Buddha," 51.
However, it is interesting to note that the "Jtaka-nidna" appears in Skilling's survey of
Theravdin literature translated into Tibetan (Skilling, "Theravdin Literature in Tibetan Translation,"
Journal of the Pali Text Society XIX [1993]: 106-8). Further, Skilling notes that the Tibetan version does
not have the opening verses found in the Pli version, which are relevant for the entire Jtakahakath, but
instead has a prose passage (nidna) giving the context for the following text. This suggests that the
Jtaka-nidnakath did, in some situations, circulate independently of the Jtakahakath. I have not
found further evidence for thisin the form of manuscripts that appear to be independent versions of the
Jtaka-nidnakathin the manuscript catalogs I have consulted, but Skilling's evidence demonstrates
that it is certainly a possibility.
13
See Reynolds, "Rebirth Traditions," 28.
14
The versions of his life in the form of nidnakaths go from the Buddha's beginning as the bodhisatta
making his aspiration for buddhahood up to whatever point is relevant for the text they introduce. For the
Jtaka-nidnakath and the Visuddhajanavilsin, it was the Buddha's receipt of the Jetavana from
Anthapiika (The Jtaka Together with Its Commentary: Being Tales of the Anterior Births of Gotama
Buddha, vol. I, ed. V. Fausboll [London: Trubner, 1877], 94; Visuddhajanavilsin nma
Apadnahakath, ed. C. E. Godakumbura [London: Luzac for the Pali Text Society, 1954], 99). For the
Madhuratthavilsin, it was the Buddha's teaching the Buddhavamsa from the jeweled walkway
(Madhuratthavilsin nma Buddhavamsahakath of Bhadantacariya Buddhadatta Mahthera, ed. I.B.
Horner [London: Humphrey Milford for the Pali Text Society, 1946], 24). For the Cariypiakahakath,
it was the point immediately following the latter, when the Buddha sat down on the walkway and taught
Sriputta the Cariypiaka (Achariya Dhammapla's Paramatthadpan, Being the Commentary on the
Cariy-Piaka, ed. D. L. Barua, 2d ed., with corrections and Indexes [London: The Pali Text Society,
1979], 9).
8
thereby extended the account into the present and future of Buddhist communities.15
Jonathan Walters has argued that these texts, usually translated as "chronicles," should
sequence, but instead "rearrange the biographical material for a variety of purposes."18
As Reynolds and Hallisey point out, it is not only Pli biographies that end in the first year of the
Buddha's teaching: "[A]ll the early autonomous biographies of the Buddha [the Mahvastu, Lalitavistara,
Abhinikramana Stra, the Sanskrit Buddhacarita, the Vinaya of the Mlasarvstivdins] (with the
exception of the "completed" Chinese and Tibetan versions of the Buddhacarita) follow the Vinaya
tradition, which ends the story at a point soon after the Buddha had begun his ministry" (Reynolds and
Hallisey, s.v. "Buddha," Encyclopedia of Religion, 324). For example, the Mahvastu ends with the
Buddha's visit to Kapilavastu and Rhula's going forth, while the Lalitavistara ends with his first sermon.
Although the Tibetan and Chinese translations of Avaghoa's Buddhacarita continue on until his
parinibbna, the Sanskrit version ends with his enlightenment.
15
The importance of this to Theravda Buddhists is indicated by Donald Swearer's observation that,
"Virtually all the chronicles of major northern Thai monasteries begin with a founding visit by the
Buddha" (Donald K. Swearer, The Buddhist World of Southeast Asia, SUNY Series in Religion, ed. Harold
Coward [Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995], 93).
16
Jonathan S. Walters, "Buddhist History: The Sri Lankan Pli Vamsas and their Commentary," in
Querying the Medieval: Texts and the History of Practices in South Asia, ed. Ronald Inden, Jonathan
Walters, and Daud Ali (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2000), 99.
17
Hallisey, " Roads Taken and Not Taken," 40.
18
ibid., 39-40. For example, several medieval Sihala biographies of the Buddha were structured around
individual qualities (gua) of the Buddha, as expressed by the epithets of the iti pi so gth. Here one facet
of the Buddha's person is used to provide a conceptual framework by means of which the narrative of his
life is structured. C.E. Godakumbura discusses one such work, Amvatura, "the Flood of Nectar," written
by Guruugm in the twelfth century (C.E. Godakumbura, Sinhalese Literature [Colombo: The Colombo
Apothecaries' Co., 1955], 56-61). He describes it as: "a narrative of the Master's life told in such a way as
to emphasize one of his special virtues, namely his ability to tame beings of hardened disposition ...
9
in Burma and the rest of Southeast Asia from the late medieval period onwards in both
the Pahamasambodhi, a text that exists in Pli, Thai, and Khmer versions.20 The
Mllakravatthu tells the Buddha's story right up to his parinibbna, and in fact
beyond into the history of Pagan in the middle of the 11th century.21 The complete
version of the Pahamasambodhi postpones the final closure of the Buddha's life into the
Guruugm compiles this work in the form of an exposition of the epithet purisadammasrathi ...
According to Guruugm's own description of the Amvatura, the work was meant to be a life story of the
Buddha" (ibid., 56). Godakumbura adds that Guruugm's method of writing the Buddha's biography was
also followed by other writers. He cites Mayurapada's Pjvaliya as another example, being a biography
based on the epithet araham (ibid., 61). See also Hallisey's discussion of these works in his doctoral
dissertation, "Devotion in the Buddhist Literature of Medieval Sri Lanka" (Ph.D. diss., University of
Chicago, 1988), 215-229.
19
Hallisey, "Roads Taken and Not Taken," 40.
20
Hallisey notes that while George Cds considers the Pli version to be the source for the Thai versions,
this is by no means certain (ibid., 58, n. 54). The Khmer version seems to be a translation from the Thai
(ibid., 41).
21
According to George Cds, this text was written in 1773 (Cds, "Une Vie Indochinoise du Buddha:
La Pahamasambodhi," in Melanges d'Indianisme a` la Memoire de Louis Renou, ed. Hans Peter Schmidt.
Publications de l'Institut de Civilisation Indienne, 8th Series, Vol. 28 [Paris: Editions E. de Boccard, 1968],
218). It was translated by Bigandet, as is discussed in Hallisey, "Roads Taken and Not Taken," 40-1.
22
The Pahamasambodhi has been discussed by Reynolds as an example of an "autonomous biography"
(see Reynolds, "The Many Lives of Buddha," 51, 53-4). See also Cds, "Une Vie Indochinoise du
Buddha," and Emmanuel Guillon, "A propos d'une version Mone indite de l'pisode de Vasundhar,"
Journal Asiatique 275 (1987): 143-162. The Pahamasambodhi has a very complex literary history that
10
biographical development attested in the Theravda during the medieval period.23 This
still awaits systematic study. Moreover, there are two Pli versions of it, which finish at different points in
the Buddha's life story. The older version, which must have been written before 1574 (see Oskar von
Hinber, A Handbook of Pli Literature, Indian Philology and South Asian Studies, ed. Albrecht Wezler
and Michael Witzel, vol. 2 [New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996], 180 391, and Cds, "Une Vie
Indochinoise du Buddha," 218-223), covers the period from the bodhisatta's life in the Tusita heaven to the
Buddha's first sermon. The later version (composed in Thailand in 1845 on the basis of earlier versions by
Prince Paramanuchitchinorot/Paramnujit, whose religious name was Suvaaramsi) covers the entire life
of the Buddha from the marriage of his parents until his death and beyond, recounting the later history of
those relics which ends with their disappearance at the final disappearance of the Dhamma. Hence, this
text constitutes a biography of the Buddha that is both autonomous andat least in the later
versioncomplete, in the sense of covering the entire period of the Buddha's life.
23
The list of previous buddhas in both the Jtaka-nidnakath (Ja I 44) and the Buddhavamsa (The
Buddhavamsa and the Cariy-Piaka: Part IText, ed. Richard Morris [London: Henry Frowde for the Pali
Text Society, 1882], 66-7) begins with the three buddhas that precede Dpakara, who do not make
predictions for Gotama. The Jinamahnidna's list does not include these three (Jinamahnidna, Vol. I:
Pli text [Bangkok: The National Library, Fine Arts Department, 1987], 28). It focuses only on those
buddhas who are directly relevant to our Buddha. It therefore names only twenty-four buddhas other than
Gotama. It makes no mention of the future Buddha Metteyya. Note that while the Buddhavamsa's list of
the buddhas includes Metteyya (Bv 67, vs. 18/9), the Jinamahnidna's (Jmn 28) does not.
There was an increased interest in the medieval period and particularly in Southeast Asia in
bodhisattas, future buddhas, who were not within "our" Buddha's life-stream. The next future buddha,
Metteyya, received considerable attention. This is witnessed in part by the extreme popularity of the Phra
Malai story in Thailand throughout the Ayutthayan period and beyond. Charles Keyes states that three
textsthe Phra Malai story, the Trai Phum cosmology and the Vessantarajtakaconstitute "what might
be termed the 'key' texts of both popular and elite traditions of traditional Siam" (Charles F. Keyes,
Thailand: Buddhist Kingdom as Modern Nation-State, Westview Profiles: Nations of Contemporary Asia
[Boulder: Westview Press, 1987], 181). See also Bonnie Pacala Brereton, Thai Tellings of Phra Malai:
Texts and Rituals Concerning a Popular Buddhist Saint (Tempe: Arizona State University Program for
Southeast Asian Studies, 1995), 1-3. Brereton argues that the Phra Malai story was introduced into the
Lanna-Sukhothai-Ayutthaya area around the fourteenth or fifteenth century (ibid., 67). Bibliographic
references for this text are to be found in Peter Skilling and Santi Pakdeekham, Pli Literature Transmitted
in Central Siam: A catalogue based on the Sap Songkhro, Materials for the Study of the Tripiaka, vol. 1
(Bangkok: Fragile Palm Leaves Foundation and Lumbini International Research Institute, 2002), 142-3 and
Steven Collins, "Brah Mleyyadevattheravatthu," Journal of the Pali Text Society XVIII (1993): 6-9. See
Collins' extensive examination of the issues raised by the interest in Metteyya and other future buddhas,
which he considers in relation to millennialism (Collins, Nirvana and other Buddhist felicities: Utopias of
the Pali Imaginaire, Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions, ed. John Clayton, Steven Collins, and
11
back into earlier existences under earlier buddhas.24 Such texts placed the starting point
of "our" Buddha's life even earlier, in the lives of bodhisattas who preceded Sumedha.
The Jinamahnidna shows a strong emphasis on including only those figures most
suggests that greater literary attention may be paid to the bodhisatta than to the Buddha in describing the
Vessantarajtaka as "a story which is universally agreed to be at least as important in Southern Asian
Buddhism as the biography of the Buddha, perhaps more so" (Collins, Nirvana and other Buddhist
felicities, 42-3). See Skilling, "Jtaka and Pasa-jtaka in South-East Asia," 7 for discussion of the
many versions and literary forms of the Vessantarajtaka that exist in Thai and other vernaculars. The
jtakas and particularly the Vessantarajtaka (also known in Thailand as the Mahjti or Mahachat, "the
great birth") are also used extensively in rituals in Southeast Asia.
25
The four asakheyyas and the one-hundred-thousand kappas this passage takes is an unimaginably vast
sweep of time and, not surprisingly, different periods within this arc receive varying degrees of coverage.
The following synopsis will give the reader an idea of what the Jinamahnidna includes in its biography
of the Buddha. The text starts with a relatively extensive account (taking up fourteen pages of text) of
Sumedha's transition from Angst-driven youth to one who has received the prediction of future
buddhahood from the buddha Dpakara and been honored by the entire universe as a future buddha (Jmn
1-14). It then covers in thirteen pages the future Buddha's receiving the prediction of buddhahood from the
following twenty-three buddhas, a process that takes four incalculable ages and a hundred thousand eons
(Jmn 14-27). Then follows an outline of what was accomplished by the Buddha-to-be through that period,
namely, the cultivation of the ten perfections; and a brief account of the transitional events leading to the
birth of the one who will in this lifetime become the Buddha Gotama, the bodhisatta Siddhattha (Jmn 27-
37).
After this preliminary section, the Jinamahnidna's account of the biologically framed life of the
Buddha Gotama breaks down into two principal segments of notably unequal lengths with a brief
transitional passage. The first segment, taking up approximately one hundred and sixty pages of text or
nearly two-thirds of the whole work, recounts the events from his birth up to his receipt of the Jetavana
park, henceforth one of his two principal bases (Jmn 37-201). Within this section is extensive coverage of
the Buddha's youth, including his marriage and the birth of his son; his renunciation of household life; his
attaining enlightenment; his performing miracles and teaching, leading to the conversion of an ever-
growing number of followers and the establishment of the community of monks, or sagha; his subsequent
return to the city of his birth and conversion of his family members; and his gaining patronage and land
from King Bimbisra and the wealthy Anthapiika.
There follows a short transitional passage, of nine pages, which relates in briefest fashion the
Buddha's movements over the next forty-five years, listing years one through twenty in individual
abbreviated sentences (Jmn 201-10). The only episodes covered in any detail in this section, both
occurring in the fifth year, are the Buddha's ministering to his dying father (Jmn 201-6) and his
establishment of the order of nuns under his aunt and foster mother Mahpajpati Gotam (Jmn 206-9).
This section ends with the single-sentence statement that he spent the remaining twenty-five years of his
life dividing his time between his two principal monastic dwellings.
The final segment of the text, taking approximately eighty pages or nearly one-third of the whole
work, gives a detailed account of the Buddha's last ten months, ending with his death and funeral, and the
13
The only known copies of the Jinamahnidna are nine manuscripts in the
Bangkok National Library, inscribed on palm-leaf in the Khom script (the standard script
used for Pli texts in pre-modern central Thailand).26 Two of the manuscripts were
copied during the First Reign of the Bangkok period (1782-1809), four in the Third Reign
(1824-51), the remaining three are undated.27 An edition was published based on these
manuscripts by the Fine Arts Department of the Bangkok National Library in 1987, and it
The author, place and date of composition are unknown. However, the
Jinamahnidna's editors suggest that it was composed by a Thai scholar during the
Ayutthayan period (1351-1767), because the first manuscripts we have were copied
during the First Reign of the Bangkok period.28 Skilling concludes that, while we cannot
Supaphan na Bangchang, on the other hand, argues in her study of Pli literature
composed in Thailand that the Jinamahnidna may have been composed in Chiang Mai
in Lanna, Northern Thailand.30 She bases this conclusion on the comment found in the
she translates: "This text, the Jinamahnidna, (I) have written down from (the original)
Supaphan cites as evidence for her hypothesis that the Jinamahnidna was
composed in Chiang Mai the use of the word malna in two Pli texts written in
Thailand, the Ratanabimbavamsa (composed in 1453) and the Sagtiyavamsa (in 1789),
and the opinion of the scholar Prasert Na Nakhon.32 From this evidence she concludes
29
Personal correspondence, January 2004.
30
Supaphan na Bangchang, Wiwathanakanwannakhadi bali say phra suttantabidok ti taeng nai prathet thai
[The Development of Pli Literature related to the Suttanta Piaka composed in Thailand: in Thai]
(Bangkok: Chulalongkorn University Press, 1990), 179-81.
31
Ibid., 179. I am grateful to Peter Skilling who kindly translated Supaphan's discussion of the
Jinamahnidna for me, including her translation of this phrase.
32
For the Ratanabimbavamsa, she simply concurs with the opinion of the text's translator, Pe Talalak, that
malna-pura (cited twice in the text) seems most likely to refer to Chiang Mai. She gives more detailed
evidence from the Sagtiyavamsa, which twice mentions malna-rja-padesa (ibid., 179-80). In both
contexts, she reports, it refers to a city that is not in Burma (Vam), Rmaadesa (Rmara), Khmer
territory (Kambuja), or Siam (Syma), which in the Sagtiyavamsa refers to Ayutthaya. She concludes
from this that in the Sagtiyavamsa malna-rja-padesa refers to "a state in Lanna," which could mean
Chiang Mai.
She also cites the opinion of Prasert Na Nakhon, who (in personal communication) suggested that
malna might derive from mn1. She reports him as theorizing that while mn1 generally refers to Burma,
it could here signify Chiang Mai, which was controlled by Burma from 1558. According to this hypothesis,
the language of Lanna could have come to be called malna because of the considerable influence of the
15
that the term malnabhs refers to the language of Lanna. This would then imply that
mlakkhara, "the original letters," refers to the Lanna script. She therefore argues that
the Jinamahnidna was probably written on the basis of an original text written in the
language and script of Chiang Mai.33 She also suggests, building on Prasert's argument,
that the Jinamahnidna may have been composed around the sixteenth century.34
Above all, analysis of the text reveals that the Jinamahnidna shows such close
parallelism with what I will demonstrate in Chapter 1 are its Pli sources that it is simply
perspective, the comment in the colophon may relate only to the text's transcription, and
not its composition. In that case, it would give no information about the circumstances of
Ultimately, it seems unlikely that we will be able to establish with any certainty
the significance of this comment. Until further evidence becomes available to the
editors and Skilling that the text was more than likely composed in Ayutthaya.
apart from the manuscripts, we have only one other trace of the Jinamahnidna in the
this edition does not make clear in which manuscripts this reference is found. It does not,
testimony that the Jinamahnidna was known and used at some point in its history.
One of the most outstanding features of the kingdom of Ayutthaya is that it was,
from its earliest days, extremely cosmopolitan. There was a strong presence of Chinese
Aside from the fact that the comment in the colophon may relate only to the text's transcription,
Supaphan's dating of the Jinamahnidna rests on tenuous grounds. As it depends on malna deriving
from mn1 and the latter referring to Chiang Mai, if malna does not derive from mn1 or if it does, but the
latter does not connote Chiang Mai, then Supaphan's dating the text to the sixteenth century is rendered
invalid.
36
The Pahamasambodhi refers to Vessantara's completing the thirty perfections, then adds ayan tu
vitthro Jinamahnidne, "... but the complete version of this is in the Jinamahnidna"
(Pahamasambodhi Pariccheda 1-7, ed. Surapol Jotia [Bangkok: Amarin Printing and Publishing,
1999], 116). I am grateful to Peter Skilling for drawing this reference to my attention.
17
traders in the region from well before the thirteenth century.37 There was also extensive
contact with Persian merchants from as early as 1351.38 This contact continued long into
the Ayutthayan period.39 Ayutthaya was also visited by Portuguese, Dutch, English, and
French merchants and missionaries during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and
diplomats in the seventeenth century.40 It also had protracted contact with the Danish
from the seventeenth century.41 Gedney conveys some of Ayutthaya's glory in his
comment that "foreigners who came to Ayutthaya found a capital city more spacious,
Charnvit, David Wyatt, and others have argued that the Ayutthayan kingdom was
37
See Charnvit Kasetsiri, The Rise of Ayudhya: A History of Siam in the Fourteenth and Fifteenth
Centuries, East Asian Historical Monographs (Kuala Lumpur: Oxford University Press, 1976), 67-8.
38
Ibid., 8.
39
For example, a diplomatic mission was sent by Shah Sulaimn the Safavid (1666-94) to King Narai in
1685. A secretary of the mission wrote an account of the trip (published in "The Ship of Sulaimn"),
which mentions the presence of Persians wherever they went in Ayutthaya (David K. Wyatt, "A Persian
Mission to Siam in the Reign of King Narai," review of The Ship of Sulaimn, by ibn Muammad Ibrhm,
translated from the Persian by John O'Kane, Journal of the Siam Society 62, no. 1 [January 1974]: 154).
40
See Charnvit, Rise of Ayudhya, 8 and Dhani Nivat, "Early Trade Relations between Denmark and Siam,"
in Collected Articles by H.H. Prince Dhani Nivat: Reprinted from the Journal of the Siam Society
(Bangkok: The Siam Society, 1969): 35. Charnvit reports that "King Narai exchanged diplomatic missions
with Louis XIV of France and eventually allowed the French to set up a military fort on Thai soil"
(Charnvit, Rise of Ayudhya, 8).
41
Dhani Nivat, "Early Trade Relations," 35.
42
William Gedney, "Patrons and Practitioners: The Chakri Monarchs and Literature," in William J.
Gedney's Thai and Indic Literary Studies, ed. Thomas John Hudak, Michigan Papers on South and
Southeast Asia, no. 46 (Ann Arbor: Center for South and Southeast Asian Studies, University of Michigan,
1997), 143.
18
highly centralized.43 As we have just seen, it was also politically vibrant and remarkably
cosmopolitan. Steven Collins has argued that textual production in Pli is closely linked
with centralizing political regimes in Southeast Asia.44 He explains that Pli literature
(here in the sense of kabya/kvya, but also applying in the more general sense) was a
"luxury good," valuable to kings in part because the capacity to enjoy and create it
"required arduous training and separation from the economically everyday."45 As such,
Pli texts were "prestige objects" that offered kings "symbolic capital," which
contributed to their prestige and thus supported their political claims.46 By this argument,
Ayutthaya would seem to be an ideal context for the production of a text like the
drastically limited by the destruction of records caused by the sacking and burning of the
city of Ayutthaya by the Burmese in 1767. Wyatt has commented of this lack:
"There is not very much historical evidence remaining of Siam before the terrible
calamities that overtook the kingdom in 1767 .... Few are the manuscripts that
43
See Charnvit, Rise of Ayudhya, 93 ff. and A.B. Griswold, "The Historian's Debt to King Mongkut," in
His Majesty King Rama the Fourth Mongkut (Bangkok: Mahamakutarajavidyalaya, 1968), 61. See Wyatt's
discussion of educational centralization considered below.
44
See Steven Collins, "What is Literature in Pali?," in Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from
South Asia, ed. Sheldon Pollock (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 681-4.
45
Ibid., 683.
46
Ibid., 682-3.
19
survived the conflagration, and even those who attempted to recover Ayutthaya's
traditions were hard-pressed to find manuscripts when they began looking for
them as early as the 1770s and 1780s."47
can, however, reconstruct that there was a highly centralized and organized monastic
system of scholarship from early in the period. In a study of the educational levels of
monks during the Ayutthayan period, Wyatt reports that a law promulgated in 1454
shows that educated monks and novices were awarded ranks above those who were not
"(W)e can infer that some sort of religious examinations were in existence from
the reign of King Borommatrailokanat [1448-1488]; and we know for certain that
they were held in the reign of King Narai [1656-1688]. The importance of this
lies in the fact that if there were such examinations at any time, then undoubtedly
some monks and novices came from the provinces to the capital in order to study
with learned monks teaching in the Royal Monasteries under Royal Patronage."49
This is just the type of literary culture that could create, support, and valorize the type of
47
Wyatt, introduction to Chronicle of the Kingdom of Ayutthaya: The British Museum Version: Preserved
in the British Library, Bibliotheca Codicum Asiaticorum 14 (Japan: The Centre for East Asian Cultural
Studies for Unesco, The Toyo Bunko, 1999), ix.
48
Wyatt, "The Buddhist Monkhood as an Avenue of Social Mobility in Traditional Thai Society," in
Studies in Thai History: Collected Articles (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 1994), 211.
49
Ibid.
20
While we may have very little documentary evidence from the Ayutthayan period
itself, a valuable source of information about what Ayutthaya might have been like, at
least toward the end of the period, comes from the actions of the early Chakri kings of the
Bangkok dynasty, and particularly the first, Rma I. Historians have shown that Rma I
went to great lengths to reproduce the physical, socio-cultural, and religious conditions of
Ayutthaya in the city of Bangkok, which he founded.50 This work was continued by his
successors.
Among the earliest acts of Rma I's reign were a series of measures that stressed
the importance of scholarship to the Buddhist monastic community.51 Wyatt reports that
50
Thomas Hudak says of this attempt: "After the Burmese destruction of Ayutthaya, Rama I sought to
construct Bangkok in the image of Ayutthaya in moral, legal, and artistic terms. With these goals, he
established commissions to research and then to implement the ancient ceremonies of Ayutthaya; his own
coronation and cremation were based on similar ceremonies held in Ayutthaya" (Thomas John Hudak, The
Indigenization of Pali Meters in Thai Poetry, Ohio University, Monographs in International Studies,
Southeast Asia Series, no. 87 [Athens, Ohio: Ohio University Center for International Studies, 1990], 19-
20). He also physically built the city of Bangkok in the image of the former city of Ayutthaya. See also
Wyatt, "The 'Subtle Revolution' of King Rama I of Siam," in Studies in Thai History, 131-174; Klaus
Wenk, The Restoration of Thailand under Rama I 1782-1809, transl. from the German by Greeley Stahl,
Association for Asian Studies: Monographs and Papers, ed. Paul Wheatley, no. 24 (Tucson: Association for
Asian Studies and University of Arizona Press, 1968); and Dhani Nivat, "The Reconstruction of Rama I of
the Chakri Dynasty," in Collected Articles by H.H. Prince Dhani Nivat, 145-168.
51
Craig Reynolds brings out an important aspect of Rma I's interest in monastic scholarship, in arguing
that it was part of his consolidation of his own political power. As he puts it, "(T)he surge of textual
compilation and revision" during his reign was "a part of the political process, a stage in the growth of
Rama I's hold on the affairs of state" (Craig J. Reynolds, "Religious Historical Writing and the
Legitimation of the First Bangkok Reign," Perceptions of the Past in Southeast Asia, ed. Anthony Reid and
David Marr, Asian Studies Association of Australia, Southeast Asia Publications Series [Singapore:
Heinemann Educational Books (Asia), 1979], 90).
21
"in the Ecclesiastical Laws of the first few months of his reign, King Rama I repeatedly
... indicated the significance of scriptural scholarship and textual study to proper monastic
life."52 He also informs us that, early in his reign, Rma I began "commissioning copies
of the Tipitaka for use in monastic scholarship, and even ... sought to obtain copies of the
Pali texts in other Southeast Asian scripts."53 This process reached its culmination in
1788, when he convened a Sagha council for a full revision of the entire canon.54
Saddhtissa describes the four copies of the Tipiaka known to have been made on the
orders of Rma I (not including the first, apparently faulty version created in the first year
of his reign).55
Wyatt argues that Rma I viewed his new polity as being in a state of moral crisis,
a state that he believed predated his reign and had in fact brought about the downfall of
can be seen as trying to return the state of the monastic community to what it was before
52
Wyatt, "Subtle Revolution," 149.
53
Ibid., 153.
54
Ibid., 153-4. See also Wenk, Restoration of Thailand, 40-1. For a detailed discussion of this process, see
H. Saddhtissa, "The Dawn of Pli Literature in Thailand," in Malalasekera Commemoration Volume, ed.
Oliver Hector de Alwis Wijesekera (Colombo: Malalasekera Commemoration Volume Editorial
Committee, 1976), 319-20.
55
Ibid. Saddhtissa further suggests: "It may justifiably be assumed that, beside these 'Royal Editions',
many Pali MSS. (sic) were copied by order of the king and presented to various monasteries" (ibid., 320).
56
See Wyatt, "Subtle Revolution," 146.
22
So we could see Rma I as simply following this larger historical pattern. However,
Wyatt's argument about the educational levels of monks during the Ayutthayan period
suggests that Rma I's apparent perception of the earlier Ayutthayan monastic
community as displaying an intense engagement with textual scholarship may have been
accurate. Rma I's actions may therefore amount to evidence for the prevalence during
the Ayutthayan period (or at least part of it) of the type of literary culture that would be
Jinamahnidna.57
those of his successors58suggests that the early Bangkok period was a time particularly
suited to preserving the Jinamahnidna. Precisely the type of institution that would be
helpful to a model reader of the Jinamahnidna, interested in how the text relates to its
57
Hallisey has stressed the importance of paying attention, not simply to the factors that bring about the
creation of a text, but also to those factors that ensure a text is maintained in existence. See "Roads Taken
and Not Taken," 51.
58
For example, Saddhtissa reports that Rma IIIduring whose reign four of the Jinamahnidna
manuscripts were copied"was responsible for seven different editions [of the Tipiaka], the exact dates of
which are not known and some of them were still unfinished at the time of his demise" (Saddhtissa, "The
Dawn of Pali Literature in Thailand," 321). See also Walter F. Vella, Siam under Rama III 1824-1851,
Monographs of the Association for Asian Studies, IV (Locust Valley, NY: J.J. Augustin for the Association
for Asian Studies, 1957), 34-5, 39-41. See also Wyatt, Thailand: A Short History (New Haven: Yale
University Press, 1984), 176-7.
23
sources, was provided in association with the creation of the new recension of the tipiaka
"(A)n ornate copy bound in gold was deposited in a specially constructed library
building inlaid with mother-of-pearl on the grounds of the Temple of the Emerald
Buddha, and another building was constructed for the safekeeping of teaching and
reference copies, with resident scholars to instruct monks and officials."59
We cannot be sure without further evidence of the extent to which that the second,
"reference" library played more than a symbolic role and was actually used in the ways
suggested. Even so, it is significant for the Jinamahnidna that this conception of how
Pli texts could and should be used was prevalent at the time the manuscripts were
copied. It gives us an idea of one end of the spectrum of contemporary attitudes towards
and members of the tradition itself to be literarily very conservative. The tradition prides
itself on adhering closely to its closed canon of Pli texts, confirmed by the elders of long
ago as the authentic heritage of the Buddha. Yet this has not prevented the Theravda
from producing large numbers of texts in Pli (as well as vernacular languages)
59
William Gedney, "Patrons and Practitioners," 129.
24
throughout the centuries between the closing of the canon and the modern period.60
It might seem that the high value placed by the tradition on texts' historical status
would stultify and constrain later Theravdin writers wanting to create new texts, limiting
their possibilities of expression. However, when looked at from another angle, this
finding ways to produce new texts that could yet be valorized by the tradition. Hence, it
was partly through the constraints imposed by the community's literary values that a wide
range of methods of textual production was developed which has resulted in a rich and
The later Pli texts produced in this vein demonstrate varying types of
relationship to the earlier texts. They may, for example, purport to explain or draw out
meaning that was inherent in an authorized text, either by explicitly providing a sub-
60
In the introduction to his edition of the Sagtiyavamsa, Hallisey states that among the last texts
composed in Pli are the Sagtiyavamsa in 1789, and the Ssanavamsa and the Ssanavamsadpa in the
1860's (Hallisey, introduction to Sagtiyavamsa, edition and translation, TMs [forthcoming], 1). He notes
that though the Mahvamsa has been updated since the nineteenth century, these updates have generally
been in Sihala. Steven Collins, "What is Literature in Pali?," 679 cites works written in Pli until 1924.
61
This type of interpretive approach is beginning to gain the recognition it demands in the field of
Theravda Buddhist Studies by scholars such as Charles Hallisey, Anne Blackburn, and Karen Derris. See,
for example, Hallisey, "Roads Taken and Not Taken," 38-44; Anne M. Blackburn, "Looking for the
Vinaya: Monastic Discipline in the Practical Canons of the Theravda," Journal of the International
Association of Buddhist Studies 22, no. 2 (1999): 281-309; and Blackburn, Buddhist Learning and Textual
Practice in Eighteenth-century Lankan Monastic Culture, Buddhisms (Princeton: Princeton University
Press, 2001). Derris explores dynamics by which intertextual relationships between Pli texts allow for
innovation in Derris, "Virtue and Relationships," 127ff. and Derris, "A Narrative Practical Canon: The
Collection of Pre-Sumedha Stories in Pali Texts" (paper presented at the national meeting of the
Association for Asian Studies, Washington, DC, April 5, 2002), TMs.
25
commentary on the text,62 or by claiming to draw out the essence of the original work in a
new creation.63 Alternatively, they may claim to condense the contents of larger works or
bodies of works into shorter, more accessible form.64 Another route that became
increasingly popular throughout the Theravda world after about the 12th century was the
creation of anthologies from segments of text taken from works already valorized by the
tradition.65
within the body of the text of material culled from older sources, to varying degrees. Yet
this is not a late literary device occurring only in the production of texts that post-date the
closing of the canon. It has a long history within the tradition, forming a vital element in
62
An example of this approach is found in the Atthaslinmlak, a sub-commentary on the Atthaslin,
the commentary on the Dhammasaga (the first book of the Abhidhammapiaka). Something of the later
text's claims in regard to the text it comments on is nicely demonstrated by its alternative title, the
Lnatthajotik or "Illustrator of the Hidden Meaning." See von Hinber, A Handbook of Pli Literature,
166 356. This text was written by nanda between the 5th and 7th centuries in India (ibid., 170-1 368-
70).
63
The second option is almost paradigmatically exemplified by the Magalatthadpan or Magaladpan,
an enormous work that claims to draw out the meaning to be found in the eleven verses of the Magala
Sutta from the canonical Khuddakapha. See von Hinber, A Handbook of Pli Literature, 179 389.
The importance of this text, written by Sirimagala in 1524 in Chieng Mai, Thailand is reflected by
Cds's evaluation that, "Avec la Dhammapadahakath et le Sratthasangaha, il constitue le fonds de la
culture plie des bonzes siamois et cambodgiens" (G. Cds, "Note sur les Ouvrages Palis Composs en
Pays Thai," Bulletin de l'Ecole Franaise d'Extrme-Orient Tome XV, no. 3 [1915]: 40).
64
A well-known example of this type of text would be the Abhidhammatthasagaha (composed in Burma
in the 10th or 11th century) which attempts to give a short but comprehensive survey of the entire
Abhidhamma. See von Hinber, Handbook of Pli Literature, 161-2 344.
65
See von Hinber, Handbook of Pli Literature, 177 383. An important example of this genre is the
Srasagaha ("The Collection of the Essence"), written in Sri Lanka after 1200. This encyclopedic
anthology was created to serve as a handbook for monks, and contains extensive quotations from both
canonical texts and their commentaries (ibid., 177 384).
26
the production of even the oldest strata of canonical texts.66 Hence, we see an intriguing
combination of long-established literary practices being put to the service of new textual
production.
Hallisey further suggests that the creation of composite works may have a
particular place in Thailand's literary history: "Creating new works out of quotations
from other works seems to have had a special prominence in Thailand as a method of
textual production that went beyond the normal processes of anthology formation found
66
This has been shown by scholars such as Andre Bareau, Erich Frauwallner, Etienne Lamotte, Ernst
Waldschmidt, and others. For relevant examples of their individual works see: Andre Bareau, Recherches
sur la biographie du Buddha dans les Strapiaka et les Vinayapiaka anciens: de la quete de l'eveil a` la
conversion de riputra et de Maudgalyyana (Paris: Ecole Franaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1963); Bareau,
Recherches sur la biographie du Buddha dans les Strapiaka et les Vinayapiaka anciens: II. Les derniers
mois, le parinirva et les funerailles, 2 volumes (Paris: Ecole Franaise d'Extreme-Orient, 1970-1); and
Bareau, "La Composition et les Etapes de Formation Progressive du Mahparinirvastra ancien,"
Bulletin de l'Ecole Franaise d'Extreme-Orient LXVI (1979): 45-103; Erich Frauwallner, The Earliest
Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist Literature, Serie Orientale Roma, vol. VIII (Rome: Istituto Italiano
per il Medio ed Estremo Oriente, 1956); Etienne Lamotte, "La legende du Buddha," Revue de l'Histoire
des Religions 134 (1948): 37-71; and Lamotte, Histoire du bouddhisme indien des origines a` l'e`re aka,
Bibliothe`que du Museon, vol. 43 (Louvain: Publications Universitaires and Institut Orientaliste, 1958);
Ernst Waldschmidt, Die U$berlieferung vom Lebensende des Buddha: Eine vergleichende Analayse des
Mahparinirvastra und seiner Textentsprechungen, 2 vols., Abhandlungen der Akademie der
Wissenschaften in Gottingen. Philologisch-historische Klasse. Dritte Folge, vol. 29-30 (Gttingen:
Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1944-8). More recently, scholars such as Lambert Schmithausen, Tillman
Vetter, and Oskar von Hinuber have traced the development of some of the oldest Pli texts through what
they see as processes of accretion, whereby the texts came to have the forms with which we now know
them through the successive accumulation of material, some of which is taken from other texts. For a
synopsis of Schmithausen's approach, see L. Schmithausen, preface to "Part I: Earliest Buddhism," in
Earliest Buddhism and Madhyamaka, Panels of the VIIth World Sanskrit Conference, Kern Institute,
Leiden, August 23-29, 1987, ed. Johannes Bronkhorst, vol. II, ed. David Seyfort Ruegg and Lambert
Schmithausen (Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1990), 1-3. See Tillman Vetter, "Some remarks on older parts of the
Suttanipta," in Earliest Buddhism and Madhyamaka, 36-56, and von Hinuber, "Linguistic Observations
on the Structure of the Pli Canon," in Selected Papers on Pli Studies (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1994),
62-75.
27
that there is even "a type of author known in Thai as a ruab ruam, someone who collects
and presents ... a compiler."69 However, he adds that this method was not used
Srasagaha known throughout the Theravdin world, which were produced in the same
way.70
new, in an intense and lively interaction with its predecessors. Its form reveals maximal
use of this technique in that the entire text is created through the compilation of material
from older sources. Its sources are amongst the most orthodox the tradition can offer,
being almost entirely canonical or commentaries on canonical texts. Moreover, the way
it frames those sources gives it a very orthodox, conservative tone. That is, it does not
come up with a novel schema (as does the Magaladpan, for example) and arrange its
material around that, but rather structures its account to a considerable extent around the
67
Hallisey, introduction to the Sagtiyavamsa, 16.
68
Ibid.
69
Ibid., 15.
70
Ibid.
28
account of the Buddha's life that is not attached to or part of another text. Overall, it is
striking how conservative the Jinamahnidna is able to appear while in fact being a
The Jinamahnidna has been called an anthology by Oskar von Hinuber71 and
by Peter Skilling in his useful review of the published edition of the text.72 It is easy to
see why it should get such an appellation, since it is almost entirely made up of sections
of text taken from earlier works. However, this term does not perhaps best represent the
It is beyond the scope of this thesis to take up at any length the question of the
exact nature of an anthology.73 For our purposes, I will simply propose that the
Jinamahnidna may be better defined a composite text. The term "anthology" suggests
a greater emphasis in a work on collecting relevant pieces of text and bringing them
71
See von Hinber, Handbook of Pli Literature, 180 391 and 392. von Hinber includes the
Jinamahnidna within his chapter on anthologies, which he describes as "collections of texts assembled
for practical purposes" (ibid., 177 383). In this chapter von Hinber includes the Srasagaha, the
Upsakajanlakra, the Magalatthadpan and then what he acknowledges to be "[a] different type of
anthology" (ibid., 180 391) in the form of "texts describing the life of the Buddha": the
Pahamasambodhi and the Jinamahnidna.
72
Skilling, "Jinamahnidna," 115.
73
See Paul J. Griffiths, Religious Reading: The Place of Reading in the Practice of Religion (New York:
Oxford University Press, 1999), 97-104 for a discussion of the nature of anthologies, and his following
chapter (ibid., 109-148) for a discussion of "Commentary and Anthology in Buddhist India."
29
together in one place. This seems to be the sense in which Skilling is using it, as he
describes the nature of the Jinamahnidna in the following way: "It is essentially an
anthology: the unknown but erudite author has culled material relating to the career of the
Jinamahnidna certainly combines portions of text taken from elsewhere, but it seems
to do so more with the purpose of creating a coherent, narrative account of the Buddha's
life, than a collection of all relevant data concerning that life. In fact, I will argue that the
coherent narrative.
"contains hardly anything original,"75 Hallisey notes that "this is not to say that the work
itself is not highly original in its cumulative effects."76 This is entirely true of the
74
Skilling, "Jinamahnidna," 115.
75
von Hinber, Handbook of Pli Literature, 97 199.
76
Hallisey, introduction to the Sagtiyavamsa, 15.
77
Peter Skilling also argues that the value of the Jinamahnidna is not undermined by the relative paucity
of original material, as he says: "Although it contains little material that is original, this by no means
detracts from its value or interest. It has the merit of bringing a wide range of sources together under a
single cover, and as such seems to be unique since it is the only Pali life of the Buddha that I know of that
treats the subject in this manner" (Skilling, "Jinamahnidna," 117).
30
weaving together of material from multiple sources. This basic strategy is applied at
various levels in the text. At the highest level, the two lengthiest segments of the
created from material taken from one principal work. 78 For the first segment, this text is
narrative framework is then interpolated material taken from other works, and sometimes
material that appears to be original.79 The length of the interpolated sections may vary
from very short to quite long. At the lower level, individual paragraphs, sentences or
very often just phrases from a different text are interpolated into slightly larger sections
of material.
There is considerable variety through the text on how much material in any one
78
For the sake of clarity, I use the term "segment" exclusively to refer to these two largest portions of the
text. The first segment begins after the account of the bodhisatta under the twenty-four previous buddhas
(Jmn 27) and continues until the receipt of the Jetavana grove (Jmn 201). The second follows after the
summary account of the Buddha's forty-five years of teaching and recounts the Buddha's final ten months
(Jmn 210-291).
79
Whenever I suggest in this thesis that a portion of material in the Jinamahnidna may be "original,"
this suggestion should be interpreted as necessarily tentative and provisional. It is intended to signify that I
have found no other text that attests material having that form and it seems reasonable to suppose that it
was composed specifically for the Jinamahnidna. Not having found another text attesting it is by no
means proof that such a text does not or did not in fact exist.
31
section is taken from the structuring text and how much from other texts incorporated
within it. In the first segment, for example, in a few places the Jinamahnidna follows
the Jtaka-nidnakath's account very closely for many pages and includes little other
they work with and around its version, interspersing its sentences with phrases or
sentences not found elsewhere. Other sections contain much material from many texts
and the Jtaka-nidnakath's structuring function is easy to lose sight of, witnessed only
by introductory and concluding sentences between the diverging portions. Then again, at
several points in the narrative, sizeable sections are covered entirely by material from
another text, and the Jtaka-nidnakath's voice is not heard for a long time.80
In most of the Jinamahnidna the material from the framing text is augmented
by material from a plurality of other sources. However, in a few parts of the text,
interpolated material will consistently be from one other text, giving the impression of a
duet: main framing voice plus one other intervening voice.81 The clearest example of this
dynamic is found in the second segment of the Jinamahnidna. This segment is framed
80
It is important to bear in mind that we should not view material in the Jinamahnidna that comes from
what I am calling the "structuring texts" as in any way more important within the Jinamahnidna's telling
than material taken from elsewhere or indeed original to it. Material from all sources should be viewed as
enjoying equal status within the Jinamahnidna.
81
It should be noted that this "duet" effect is apparent only when comparing the Jinamahnidna with its
sources.
32
rest of the work, there are few inclusions within this segment of material from other texts,
and there are long stretches where no voice is heard other than those of these two
principal texts.82
a small amount of material that the footnotes identify as from unpublished manuscripts
held in the National Library entitled the Buddhacarita83 and the Pahamasambodhi-
kath.84 As far as I have been able to identify, or the editors' footnotes indicate, the
remainder of the material comes strictly from canonical texts, commentaries on canonical
82
I provide here a synopsis of the inclusions found within this part of the text, in order to give the reader, in
as condensed a way as possible, a picture of the Jinamahnidna as a composite text and an idea of the
range of texts it draws from. The following synopsis makes for a long list and may seem to contradict the
argument I am making in this section. However, when distributed over eighty pages, these individual
instances appear much less than when listed together.
These inclusions are: p. 216, a paragraph from the Dhammapadahakath plus approximately a
page of material from a source I have been unable to identify (henceforth "unidentified"); pp. 227-8, a
brief section from the Buddhpadnasamvaan of the Visuddhajanavilsin (the commentary on the
Apadna); pp. 247-9, a short Jtaka (unnamed, but in fact the Palsajtaka); p. 251, a short passage from
the Mahsudassanasutta of the Dghanikya; pp. 252-6, twenty-two verses from various sources: two from
the Dhammapadahakath, two from the Visuddhimagga, the rest unidentified; pp. 261-2, approximately
half a page from the Dhammapadahakath; pp. 266-7, a page and a half of material found jointly in the
Aguttaranikya, elsewhere in the Dghanikya, and the Vibhaga, plus the commentary on the Vibhaga;
pp. 267-8, a brief section consisting of a paragraph of prose and five verses from the Itivuttaka, three verses
from the Madhuratthavilsin (the commentary on the Buddhavamsa), plus two unidentified verses; p. 272,
two verses from the Samyuttanikya plus ten unidentified verses; and pp. 290-1, the final thirteen verses
from the Buddhavamsa.
83
Jmn 75, 87, 88, 89, 91.
84
Jmn 77, 79, 114.
33
The Jinamahnidna includes noticeably more citations to its sources than do the
sources themselves.86 On one occasion it adds a citation into material taken from the
Jtaka-nidnakath, where the latter did not have one.87 The variability in how often
composite texts cite their sources is highlighted by the complete absence of citations from
85
Jmn 118, 119, 253.
86
The following comparison is based on the segment of the Jinamahnidna (pp. 1-201) that covers the
period of the Buddha's life relevant for the accounts found in the Jtaka-nidnakath, Madhuratthavilsin,
Visuddhajanavilsin, Cariypiakahakath, Dhammapadahakath and Atthaslin. This section is
examined in particular detail because its multiple sources offer a wider basis for comparison. In each case,
I list the source in the form in which it appears in the quoting work, to show the manner in which texts are
cited. For the Jinamahnidna's citations alone, the texts are listed in alphabetical order (following the
order of the Pli alphabet) because of the occasional multiplicity of page references; in all other cases, the
order is sequential within the text.
Jinamahnidna: Aguttaranikye Ekanipte (98); Aguttaranikye Pacakanipte (71); Anattasuttam
(110); Cariypiake (30); Dhammapadagth (96); Pikavaggadghanikye Lakkhaasutte (47);
Ptimokkhagth (148); Buddhavamse (1, 109, 148, 154); Buddhavamsanidne (100, 170, 171);
Buddhavamsavaanyam (68); Mahpahnappakaraam (94); Mahpadnasuttavaanyam (38,
65, 200).
Jtaka-nidnakath: Buddhavamse (2, 3, 28); Ahakathyam [referring to the old Jtaka commentary that
preceded the current version, see von Hinber, Handbook, 131 261] (44); Mahpadne (59);
Jtakahakathya (63); Dhammapade Buddhavagge (79).
Visuddhajanavilsin: Buddhavamse (31); Vinaye (53); Mahpadne (63); Jtakahakathyam (67);
Dhammapade Buddhavagge (84).
Madhuratthavilsin: Mahpandasutte (279). This occurs at the parallel point to the Jtaka-nidnakath
and Visuddhajanavilsin's Mahpadne, so may need to be emended accordingly.
Cariypiakahakath: Buddhavamse (6).
Atthaslin: Buddhavamse; Ahakathyam (page references not available, as the Pali Text Society edition
here refers the reader to the drenidna of the Jtaka-nidnakath, which it claims the Atthaslin here
recapitulates.)
Dhammapadahakath: none.
The textual references in the Jinamahnidna's last section (201-291), generally accord with what is found
in the sources. It here cites: Khandhato [this refers to the Vinaya's Khandhaka] (278, 279);
Mahsudassanasuttam (251); and (Samanta)pahnam (261).
87
Jmn 65. Cf. Ja I 65; also Bv-a 284 and Ap-a 70, neither of which includes the citation.
34
another such text, the Sotahakmahnidna, despite its inclusion of material from a
plurality of sources.88 The manner in which the Jinamahnidna cites its source varies
from stating just the name of the text, to specifying in more detail where within the work
Reading the Jinamahnidna poses certain difficulties, but at the same time
perhaps offers the reader a productive challenge. The difficulties and challenge arise
from the fact that, as Pollock has rightly stressed, knowledge of "the understanding of
course, equally crucial to understanding the individual texts that make up those
places of origin" derives from the fact that, as he goes on to say, "the literary needs to be
historical context from which it emerges, and theseas we are coming to understand for
88
See Derris, "Virtue and Relationships," 8.
89
For example, each time it cites the Buddhavamsa, it introduces it: tena vuttam bhagavat Buddhavamse,
"because it was said by the Lord in the Buddhavamsa." An example of a more precise citation is vuttam
h'etam bhagavat Pikavaggadghanikye Lakkhaasutte, "For this was said by the Lord in the
Lakkhaasutta in the Dghanikya's Pikavagga" (Jmn 47).
90
Sheldon Pollock, introduction to Literary Cultures in History: Reconstructions from South Asia, 2.
91
Ibid., 18.
35
In the case of the Jinamahnidna, we have not been helped in our endeavor by
some of the scholarly tendencies historically deployed in the field. The tendency of
modern scholars of Buddhist texts has been to focus on the earliest texts, because of a
historicist interest in origins.92 This has resulted in a heavy emphasis on studying the
texts of the Pli canon. The corollary of this emphasis has been the neglect of later
Buddhist texts in both Pli and vernacular languages, many of which remain unstudied.93
At the same time, it has now been shown that the focus on "the canon" and
scholars' unquestioning acceptance of what that canon represented has often obscured
from scholarly view the lived realities of Buddhists in different times and places. Steven
92
For an examination of these tendencies, see Hallisey, "Roads Taken and Not Taken," 38-44. Hallisey
shows in this article that this focus on the earliest can be traced, not only to modern Western scholarly
interests, but also to what he has identified as "a productive 'elective affinity' between the positivist
historiography of European Orientalism and Buddhist styles of self-representation" (ibid., 42.). He points
out that: "Theravada Buddhists themselves subscribed, at least at times, to a similar 'metaphysics of
origins.' This conception of tradition, historicist in its own way, provided the ideological context for the
most common genres in Theravdin literature (commentaries, translations, and anthologies), all of which
tended to claim authority and purpose from other texts, usually those known by the generic name 'Pli.' In
this view, commentaries and translations were not the record of evolving interpretation over the centuries;
instead they were signposts in the present to recover accurately the meaning that had already been
promulgated in the past. They were instrumentally valuable, but were without interest in their own right"
(ibid.).
93
See K.R. Norman, "The present state of Pli studies, and future tasks," in Collected Papers VI (Oxford:
Pali Text Society, 1996), 80-3.
36
Collins and Anne Blackburn in particular have brought this to our attention.94 They
encourage us instead to pay attention to the texts that Buddhists have historically used,
and to the particular ways in which Buddhists would actually have encountered and
interacted with texts in particular historical situations. Such attention reveals that
Buddhist textual practices have differed according to their specific historical and
geographical contexts.
The neglect of later, and particularly Southeast Asian Buddhist texts, coupled
with the non-recognition that Theravda Buddhists' textual practices have varied in
different places and times, means that we have not yet developed sufficient knowledge of
the particular understandings of their literature held by Buddhists in those different times
and places. Knowledge of those understandings and of the particular textual practices
related to them would provide us with interpretive tools that would help us in our study of
These lacks in our current scholarly apparatus are only exacerbated in the case of
the Jinamahnidna by the fact that we know, in any case, virtually nothing about the
context of its origin. This, however, constitutes part of the challenge I referred to above.
In the absence of extra-textual evidence that might help us interpret the Jinamahnidna,
we are thrown back on the text and forced to try to identify from the text itself means by
94
See Steven Collins, "On the Very Idea of the Pali Canon," Journal of the Pali Text Society 15 (1990):
89-126; Blackburn, "Looking for the Vinaya" and Blackburn, Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice.
37
What this means in practice is that we have to look to the text itself for
information about how its anticipated readers would have been expected to relate to and
interpret it. To understand what the text is doing, we need to understand the expectations
nature for his encounter with that work. For an understanding of its textual nature also
provides the reader with what he calls "a set of interpretive protocols."95 To help me
know how to read the Jinamahnidna, I need to understand how its anticipated reader
might be expected to read the text. To understand this, I need to identify what
interpretive instructions its anticipated reader was provided by the text. Pollock gives us
95
Sheldon Pollock, "Sanskrit Literary Culture from the Inside Out," in Literary Cultures in History, 51.
96
Ibid., underlining added.
38
"interpretive protocols") we can reasonably see the Jinamahnidna as giving its reader
on how to read it. Hearing those instructions ourselves and imaginatively trying to
comply with them will help us hear the particular things the Jinamahnidna has to say.
important to be clear about who "the reader" is. Given our almost total ignorance of the
context of the Jinamahnidna's composition, we can know very little about exactly who
surmise as much as we can about who the text's anticipated reader might have been. This
will give us information about the "Encyclopedia" (as Eco has put it) that the reader
would be expected to bring with her.97 The contents of this Encyclopedia would naturally
affect the reader's responses to and interpretive stance toward the text.98
However, when I refer to "the reader" in this thesis, I will be making use of Eco's
97
See Umberto Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1993
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1994), 90, 97-117. Eco explains the "Encyclopedia" as "the
totality of knowledge" (ibid., 90). However, different types of work require their reader to bring different
types of Encyclopedia to the encounter (see especially Eco, Six Walks, 109-16).
98
For powerful corroboration of this point, see Anne Blackburn's analysis of the creation of a "textual
community" whose encyclopedia of knowledge was deliberately shaped in such a way as to make certain
types of responses likely in a reader (Blackburn, Buddhist Learning and Textual Practice, 139-96).
39
conception of "the model reader."99 Eco distinguishes between the "empirical reader"
and the "model reader."100 The "empirical reader" is anyone, when he reads a text. He
explains: "Empirical readers can read in many ways, and there is no law that tells them
how to read, because they often use the text as a container for their own passions, which
may come from outside the text or which the text may arouse by chance."101 The "model
reader," on the other hand, is one who is able to hear and willing to follow the reading
instructions provided by the text, who understands what is wanted of him in the reading
process. He hears, for example, the genre signals the text uses to shape his expectations
of how to read.
More specifically, I will use this phrase to refer to what Eco calls the "model
reader of the second level."102 He distinguishes between a "model reader of the first
level," who simply wants to know how the story ends, and "a model reader of the second
level, who wonders what sort of reader that story would like him or her to become and
who wants to discover precisely how [the narrative strategy, the set of instructions
embedded in the work] goes about serving as a guide for the reader."103 The "model
reader of the second level" does not just want to know what happens, but tries to
99
See Eco, Six Walks in the Fictional Woods, 15-25.
100
Ibid., 8.
101
Ibid.
102
Ibid., 27.
103
Ibid., emphasis added.
40
understand precisely how a certain effect was achieved by the text, how he was made to
respond in the way he did. This level of reader wants to understand the workings of the
Let us look first at how the text presents itself at its outset and at its conclusion to
see what, if any, information it gives us here about its own "protocols of interpretation."
The Jinamahnidna's pamagth104 and its explanation of the title and scope of the
104
A pamagth or "verse of veneration" standardly opens a Pli work. These verses generally contain
the author's veneration of the Three Jewels (Buddha, Dhamma and Sagha) and often indicate something of
the text's aspiration or the purpose of its creation.
105
Jmn 1.
106
My translation is similar to that provided by Peter Skilling in his review of the edition: "Having bowed
41
establishes a relationality between the reader and its subject from the very outset. Both
my head in homage to the Buddha, / to the Dhamma, well-taught by him, / and to the unblemished Sagha,
/ a field of merit unsurpassed, / I will relate in brief / the excellent Career of the Jina: / listen without
distraction / for this account is rare indeed" (Skilling, "Jinamahnidna," 116).
107
Skilling translates this: "The Conqueror being the Buddha, the title 'Genesis of the Conqueror' means
the 'sprout' of the Buddha, the vow of the Buddha, the career of the Buddha, the range of the Buddha. The
story of our Lord from the [initial] vow [to become Buddha] up to his passing away is the 'Genesis of the
Conqueror'" (ibid.).
108
Jmn 291.
109
There may be a pun in the use of sota here. It is common in Pli texts (as in texts in other South and
Southeast Asian languages) to show the influence of the oral/aural aspect of textual transmission and
recitation by referring to their words entering their audience's ears (sota). On the other hand, sota could
also be used here in the sense of "stream"referring to the stream that leads to nibbnagiving a
meaning: "the story of the origin of the Conqueror, which brings the happiness of the stream to good
people."
42
amhkam and bhagav are relational terms, amhkam ("our") explicitly, and bhagav
implicitly (by indicating personal allegiance). The Jinamahnidna hereby informs its
reader that she is involved in its account. Moreover, it continues to highlight this fact
throughout the text by its repeated designation of the Buddha as amhkam bhagav.110
Hallisey has spoken of this mechanism in his study of Sihala material: "The
composite, 'our Buddha' again points in two directions, inside the narrative to the events
recorded, and outside the narrative to the context of whomever speaks or hears 'our.'
Every speaker or hearer can assume his or her place in the linguistic space created by the
that she is to consider herself drawn into relation with what is recounted. This is likely to
i A nidna
In its opening statement the Jinamahnidna states that it is the story of the
Conqueror; that is, the story of the Buddha (jinanidnam).112 The term "nidna" is
110
Throughout the Jinamahnidna, the Buddha Gotama is called "our Lord" (amhkam bhagav), which
distinguishes him from his 24 predecessors.
111
Hallisey, "Devotion in the Buddhist Literature of Medieval Sri Lanka," 78.
112
Jina, meaning "the conqueror," is an appellation frequently given the Buddha. As we saw above, the
text also specifies very shortly afterward that by "jina" it means the Buddha: buddha jinam (Jmn 1).
43
complex and multivalent, and it is used in different literary contexts with different
implications. When discussing the titles of Pli texts, Peter Skilling and Santi
Pakdeekham include nidna in a list of terms that appear at the end of titles. They
comment of the list: "Some of these represent genres that have not yet been properly
recognized, let alone studied."113 I will not attempt to draw any definitive conclusions
about what the use of this term signifies here. I will simply note that there seem to be
two types of text which get the title -nidna: accounts of Buddha-relics or images, and
biographical works.114 For our purposes then, calling itself a -nidna, while suggesting
113
Skilling and Santi, Pli Literature Transmitted in Central Siam, lxvii-lxviii.
114
For example, thirteen of the texts that Skilling and Santi list in their inventory of Pli texts transmitted
in Central Siam end with -nidna. Two of these are accounts of Buddha-images; two accounts of Buddha-
relics; six biographical accounts of the bodhisatta/Buddha, and one a biography of Buddhaghosa. The
remaining two do not fall into this rough categorization, being works relating to language. The accounts of
Buddha-images are: the Ahabhgabuddharpa-Nidna, "the nidna of the Buddha-image [made] from a
half part," described by the editors as the story of a monk who made a Buddha-image, though it also covers
the rewards of making Buddha-images (ibid., 36-7), and the Sihiga-Nidna, "the nidna of the Buddha-
image from Sri Lanka," on the making of this image and its visits to various places (ibid., 181-2). The
accounts of Buddha-relics are: the Dantadhtunidna, "the nidna of the tooth-relic" (ibid., 188-9), and
the Ahakesudhtunidna, "the nidna of the hair-relic" (ibid., 197). The biographical accounts include:
the Jina-Mahnidna (ibid., 72); the Dra-Nidna (sic), the account of the bodhisatta's passage from
Sumedha up to his last birth (ibid., 89); the Sammoha-Nidna, which Skilling and Santi describe as being
about the bodhisatta's deeds as he cultivated the perfections (ibid., 173); Sampiita-Mahnidna (referred
to in this thesis as the Mahsampiinidna), described by the editors as a biography of the Buddha,
"starting from the lifetime in which he began his quest for enlightenment up to his Nibbna" (ibid., 172);
the Sodattak-Mahnidna (referred to in this thesis as the Sotahakmahnidna), which Skilling and
Santi describe as an "(a)nthology of accounts of how the Buddha accumulated perfections" (ibid., 188); the
Duyantinidna, "the nidna of [the place] Duyanti," described as "(o)n the Buddha's prediction of a
king who would establish himself in Muang Tung Yang"the editors note that the story is related to the
Paca-buddhabykaraa, a text on the predictions of the five Buddhas of the present eon [ibid., 89]. von
Hinuber notes that the latter is virtually an appendix to the Pasajtaka (von Hinber, Handbook of Pli
Literature, 198 429). It is thus within the biographical genre. There is also a biographical account of
Buddhaghosa, the Buddhaghoscariyanidna, "the nidna of the teacher Buddhaghosa" (Skilling and
Santi, Pli Literature Transmitted in Central Siam, 119-20). The two works which fall outside my broad
44
ii A nidnakath
Using the term nidnakath in its opening and closing statements seems likely to
forge a connection in the reader's mind between the Jinamahnidna and either the genre
introductory section providing the context from which the rest of the text originates. So it
the reader would simply interpret it as an assertion that it belongs to that genre.
On the other hand, if the reader had heard in the Jinamahnidna's first two
see a connection between the Jinamahnidna and that specific nidnakath, the Jtaka-
authoritative and is the principal source and template for the nidnakaths found in other
texts.115 It therefore seems reasonable to suggest that when the term nidnakath is used
in the Jinamahnidna, it may bring to the reader's mind the Jtaka-nidnakath. In this
categorization are: the Chanda-Nidna, which is described as a "treatise on prosody" (ibid., 257), and the
Nirutti-Nidna, "on the history of the composition of Nirukti" (ibid., 270).
115
For evidence of this, see Chapter 2, pp. 136-7.
45
C By intertextual allusions
One of the ways the Jinamahnidna's reader may gain an indication of its
textual nature is seeing it in relation with certain other texts, through the mechanism of
intertextual allusions or verbal echoes of other texts. I suggest that the opening verse
contains two allusions that could have been highly instructive to a learned reader. The
116
orientation towards and relation to earlier texts. We should expect people participating
texts.
Richard Gombrich and K.R. Norman have argued persuasively that the early Pli
opponents. They have shown that some Pli suttas contain references to particular Vedic
117
and Upaniadic texts and amount to parodies of those texts. These parodies depend on
116
See Hallisey, "Roads Taken and Not Taken," 38-44.
117
See Norman, "A note on att in the Alagaddpama-sutta," in Collected Papers II (Oxford: Pali Text
Society, 1991), 200-9; Gombrich, "The Buddha's Book of Genesis?," Indo-Iranian Journal 35 (1992):
159-78; Gombrich, "Why is a Khattiya called a Khattiya? The Aggaa Sutta Revisited," Journal of the
Pali Text Society XVII (1992): 213-4; Gombrich, How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the
Early Teachings, School of Oriental and African Studies; Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion, XVII
(London: Athlone Press, 1996); Gombrich, "Recovering the Buddha's Message," in Earliest Buddhism and
Madhyamaka: Panels of the VIIth World Sanskrit Conference, Kern Institute, Leiden, August 23-29, 1987,
ed. Johannes Bronkhorst, vol. II, ed. David Seyfort Ruegg and Lambert Schmithausen (Leiden: E.J. Brill,
1990), 12-21; and Gombrich, "A Visit to Brahm the Heron," Journal of Indian Philosophy 29, 2001: 95-
46
118 119
direct "allusions to brahminical texts," expressed in the form of "verbal echoes" or
120
"verbal assonances." Gombrich summarizes his argument about such dynamics in a
particular sutta: "(T)he Buddhist text is based on knowledge of brahminical texts, and
121
satirizes them." He further argues that because Pli commentators were often not
aware of the allusions, they did not see the ironic character of the texts they were
122
commenting on.
Gombrich argues for textual allusions across religious traditions: the Buddhist
texts picked up the words of brahminical texts. In suggesting that the Jinamahnidna
alludes to the Jtaka-nidnakath and to the Atthaslin by means of verbal echoes not
this case, the allusions are to other texts within the same overarching tradition. Gombrich
argues that the authors of the Pli commentaries were not aware of the allusions because
108.
118
Gombrich, "The Buddha's Book of Genesis?," 176.
119
Ibid. and Norman, "A note on att in the Alagaddpama-sutta," 201.
120
Gombrich, "The Buddha's Book of Genesis?," 166.
121
Gombrich, "Why is a Khattiya called a Khattiya?," 213.
122
Gombrich, "The Buddha's Book of Genesis?," 175. See also his "Recovering the Buddha's Message,"
12-21 and "A Visit to Brahm the Heron," 95-108.
However, Oskar von Hinber discusses a passage from the Samantapsdik, which, he argues,
demonstrates that Buddhaghosa recognized a passage in the Vinaya as being a satirical reference to a Vedic
Prtikhya in "Buddhist Law and the phonetics of Pli: a passage from the Samantapsdik on avoiding
mispronunciation in kammavcs," Selected papers on Pli Studies (Oxford: PTS, 1994), 198-232. See
J.C. Wright, "Sithila, Kath, and Other Current Topics in Pli," Bulletin of the School of Oriental and
African Studies 59, no. 1 (1996): 44-62 for a discussion of von Hinber's article, amongst others.
47
they were not familiar with the texts alluded to because they were distanced from them
themwould have been familiar with the Jtaka-nidnakath and the Atthaslin
because they used them or had been exposed to them in some way. It is therefore more
likely that they would have heard the allusions and recognized them as such.
I am clearly not arguing that the Jinamahnidna wishes to satirize those other
texts. Rather, I am proposing that some of the meaning located in this one verse of the
Jinamahnidna depends on its audience hearing the echoes of those other texts behind
it, and therefore bringing them mentally into relation with the Jinamahnidna at that
point. The interesting question is what might be the effect in each case of bringing two
texts into relation in this way. This will no doubt vary enormously. As we will see from
just these two examples, bringing one text into relation with another in this way can serve
multiple purposes, and can do so simultaneously. Indeed, in the case of the allusion to
the Jtaka-nidnakath, we may see a contestation of the text so alluded to at the same
time as we see an appropriation of some of the legitimation that comes from its
authoritative status.
I argue below for the central role in the production of later Pli texts of creative
engagements with earlier texts. I see this type of allusion as one such mechanism within
the range of techniques by which texts can create and convey meaning. A careful
analysis of the forms of such intra-tradition allusions, and of the types of uses to which
48
they can be put would be an interesting and valuable project, one which is unfortunately
i To the Jtaka-nidnakath
The first two words of the Jinamahnidna's pamagth are the same two
words as begin the pamagth of the Thai edition of the Jtaka-nidnakath,123 though
not that of the Pali Text Society edition.124 It is possible that the reader would have heard
It may be argued that this is too flimsy a reason to suggest reference to the Jtaka-
nidnakath. However, the question is what the text's anticipated reader would have
123
Vanditv siras seham buddham appaipuggalam (Jtakahakath [Bangkok:
Mahmakuarjavidylaya, 1924], 1). The Thai edition's version is confirmed by a Cambodian manuscript
of the Jtaka-nidnakath in the Copenhagen collection, which is described as having been "(d)onated by
a Siamese Prince to the University Library, 1885" (C.E. Godakumbura, U Tin Lwin, Heinz Bechert and
Heinz Braun, Catalogue of Cambodian and Burmese Pli Manuscripts, Catalogue of oriental manuscripts,
xylographs, etc. in Danish collections, vol. 2, pt. 1 [Copenhagen: Royal Library, Copenhagen, 1983], 8).
I should note that this is the first line of the Pali Text Society edition and the Thai edition of the
Visuddhajanavilsin also (Ap-a 1). However, the Visuddhajanavilsin seems to have essentially
incorporated the Jtaka-nidnakath verbatim as its nidnakath, simply exchanging "S panayam
Apadnass'atthavaan" (Ap-a 2) for the Jtakahakath's "S panayam Jtakassa Atthavaan" (Ja I
2). von Hinber dates the Jtakahakath, including the Jtaka-nidnakath, as appearing after 450 C.E.
and the Visuddhajanavilsin as between 1000 and 1500 C.E. Hence, it is evident that the
Visuddhajanavilsin is the adopter, rather than the other way around. The Visuddhajanavilsin could also
be seen as making an allusion to the Jtaka-nidnakath in a parallel way (if for different reasons). Given
that the Jtaka-nidnakath was clearly the template for nidnakaths, it seems more likely that a reader
recognizing the phrase as an allusion, would take it to be alluding to the Jtaka-nidnakath rather than to
the Visuddhajanavilsin.
124
I have found no other text that begins specifically vanditv siras. This in itself proves nothing. It does
not prove that there were no other texts that started this way. This is especially so in the case of Ayutthaya,
since many manuscripts were burned when the kingdom was sacked in 1767. It simply says that we are not
aware of any other texts that begin this way, other than a text that we know to have been very well known
(viz. the Jtaka-nidnakath).
49
been likely to hear. Described by other texts as the authoritative nidnakath and
therefore likely viewed that way, the Jtaka-nidnakath would undoubtedly have been a
well known text, no doubt familiar to some educated readers. It is therefore possible that
its opening words would have been familiar to such a reader, so that when those words
The pamagth of a Pli text is where the aspirations for what the text will
accomplish or the reason it was produced are often expressed. So a reader coming to a
attempting to orient herself to the work. Moreover, the first words of the opening
versethe very first words of the whole textare in a position of particular prominence.
From that structural aspect alone it seems reasonable to imagine those first words might
stand out more clearly in the attentive reader's mind than words in less prominent
positions.
Moreover, this argument is strengthened by the fact that the very first words of a
text were accorded a special significance by an aspect of Pli literary theory that is
discussed in the Vuttodaya (the preeminent work on Pli prosody), well known in
premodern Thailand. This aspect is the theory of gaas (syllable clusters). This theory
involves what has been called the "'occult' aspects of poetry,"125 which includes poetry's
125
Hallisey, "Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Culture" in Literary Cultures in History, 740.
Hallisey here discusses this theory as it is attested in Sinhala works on poetry (ibid., 740-3), but he also
50
power to produce particular effects in the world. The theory revolves around an analysis
of the distribution of light and heavy syllables in the first three syllables of a work.126
Given that the effects different arrangements of syllables can produce range from victory,
fame, blessing, and long life to disease, extreme sorrow, death, and destruction, it is
I suggest that this high degree of awareness of the very first words of a text
strengthens the case that in the Jinamahnidna's opening phrase would likely be heard a
verbal echo of the Jtaka-nidnakath. It makes it less likely that this overlap between
considers the implications of the Vuttodaya's attention to this aspect of literature (ibid., 742).
126
Eight such gaas were identifiedspecific patterns of light and heavy syllables. For example, when the
first three syllables were all heavy (- - -), it was called a m gaa; when the first syllable was light and the
others heavy (v - -) it was a y gaa; when the first and last were heavy, but the middle was light (- v -), it
was an r gaa; and when the first two syllables were light but the last heavy (v v -), it was an s gaa. At
first glance, the differences between these groups may seem insignificant. However, when one bears in
mind that a m gaa brings victory to the world, a y gaa brings long life, a r gaa brings extreme sorrow,
and a s gaa brings death, it is obvious that it would be better to start a work with, say, a y gaa than with a
s gaa. See Hallisey, "Works and Persons in Sinhala Literary Culture," 741; "Khuddaka Pha, a Pli
Text, with a Translation and Notes," ed. and trans. R.C. Childers, Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society
(New series), vol. 4 (1869): 331; Vuttodaya (Exposition of Metre) by Sagharakkhita Thera: A Pli Text,
edited, with translation and notes, ed. and trans. G.E. Fryer (Calcutta: Baptist Mission Press, 1877), 5, 14,
24-5.
127
In addition, it is apposite that a work entitled the Jinamahnidna, "the Great Story of the Conqueror"
should begin with vanditv. With all heavy syllables, this is an m gaa, which therefore brings victory to
the world. We can here see three potential effects of the Jinamahnidna's starting with this word: a verbal
echo of the Jtaka-nidnakath that might bring the latter to the reader's mind; the strengthening of an
aspect that is accorded prominence in the subject matter: the Buddha's victory; and an indication to an
educated audience that the text follows the norms of Pli's poetic tradition. This will at the same time
inform such an audience that the ways in which poetry is understood to function in that tradition apply also
to this text.
51
Beginning its account with this echo of the earlier text, the Jinamahnidna evokes the
shadowy presence of the Jtaka-nidnakath from the outset. It starts out, if briefly, as
though it were the Jtaka-nidnakath. The reader may hear the Jtaka-nidnakath's
voice in its words. The question is what effect this would be likely to have on its
reader.128 We can imagine that a reader hearing this echo in the Jinamahnidna might
interpret it to signify that the text is presenting itself as in harmony with the Jtaka-
definitive account of the Buddha's life of its type, the Jinamahnidna might be
ii To the Atthaslin
Jinamahnidna's pamagth also makes a much more overt verbal nod to another
128
Tzvetan Todorov's discussion of "intertextual polyvalence" is particularly relevant here (Todorov,
Introduction to Poetics, translation from the French by Richard Howard, introduction by Peter Brooks,
Theory and History of Literature, ed. Wlad Godzich and Jochen Schulte-Sasse, vol. 1 [Minneapolis:
University of Minnesota Press, 1981], 23-5). He cites Mikhail Bakhtin's characterization of a "member of
a collective of speakers" necessarily using words that are "inhabited" by others' voices (ibid., 24). He
quotes Bakhtin: "he receives the word from the voice of another, and the word arrives in his context from
another context which is saturated with other people's interpretations" (ibid.). This can help us see here
how the Jtaka-nidnakath's words vanditv siras, adopted by the Jinamahnidna, bring with them all
sorts of interpretations and expectations, that are not visible in the words themselves, but which
significantly shape their import.
52
text, the Atthaslin, Buddhaghosa's commentary on the Dhammasaga. The last line
ayam kath ("Pay attention undistracted, for this account is hard to receive/rare"). This
is also the last line of the Atthaslin's pamagth.129 The line is in fact quoted twice
in the Atthaslin. After its initial position at the end of the pamagth, it appears
again some thirty pages later, right after the nidnakath. The last verse of the
verse.130 This forms the opening to the body of the text itself, and so is in a position of
high prominence.
The idea expressed by this line is very commonly found at the end of
pamagths in Pli texts. However, I have not found this particular wording in any
other text or manuscript listed in the catalogs I have consulted. The Atthaslin's own
Jinamahnidna. It is also likely that a reader familiar with the Atthaslin would
recognize the line in the Jinamahnidna as echoing that of the Atthaslin.132 I suggest
129
The Atthaslin: Buddhaghosa's Commentary on the Dhammasaga, ed. Edward Muller (London:
Pali Text Society, 1979), 2.
130
As 36.
131
Cf., for example, Jmn 92-3 and As 13-4.
132
Beside its high visibility in the Atthaslin, there are other reasons why the Jinamahnidna's
53
that this verbal echo is likely to evoke the Atthaslin in the reader's mind at this point.
Jinamahnidna and the Atthaslin is a protocol of reading the text. I will focus on two
reasons why such a connection is especially relevant for the text's self-presentation and
The most immediately obvious relevance here is the fact that the Atthaslin was
anticipated reader would be likely to recognize the line as being also in the Atthaslin. The Atthaslini is
one of the texts that most prominently discuss the issue of nidnas, in that it addresses a critique that the
Abhidhamma cannot be counted as buddhavacana ("the word of the Buddha") because it does not have a
nidna. As the Dhammasaga is the first book of the Abhidhamma, the Atthaslin (as the first of the
Abhidhamma commentaries) handles this question in a way that is then applicable for all the other
Abhidhamma texts and their commentaries. This question of the Abhidhamma's status as buddhavacana is
such an important one for the tradition that educated Buddhists would very probably have been aware of
the Atthaslin's response, even when not dealing directly with Abhidhamma texts. This makes it very
likely that the Atthaslin's discussion of nidnas would come to a reader's mind whenever discussion
about the nature or importance of a nidna arose. It is therefore highly likely that in a situation where the
text being read was named a form of nidna and where the question of what should be covered by a
nidnakath was being explicitly discussed, the Atthaslin's discussion of nidnas would readily come to
the reader's mind.
Furthermore, the Jtakahakath and the Atthaslin are explicitly paired by the
Cariypiakahakath in its nidnakath as suitable places to refer to if one wants to understand the
breakdown of the time-periods of and between the previous Buddhas. It states, "the narrative account that
is to be told here should be understood by the method described in the Atthaslin, the commentary on the
Dhammasaga, and the Jtakahakath" (Cp-a 16). This shows that the two texts were thought of as
related at least by the Cariypiakahakath and hence potentially those who were familiar with the
Cariypiakahakath. I am not, of course, suggesting that every reader of the Cariypiakahakath
would consciously remember this particular statement the text makes. However, since many Pli texts
display a real interest in these time-periods (see, for example, the Jinaklamlpakaraa), it is possible that
the Cariypiakahakath's pairing of the two texts would have been known to an educated and interested
reader.
Hence it seems reasonable to suggest that the Jinamahnidna could expect not only the Jtaka-
nidnakath but also the Atthaslin to come easily to mind for one reading it, and therefore that a
reference to those works in the form of a quoted phrase might well be sufficient to make that connection
apparent to an educated reader.
54
paradigm of someone equipped to take a vast body of literature and condense it most
fully into one coherent work. This would obviously be an advantageous mantle for the
In Pli texts in general, the pamagths are presented as the personal words of
supposedly personal statement at the beginning of a text, within the author's supposedly
personal statement about the Jinamahnidna, the latter encourages its reader to view it
Atthaslin is a complementary bid for authoritativeness, this time more in terms of the
author. The Jinamahnidna here effectively places itself directly in the line of the most
authoritative biographical account of the Buddha and of the most authoritative compiler
The allusion to the Atthaslin also provides another, perhaps equally important,
133
von Hinber, Handbook of Pli Literature, 151 312-4. The Jtakahakath was also traditionally
considered to have been written by Buddhaghosa (ibid., 131 260).
55
explanation of the Abhidhamma, glossed as his explanation of the meaning of the entire
superior to the suttas of the canon, because it is complete where they are partial.135 In
effect, therefore, the Jinamahnidna uses this literary device to present itself as the
Such an attributed description seems very apt for the Jinamahnidna, which, as
we have seen, has already claimed to be the supreme history of the conquerora claim to
superiority over other biographical accountsa claim it makes, at least in part, on the
134
The two verses in the Atthaslin's pamagth that precede this verse read: Kammahnni sabbni
cariybhi vipassan / Visuddhimagge pan' idam yasm sabbam paksitam / Tasm tam agahetvna
sakalya pi tantiy / padnukkamato eva karissm'atthavaanam. / Iti me bhsamnassa
Abhidhammakatham imam / avikkhitt nismetha dullabh hi ayam kath ti, "Since all the meditation
topics, right conduct, the higher powers, and insight were expounded in the Visuddhimagga, therefore
leaving that aside, I will produce an explanation of the meaning of the entire canon through each word
successively. Pay attention undistracted to this talk on the Abhidhamma of mine as I speak on this, for this
account is hard to receive/rare" (As 2, vss. 18-20).
The equivalence between the Jinamahnidna and the Atthaslin created by this parallelism
becomes clear by parsing the two verses side by side. The parallel object of nismetha in the
Jinamahnidna's pamagth was jinanidnam uttamam. Therefore, if the two sets of verses are
brought into parallel relation, the jinanidnam uttamam is logically the equivalent of Abhidhammakatham,
which has been glossed as sakalya tantiy atthavaanam. In this way, the Jinamahnidna becomes
effectively the equivalent of the explanation of the entire canon.
135
Immediately after the above verse in its pamagth, the Atthaslin explains the meaning of
"Abhidhamma" as that which is different from and exceeds the dhamma, meaning the suttas. It exceeds
them because it is more complete than they are. The Atthaslin goes through many examples of topics
which are classified only partially (ekadesen'eva vibhatt na nippadesena [As 2]) by the suttas but fully by
the Abhidhamma (nippadesato vibhatt [ibid.]).
56
grounds of being complete. In other words, by means of this allusion to the Atthaslin,
the Jinamahnidna makes a parallel between the Atthaslin's relation to the suttas that
preceded it and its own relation to the biographical material that preceded it. It is
metaphorically the Atthaslin of the Buddha's biographyit stands apart from the
In sum, these indices provide the reader with a range of "interpretive protocols"
that help determine her initial orientation to the text, and so shape her encounter with it.
They inform her that in reading the text she is to feel involved in what is recounted. It is
personally relevant to her, because it concerns a figure with whom, the text informs her,
she is in a relationship.
It also establishes certain connections between itself and particular other texts, as
well as a particular author. These connections confer value and authority on the
Jinamahnidna, and raise the reader's estimation of the work from the outset. On the
other hand, the reader is informed by means of these connections that its presentation of
the Buddha's life is positively superior to its forebears, in being complete where they
were partial. This lets the reader know from the outset that it is significant that the
Jinamahnidna tells the Buddha's life from start to finish. This information will color
At the same time, by its deft use of these allusions, the Jinamahnidna alerts the
57
reader that it is sophisticated in its handling of its textual heritage. She is thus informed
in various ways that she should view the Jinamahnidna with esteem and so take
comparison of its textual form with that of its sources. Such close comparison often
reveals what we can reasonably interpret to be careful reworkings of the source material.
A distinctive and coherent text emerges from the combined effects of these reworkings.
This text then reveals certain qualities that figure prominently in the text's presentation.
In the four central chapters of the thesis, I examine four key qualities of the text
that are allto varying degrees perhapssimultaneously aspects of its form, content,
and relationship to the Buddha. The four qualities are comprehensiveness, wholeness,
information about individual episodes, more episodes, many more types of information,
more registers of discourse, and so on than its sources. This in turn reflects on the
Buddha, who is encountered by the reader in more modes than in other biographies. This
tells the reader that there is more about the Buddha that needs to be known, if he is to be
more adequately comprehended. It shows that the Buddha is more multi-faceted than the
reader had previously understood. So if he is to be perceived more fully, the reader must
58
be prepared to approach him from multiple interpretive angles, and thus relate to him in
multiple ways. This she has already experienced something of in the reading process.
Chapter 2: The text also creates a strong impression of being a textual whole. It
has a unity as a work that makes of it more than just the sum of its individual elements.
Most distinctively, the Jinamahnidna displays a temporal unity that applies both to
itself and to its subject. The text is presented as a temporally unified entity where
everything between beginning and end is equally present and mutually connected. The
Buddha is portrayed as existing in a single, continuous temporal realm where all times
within his long trajectory are equally a part of his unitary life. The text offers a depiction
of a singular being who is simultaneously the being he is in those individual episodes and
an increased sense of connectedness in the reader. The reader feels himself directly
addressed by the text, and in fact already involved in the life it depicts. It draws the
reader into connection with the Buddha's life and his person. In turn, he feels a
heightened sense of personal relationship with him. The Buddha is also revealed as
in its portrayal of the Buddha. In manifold ways, the narrative creates a sense of the
59
endless dimensions of the Buddha's temporality, past and future, being simultaneously
involved in each moment of his present. The reader experiences the narrative and the
revealed as opening out into and as being infused with all other moments. The Buddha is
harmony with each other, while others directly oppose each other. The challenge is to
know how to interpret the cumulative effect of these mutually reinforcing and mutually
On the one hand, the text's qualities of comprehensiveness and wholeness are
related in that they pursue a similar strategythat of emphasizing the unity of the
biography. On the other, its connectedness and denseness are also related and mutually
compatible in emphasizing the biography's openness. Yet these two strategies are
At the same time, the Jinamahnidna's comprehensiveness and its denseness are
connectedness undoes.
Through these narrative tensions and the mutual overlaying of qualities, the
60
Jinamahnidna creates a multilayered orientation toward the Buddha in its reader. The
reader is ultimately left with a heightened sense of personal connection with the Buddha,
who is yet shown as extending ever beyond the reader's grasp in his profound opacity.
61
CHAPTER I
COMPREHENSIVENESS:
THE JINAMAHNIDNA AND ITS SOURCES
As I outlined in the Introduction, among later Pli texts are many that were
created out of material drawn from other texts. The Jinamahnidna is one of these. The
manipulation of its source materials. This chapter will therefore involve a close
comparison of the wording of the Jinamahnidna and its sources, with the end of
between the form of the material in the Jinamahnidna and its various sources. With
such attention consistently paid the source texts, it behooves us to be attentive to the
possible effects not only of the manipulation of source materials, but also to the effects of
the parallelism.
I will show that one of the principal effects of this parallelism is precisely to draw
the reader's attention to the Jinamahnidna's relation to its sources, in such a way as
reveals the text to be distinctively comprehensive. This chapter will thus also explore the
ways that the Jinamahnidna draws attention to its comprehensiveness by making its
The chapter therefore has a two-fold purpose. It is intended to lay bare some of
62
also intended to show how these techniques were deployed in ways that would create a
text that was highly comprehensive, and also cause the reader to perceive it as
comprehensive.
will become more visible in the examples taken up through the chapter.
coverage of all aspects of the Buddha's story. It includes some episodes that are omitted
by the other biographical accounts.136 While some of its sources pay scant attention to
important episodes in the Buddha's life, the Jinamahnidna ensures that significant
episodes are accorded an appropriate amount of attention; its account of his life is
136
It includes the story of Mahkassapa's ordination, which is not encountered in any of the other
biographical accounts. See pp. 86-7, 90 below.
There are no episodes found in the Jtaka-nidnakath that are not also in the Jinamahnidna.
The only part of the Jtaka-nidnakath that could be viewed as omitted from the Jinamahnidna, and as
significant, is the information about the lives of the previous buddhas that the Jtaka-nidnakath includes
in its opening section. The Jtaka-nidnakath's account of these buddhas focuses heavily on the lives of
the buddhas, and includes little information about the bodhisatta that each encountered. The
Jinamahnidna, on the other hand, focuses on the figure of the bodhisatta in each case and gives little
attention to the buddhas. I do not view this as episodes omitted by the Jinamahnidna, so much as a
difference in emphasis.
63
therefore more proportional as a whole than those of its sources.137 It gives detailed
more information about events covered in the account than the other versions do.140 It
includes types of information about something covered in the account that other versions
omit.141 It sometimes provides explanations for events where other biographical accounts
gives the reader a fuller, more detailed picture of the events of the Buddha's life.143 It
also brings out nuances of a storythat is, it adds layers of meaning to episodesthat
137
It expands the report of the Buddha's attaining omniscience from the Jtaka-nidnakath's two clauses
to more than three pages. See pp. 91-4 below.
138
In all the Jinamahnidna's primary biographical sources the thousands of miracles the Buddha
performed shortly after his enlightenment are reported in a single clause. The Jinamahnidna gives
detailed accounts of these miracles over twelve pages. See p. 88, n. 48 below.
139
While the Jtaka-nidnakath covers the period of the early post-enlightenment conversions in just over
a page, the Jinamahnidna's account of these events takes thirty-six pages. See pp. 85-90 below.
140
It gives a full description of the five dreams the bodhisatta had on the night before his enlightenment
plus an analysis of their import, where other accounts simply mention their occurrence or omit any
reference to them altogether. See p. 79-84 below.
141
It includes the substantive content of teachings normally just namedfor example, it provides the
content of the three knowledges gained in the three watches of the night of enlightenment. See pp. 91-4
below.
142
It includes a passage explaining why Sriputta and Moggallna took longer to attain arahat-ship than
their colleagues, where the other biographical accounts simply report that they did. See pp. 89-90 below.
143
It paints a much richer picture of Mra's army than do any of its sources. See pp. 111-3 below.
144
It refashions the description of the bodhisatta about to embark on the last phase of his progress toward
enlightenment, in a way that makes clearer than other versions that the whole world is urging him on in his
enterprise, participating in the process. See pp. 102-3 below.
64
The bulk of its account is narrative prose, recounting more or less straightforwardly the
events of the Buddha's life. It also includes passages of evocative, descriptive prose,
which sometimes involve elaborate similes. The Jinamahnidna also contains verse
both narrative and descriptive. Of the latter type are quite a few verses which (while they
may minimally narrate events) principally describe and praise the Buddha, often using
multiple epithets and similes. It also contains extended sections of doctrinal discourse as
This stylistic diversity is in large part the result of the textual techniques we will
see the Jinamahnidna apply to its source material. In particular it derives from the
accounts and the refashioning of its source material. It would be hard for any reader not
greater degree than most other biographical accounts. This fact alone is liable to make
the reader perceive the Jinamahnidna as "containing more," that is, comprehensive.
mechanisms that encourage the reader to compare the Jinamahnidna to its sources and
narrative framework of whatever is the primary, "structuring" source for each section of
its account. This creates a strong parallelism between the material of the
a considerable amount of material is added to that which is taken from those structuring
texts, the parallelism encourages the reader to view those two key texts as somewhat
material and that of its sources alerts the reader to its comprehensiveness. It does this by
making the points when the Jinamahnidna's material diverges from that which it had
So also does the text's technique of using allusions to the Jtaka-nidnakath and
the Atthaslin in its opening verse. This alerts the reader from the very outset that he
should think of this text in relation with others. Similarly, identifying itself as a
nidnakath encourages the reader to view it in relation with accounts of that type.
However, it then does considerably more than those accounts did, by continuing on to his
death. In this way it overtly displays itself as more comprehensive than other
nidnakaths.
66
The text also uses techniques to signal more directly that what it includes at a
particular point is not found in the main source for that section, that what follows is an
interpolation. One such technique is to provide citations for material that it incorporates
into the framing material.145 This type of citation draws attention to the fact that what
follows was not included in the framing text, but was brought into the Jinamahnidna's
account from elsewhere. This use of citations is found quite rarely in the
Jinamahnidna.
Another technique that functions in a very similar way, but is more frequently
attested, involves prefacing material from another source with a statement about the
context in which it originated.146 This again suggests that the following material comes
The text also makes use of techniques that more indirectly indicate to the reader
that it is stepping away from its primary source at that point to include additional
material. One of these is the insertion before such material of seyyathdam, "that is, that
is to say," or katham, "How so? In what way?" These words indicate to the reader that
145
We will see an example of it later when the analysis of the import of the bodhisatta's pre-enlightenment
dreams is prefaced by the statement: "For this was said by the Lord in the Aguttaranikya in the Pacaka-
nipta ..." (Jmn 71). Other examples in the text are the citations: Ptikavaggadghanikye Lakkhaasutte
(Jmn 47) and Mahpadnasuttavaanyam (Jmn 200).
146
We see an example of this in the section on "juxtaposition," where the Jinamahnidna introduces
verses it is incorporating into material otherwise framed around the Jtaka-nidnakath's account with the
following statement: "So the compilers, describing the thirty-two portents that appeared at the very
moment of the Lord's enlightenment, said ..." (Jmn 87).
67
what follows will expand on or elaborate what has just been read. When it uses
seyyathdam, the Jinamahnidna effectively asserts of its own accord, as it were, that it
will elaborate on what has just been said. Katham, on the other hand, represents a
might have at that point, a query that is then answered by the extra material that
follows.147 The Jinamahnidna here implies that the original source is likely to leave
insertion into its account of a question in the form of a full sentence, at the break-point
between the framing material and material brought in from elsewhere. This technique is
found quite frequently through the text, with such questions being posed in a variety of
ways.148 Again, the question rhetorically anticipates the reader's query, a query that the
147
There is a nice example of both these rhetorical moves in the Jinamahnidna's expansion of the
Jtaka-nidnakath's account of the bodhisatta's gaining the three knowledges in the three watches of the
night of his enlightenment. See p. 91-4 below. The Jinamahnidna here breaks up the Jtaka-
nidnakath's sentence reporting these three watches and inserts between the broken up pieces a rendition
of the content of the knowledge gained in each, using material taken from elsewhere. At the break-point
right after the phrase taken from the Jtaka-nidnakath and before the interpolated material, the
Jinamahnidna inserts seyyathdam in the case of the first knowledge and katham of the second and third.
148
None of the sections of text examined in this chapter involves this technique. However, a classic
example is to be seen in the Jinamahnidna's coverage of the portents that appeared before the
bodhisatta's death from the Tusita heaven preceding his birth as Vessantara. The Jinamahnidna's
account has been following the version found in the Jtaka-nidnakath (Ja I 48), which just mentions that
five portents appeared, without stating what those portents were. The Jinamahnidna interrupts the
Jtaka-nidnakath's version at that point to ask: Katamni paca pubbanimittni? "What are the five
portents?" (Jmn 32). It then includes a brief explanation of what exactly the portents involve. Once the
explanation is complete, the Jtaka-nidnakath's material is resumed.
A nice example of a longer question being used in this way is found in an instance of the
68
Jinamahnidna. It is also found in other Pli texts, perhaps most commonly in the
that this technique is often used to introduce material that is not included in the main
source currently in use. We can therefore see the Jinamahnidna's use of it as serving a
particular function within the work, as one of the means by which it incorporates
supplemental material within its account. At the same time, we can say that these
questions make the reader conscious that further explanation is needed, and thereby
encourage her to wonder if the Jinamahnidna is here importing material not found in
the primary source. In this way the questions alert the reader that what follows may be an
interpolation.
particular phase of the Buddha's life than its primary sources that the reader is likely to
Jinamahnidna providing an explanation for an occurrence that its primary sources simply report, a
phenomenon I mentioned in the preceding section. This occurs in the Jinamahnidna's account of the
bodhisatta abandoning his six-year practice of austerities (Jmn 70). It here follows the Jtaka-
nidnakath's version (Ja I 67) very closely but neatly inserts into that material a section opened by the
question: Kasm pana amhkam bodhisatto sesabodhisattnam viya satthe v ahamsdike v
padhnakle bodhiam na pput ti ..., "If you ask: 'But why did our bodhisatta not attain the
knowledge of enlightenment after a period of exertion of a week or a fortnight like other bodhisattas?'..."
(ibid.) Ending the question with ti, the quotation marker, marks it more overtly as a question the text
anticipates the reader asking at this pointit is as though the Jinamahnidna is stating out loud the
reader's own question. The text then answers this question with a brief explanatory passage and some
verses taken from the Visuddhajanavilsin. As soon as the explanation is complete, it picks up the Jtaka-
nidnakath's account again and continues to follow it very closely.
69
become aware of the discrepancy. In such a case, the sheer volume of information in the
Jinamahnidna invites comparison with its sources, and the reader would thereby
period.149
The Jinamahnidna also includes the occasional episode that is not found in any
of the other chief biographical accounts. The reader would not associate that episode
with the life of the Buddha told as such, and so, on encountering it in the
Jinamahnidna, would again become aware of the latter as including more than its
discourse.151 Again, the readernot expecting to encounter such material within the
comprehensiveness.152
149
A prime example of this dynamic is seen in the Jinamahnidna's account of the events following the
Buddha's enlightenment up to his conversion of Sriputta and Moggallna. The Jinamahnidna recounts
in fifty-five pages what the Jtaka-nidnakath reports in four. See pp. 85-7 below.
150
The story of Ghaikra having to drag his friend the bodhisatta Jotipla by the hair to see the then
buddhaprovided to explain why Siddhattha had to perform austerities for six yearsis an obvious
example of this phenomenon (Jmn 70).
151
The most notable exception to thiswhere a biographical account includes an extended section of
philosophical discourseis the Vinaya's inclusion of the Dhammacakkappavattanasutta.
152
The reader would not expect to encounter a lengthy rendition of, say, the "chain of dependent
origination," the paiccasamuppda, within his biography, and so reading this in the Jinamahnidna
would be striking. See the account of the three watches of the night of enlightenment, pp. 91-4 below.
70
In all these ways, the Jinamahnidna not only provides an unusually exhaustive
telling of the Buddha's life, but draws the reader's attention to the fact. The collective
impact of these various techniques would only reinforce their individual effects.
involve the insertion of material into and the elision of material from the portions of text
taken from its sources. Throughout the Jinamahnidna we will find these moves taking
place at various levels of magnitude, from the insertion or elision of discrete clauses, all
the way to the insertion into the Jinamahnidna's account of approximately fifty pages
Let us start with an example of the Jinamahnidna's both inserting and eliding
discrete clauses within the larger framework of a sentence. It comes from a section of the
about two and a half pages. The extremely close verbal parallelism of the two versions of
this episode makes the points where they diverge stand out with particular clarity.
The episode involves Sujt preparing the last meal the bodhisatta will eat before
71
The Jinamahnidna's version does not include this qualifying clause with its
striking image (underlined for clarity). On the other hand, it incorporates an extra pair of
clauses and an extra word (all underlined). The Jinamahnidna's version reads:
The elision from between the vatv and pakkmi at the end of the
Jinamahnidna's sentence of the qualifying clause found in that position in the Jtaka-
153
Ja I 69:28-70:3.
154
Jmn 74:19-22.
72
gacchath ti (vanditv) and yath of the Jinamahnidna's two clauses tam ptim
The principal point here is simply to demonstrate the cleanness of the elision and
sources. It is also instructive, however, to consider the possible effects of these moves on
the emerging depiction of the episode. I do so to illustrate how even seemingly small
omissions or additions can subtly add meaning to or shift the emphasis of the source
material.
conveying a greater depth of the interpersonal dynamics between the bodhisatta and
Sujt than was achieved in the Jtaka-nidnakath's account. This is a small instance
of what I will show is a wider pattern in the text of the Jinamahnidna working with its
that reads: Niyydetv ca pana "yath mayham manoratho nipphanno, evam tumhkam
its account of their interaction a nuance that is not so strongly conveyed in the Jtaka-
nidnakath's version. It may be that, between the gerund clause niyydetv ca pana and
Sujt's statement about her own state of mind and her wish for the bodhisatta's, there is
73
not simply a temporal relation of sequentiality between the two actions (which is the base
meaning carried by the gerund form). It may be that there is an implicit causal relation:
because of the action which has preceded there is the action which follows. This type of
implicit causal relation is not at all uncommon in Pli's use of the gerund.
niyydesi niyydetv. The stress on that verb at the beginning of the sentence highlights
that the action connoted by the verb is an integral element of the rest of the sentence.
That is, the act of giving is integral to her expression of happiness.155 Here the
implication would be that what Sujt is feeling and expressing is: "Happiness has arisen
in me through having given you the bowl, and I wish that you will likewise experience
happiness, through my having given you the bowl" or "through your having received the
Jinamahnidna's addition of that phrase: she gains happiness from giving him a bowl,
he gains happiness from her giving it or from receiving it from her. Even the
Jinamahnidna's addition of bodhisattassa in the first part of this sentence, can be seen
to contribute to the emergence of this theme of reciprocity. It makes even more explicit
the mutuality of the gaze, where the bodhisatta looks at Sujt and Sujt looks at the
155
Hallisey points out that the case that the gift is a causal factor in her happiness is made stronger by the
use in this passage of pariccattam, which is a key element in the act of dna (personal communication).
74
bodhisatta.
account, is further reinforced by the text's elision of the qualifying clause found in the
Jtaka-nidnakath. The clause depicts Sujt as "being without concern for the golden
bowl worth a hundred, thousand coins as though it were an old leaf." While this
highlights her readiness to give, it focuses on a negatively oriented not caring about
losing a valuable bowl, an absence of regret, rather than a positive pleasure in having
given. This does not carry overtones of reciprocity, and in fact weakens such a sense in
that it raises the question of calculation. Even though it portrays Sujt as not making
that calculation, the very presence of the question of calculation undermines the sense of
mutual focus that is brought out in the Jinamahnidna's version of the incident.
figures in this scene is a play on the use of happiness as a synonym for nibbna. The
force of this is heightened by the fact that the reader knows that Sujt's wish for the
nibbna, which is to follow very shortly afterward. Moreover, the reader knows that
Sujt's gift is a necessary element in his being able to reach this attainment, so the
In this small example we have witnessed the precision with which the
Jinamahnidna applies its most basic techniques, as well as something of what can be
75
achieved by the use of those techniques. The concurrence of the insertions and elision in
ii. Maintaining the skeletal outline of a sentence while refashioning it through the
insertion of extra material
The example above involved the Jinamahnidna inserting short clauses into a
single sentence. In other places the Jinamahnidna inserts material into what it takes
from the source on a much grander scale. In using a passage from, say, the Jtaka-
sentences virtually verbatim, but make significant changes to one sentence within it. In
doing so, it will sometimes split the Jtaka-nidnakath's single sentence into multiple
segments and insert other material between those segments. In this way the Jtaka-
The following example shows clearly how this works. It comes from the account
of the Buddha's reunion with his family, before he instructs them. This is an important
symbolic moment in the Buddha's life: he has returned to the milieu he left behind in his
quest for enlightenment, so the two realms of life available to him are brought into
relatives.
sentence from the passage, while keeping the sentences either side of it almost exactly the
same.156 The close parallelism of the preceding and succeeding sentences makes the
alterations to the intermediate one stand out all the more starkly.
The Jtaka-nidnakath tells us that after the Buddha had entered the grove
156
The Jinamahnidna also adds an extra, short sentence before picking up the Jtaka-nidnakath's
following sentence.
157
Ja I 88:12-3. The underlining highlights the sentence that is expanded in the Jinamahnidna's version.
The adjectival compound khsava, "whose impurities have been extinguished," is used particularly to
designate an arahant. The savas are the "impurities" (sensual desire, clinging to existence, speculative
views, and ignorance) which John Strong nicely describes as "all the negative influences that attach a
person to this world, [which] are seen as flowing out towards this world," in John Strong, The Buddha: A
Short Biography (Oxford: Oneworld Publications, 2001), 75. An arahant is one who has attained nibbna
in this life. Arahat-ship is the highest of the four stages of the spiritual path: stream-enterer, once-returner,
non-returner, arahant.
77
158
Jmn 169:8-14. The underlining indicates the elements of the Jtaka-nidnakath's account that are
maintained in the Jinamahnidna's version, and again the bold highlights the elements of the Jtaka-
nidnakath's single sentence now split up.
159
A cakkavatti or "wheel-turning" king is the highest possible grade of king, extremely rare, one who sets
rolling the wheel of Dhamma by ruling righteously in accordance with the Dhamma. When still a boy, it
was predicted of the bodhisatta that he would become either a cakkavatti king or a Buddha.
78
sentence here makes it especially clear that the Jinamahnidna structures its account of
refashioning it. It achieves this principally by inserting a series of similes and splitting
the sentence into two. In the process it transforms material that was blunt and unadorned
into a more stylized and polished prose. It also transforms it into a depiction of a rich and
altered in the sentence's transformation into the version found in the Jinamahnidna. In
information that moved the plot forward, if minimally"there the Buddha sat on a seat
prepared for him." The Jinamahnidna's version conveys that information, but that is
Instead of the action, the Jinamahnidna focuses on and elaborates the Jtaka-
arahants become rays of light and crowds of beings arrayed around and highlighting the
noble, central figure. In the process, instead of moving the plot forward, it retards it. The
Jinamahnidna does not take the reader swiftly on to the next stage of the events, as did
the Jtaka-nidnakath, but rather slows the reader's attention down, to focus it
79
perception of the Buddha at this point in the story, creating a multi-layered portrayal of
him as irradiating a celestial light that fills the surrounding space, while being equated
with the noblest of figures, and displaying a sensuous physical beauty. This description
makes the reader more aware of Gotama as a being who is more than just human, a
This example shows how the import and function of a sentence can be radically
altered by manipulations as simple as inserting similes into its bare bones structure. We
do not see the Jinamahnidna conveying any substantive information in these textual
alterations that was not conveyed by the Jtaka-nidnakath. The alterations are at the
level of style and tone. Yet they add an element of richness to the Jinamahnidna's
iii. The elision of a clause and its replacement by material from a different source
Let us now turn to an example of a textual elision that will pave the way for our
exploration of some of the larger-scale and more visible elisions and insertions. This
160
For an interesting discussion of narrative "slowing down," see Eco's Six Walks in the Fictional Woods,
49-73, which builds on Italo Calvino's study of the literary quality of "quickness" in Italo Calvino, Six
Memos for the Next Millennium, The Charles Eliot Norton Lectures, 1985-86, 1st Vintage International ed.
(Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1988; New York: Random House, Vintage Books, Vintage
International, 1993); see especially ibid., 45-8.
80
example involves the elision of a clause found in the Jtaka-nidnakath's version and
its replacement with a much longer passage taken from another text, which is
repositioned within the flow of the Jinamahnidna's narrative. It is taken from the
Sujt episode, which (as we saw earlier) follows the Jtaka-nidnakath's version very
closely.
A page into its account of the Sujt episode, the Jtaka-nidnakath tells us:
Then the bodhisatta, having seen five great dreams in that part of the night,
interpreting (them), having come to the conclusion, 'I will undoubtedly become a
Buddha today,' at the end of that night, having done his bodily preparations,
waiting for the time for his alms-round, having come early, sat at that base of the
tree, irradiating the entire tree with his light.
161
Ja I 69:5-10.
162
Jmn 74:1-2.
81
to be highly significant informationthat the bodhisatta had five dreams which told him
he would definitely become a Buddha that very dayis not accorded great visibility by
being contained within a subordinate clause that is just one among a series of clauses
within a larger sentence. One could reasonably presume that such significant information
would be important to the reader's experience of the account, giving a heightened sense
of the impending enlightenment as well as adding an element to what the reader might
Looking from the Jtaka-nidnakath's perspective, it might seem odd that the
Jinamahnidna should omit this significant element of the story. However, the question
is rendered moot when one approaches it from the perspective of the Jinamahnidna.
For in the Jinamahnidna, right after it has recounted the bodhisatta's abandonment of
the austerities he had been practising for six years and his consequent rejection by his
former colleaguesbefore the story of Sujt even beginsit tells us: "Then at dawn ...
the great man had five great dreams. That is to say (seyyathdam) ...."163 This is followed
by a detailed description of the contents of the dreams. The text then goes on: "For this
analysis of the dreams' import that covers just over a page.164 The coverage of the
163
Jmn 71.
164
vuttam hetam bhagavat anguttaranikye pacakanipte ... (Jmn 71:19).
82
None of the Jinamahnidna's chief sources includes any information about the
content or significance of the dreams in their accounts of this episode.166 For this
information the Jinamahnidna has had to turn to the Aguttaranikya, as the text itself
makes clear (at least for the analysis). It is therefore telling that the description of the
source. As I noted above, these are both techniques the Jinamahnidna uses to
introduce material taken from a source other than the one it is primarily following. The
function of these two devices of drawing attention to the text's incorporation of extra
version of this episode is constructed is that the material from the Aguttaranikya is
neatly spliced between the two sentences that respectively precede and begin the Jtaka-
nidnakath's account of the Sujt episode. That is, in the Jtaka-nidnakath, the final
sentence of the preceding episode and the first sentence of the Sujt episode read:
165
Jmn 72.
166
Cf. Bv-a 7, Ap-a 75.
83
In the Jinamahnidna the sentences that precede the material about the dreams read:
Pacavaggiy bhikkh ... mahpurisam pahya attano pattacvaram gahetv
ahrasayojanamaggam gantv Brasiyam Isipatanam samppuimsu. Te
tattha vasimsu.168
The sentence that immediately follows the two pages of material from the
Aguttaranikya reads:
Tena kho pana samayena Uruvelyam Sennigame Senkuambikassa gehe
nibbatt Sujt nma drik ....169
Apart from the Jinamahnidna's addition of a three-word sentence after the Jtaka-
nidnakath's preceding sentence, the sentences that precede and follow the inserted
material in the Jinamahnidna are almost identical to their counterparts in the Jtaka-
nidnakath.
In other words, in using the Jtaka-nidnakath's telling of the Sujt episode,
the Jinamahnidna has omitted its clause about the dreams and instead replaced it with
a two page account taken from another text, which it has shifted in location within the
story and neatly spliced between the end of the Jtaka-nidnakath's previous episode
and the beginning of the current one.170 It seems reasonable to assume that the lengthy
167
"The monks in the group of five ... having left the great man, each having taken his own bowl and robe,
having gone along a path of eighteen yojanas, entered Isipatana. But at that time in Uruvel in the town
Senni a girl called Sujt was born in the house of the landowner Senni ...." (Ja I 67:31-68:7). The Pali
Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary defines a yojana as "as much as can be traveled with one yoke (of
oxen), a distance of about seven miles, which is given by [Buddhaghosa] as equal to 4 gvutas" (T.W.
Rhys Davids and William Stede, ed., The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary [1921-1925; reprint,
Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1999], 559).
168
"The monks in the group of five ... having left the great man, having taken their bowl and robe, having
gone along a path of eighteen yojanas, reached Isipatana in Bras. They lived there" (Jmn 70:19-24).
169
"But at that time in Uruvel in the town Sen a girl called Sujt was born in the house of the landowner
Sen ..." (Jmn 73:1-2).
170
In introducing the account of the dreams the Jinamahnidna includes a phrase specifying the time they
84
account of the dreams is placed at the break-point between the two episodes in order to
avoid disrupting the narrative flow of the Sujt episode as told in the Jtaka-
nidnakath. By these means the Jinamahnidna has included more information than is
treatment of its source material. The precision of the splicing by which text is elided
from and material from another source is inserted into the structuring text's material
comprehensive account and yet preserve the narrative framework provided by the main
structuring text. The Jinamahnidna has also drawn attention to its interpolation and
citation.
that is framed by the Jtaka-nidnakath occurs in its telling of the events that
occurred (Jmn 71:1) which makes clear that the timing of the actual incident referred to is not changed by
the Jinamahnidna's shifting the account's placement within the text. Of course, there is a change in the
timing of the events within the narrative.
85
minimal at this point, and the Jinamahnidna turns to a number of other sources for an
extended portion of its account. Events that the Jtaka-nidnakath covers in just over
four pages171 the Jinamahnidna recounts in fifty-five.172 The sheer disparity of the
coverage here is likely to alert the reader to the Jinamahnidna's fuller telling of this
a) Differential coverage
The Jtaka-nidnakath conveys in one and a half pages all of the following
events: the Buddha's being asked by the gods to teach and their subsequent discussion
over whom to teach first; his converting and establishing in arahat-ship his first disciples,
the group of five monks (pacavaggiyabhikkh); his then bringing Yasa (and his fifty-
four friends) to arahat-ship; his sending these followers out into the world to teach; his
establishing the thirty Bhaddavaggiya friends at various stages of the path; and his
conversion and bringing to arahat-ship of the three ascetics, the brothers Uruvelakassapa,
171
Ja I 81-5.
172
Jmn 99-154.
173
Ja I 81:8-82:29. As elsewhere, the Visuddhajanavilsin follows the Jtaka-nidnakath's account here
verbatim (Ap-a 85:35-87:21). The Madhuratthavilsin's account of these events is also brief though it is
differentially covered. It has a longer account of the Buddha's interaction with Brahm Sahampati; an even
more abbreviated version of the events up to the sending out of his followers to teach; but then it adds
86
park to the Buddha in two and a half pages. The Jinamahnidna's version takes five.
ship of Sriputta and Moggallna in ten lines.175 The Jinamahnidna's account takes
three pages.
At this point, the Jtaka-nidnakath is done with the story of the early
conversions and it moves on to talk about the desire of the Buddha's father, Suddhodana,
to see his son again.176 The Jtaka-nidnakath makes no mention of another of the
length to its account of the latter by including verses not found in the Jtaka-nidnakath (Bv-a 9:32-
10:32, 13:28-31, 18:12-19:32). The Dhammapadahakath's account is more abbreviated than the Jtaka-
nidnakath's (Dhp-a I.86:16-87:20).
174
Jmn 99-100.
175
Ja I 85:14-24. Again, the Visuddhajanavilsin follows the Jtaka-nidnakath's account here exactly
(Ap-a 90:1-11). As noted before, this event is not even mentioned by the Madhuratthavilsin.
176
Ja I 85.
177
None of the Jinamahnidna's regular source texts for this segment includes any information about
Mahkassapa at this point in their account. Not only the Jtaka-nidnakath, but also the Buddhavamsa,
Madhuratthavilsin and Dhammapadahakath make no mention of Mahkassapa's conversion at all. As
we will shortly see, the Jinamahnidna will make use of material from the Visuddhajanavilsin. This
material is, however, from the body of the bookin the section commenting on the Apadnas of individual
monksand not the introductory, nidna section from which most of the Visuddhajanavilsin's material
used by the Jinamahnidna is taken.
178
Jmn 149-154.
87
multiple sources for material that will tell this phase of the Buddha's story in sufficient
detail. It also makes use of texts that are outside its usual range of sources.179 The
following overview will give a sense of the repeated switching between sources needed
Up to the point in the story immediately preceding the first events listed above
(when the Buddha converts his first followers, the laymen Tapussa and Bhallika), the
approximately fifty-five pages, and it does not take up the Jtaka-nidnakath's material
again until it gets to the story of Suddhodana summoning his son home. At this point, the
nidnakath's account.
After the story of Tapussa and Bhallika, the Jinamahnidna takes from the
Madhuratthavilsin a page and a half that serves as the beginning of its account of the
Buddha's reflection on whether to teach the Dhamma and the god Brahm Sahampati's
179
For example, Jmn 90-1 contains a section of material from the Paisambhidmaggaa source it uses
extremely rarelyto describe the Buddha's performance of the "twin miracle," the yamakapihiriya.
180
Jmn 97:8-98:6. The Jinamahnidna's version is framed around the Jtaka-nidnakath's material (Ja I
80), but also includes a couple of passages from the account found in the Vinaya's Mahvagga (Vin I.4).
88
it turns to the Mahvagga of the Vinaya, which it then follows very closely (and for long
stretches verbatim) for the next forty pages.182 In this section of text are told the events
from Brahm Sahampati's intervention to the conversion of the three Kassapa brothers
181
Jmn 99:8-100:17; Bv-a 9:32-10:32, then, after skipping some pages of word-commentary, Bv-a 13:28-
31.
182
Jmn 101:4-140:6; Vin I.4-34. My purpose in this section is to demonstrate the large-scale alternation
between sources in the Jinamahnidna's account of this period. So I will just sketch out here the few
significant divergences from or alterations to the Vinaya's material that are found in this forty-page section.
The principal divergences between the two bodies of material concern verse (most notably, the inclusion of
seemingly original verse summaries of the account's progress and the apparent translation of prose from the
Vinaya into verse in the Jinamahnidna). The only other significant differences are the Jinamahnidna's
inclusion of a detailed discussion (Jmn 115-9), taken from the Madhuratthavilsin (Bv-a 119-22), of the
anupubbkath, "the graduated sermon," which the Vinaya names without explaining; and the inclusion of
material from elsewhere, principally the Madhuratthavilsin (Bv-a 119), in the telling of the Buddha's
sending his converts out into the world to teach (Jmn 122-4). The Jinamahnidna does not indicate the
shifts between sources in its material here.
183
One aspect of the Jinamahnidna's rendition of these events is striking and important. That is, it gives
great prominence to the accounts of the different miracles the Buddha performed in this period. This is
appropriate considering the Jinamahnidna goes on to include the Buddha's teaching career, because the
Buddha was held to teach both by word and by miracle. It is therefore fitting to preface its account of his
teaching with attention to his performance of miracles.
The Jinamahnidna accords the miracles great prominence by making use of two, very different
forms of manipulation of the source material. The first, witnessed in the majority of the accounts of the
miracles, is the apparent conversion into verse by the Jinamahnidna's composer of what was prose in the
Vinaya. The alternation within the Jinamahnidna's text between prose and verse creates variation in the
narrative tone, which can be expected to make the overall account more engaging to a reader.
The second technique evidenced here is the Jinamahnidna's breaking up of its account of the
miracles by the use of chapter-ending titles. The Jinamahnidna's general use of such titles will be
discussed in Chapter 2, but it is useful to note their effect here. The Vinaya divides off its accounts of the
first five miracles in this way (Vin I 25-8), but recounts the rest of them continuously without breaking up
the narrative, concluding simply: "in this way there were three and a half thousand miracles" (Vin I 34).
The Jinamahnidna, on the other hand, divides up its accounts much more extensively. It follows the
Vinaya's division for the first five miracles (Jmn 128-130, 132), but goes on to break up the rest of the
Vinaya's accountinitially into "the tenth," "the eleventh," and so on until the fifteenth (Jmn 134-6); then
into seven batches of five-hundred (Jmn 136-7); plus a final one (Jmn 138). In several cases it provides
89
To tell the story of King Bimbisra's donation of the Veuvana park to the
Buddha,184 the Jinamahnidna returns for five pages to the version found in the
Madhuratthavilsin,185 though it supplements the account found there with material from
the Vinaya.
For the account of the conversion and attainment of arahat-ship of Sriputta and
Moggallna, the Jinamahnidna uses the Vinaya's telling for three pages.186 However,
while the Vinaya only narrates the story of their encounter with the Buddha, the
disciples longer to achieve arahat-ship than their colleagues. This material is taken from
titles for portions of text consisting of just two sentences. This draws much more attention to the individual
miracles recounted in those sentences than if the accounts were allowed to run on continuously.
The prominence the Jinamahnidna accords these miracles is made clear by a comparison with
how the other texts the Jinamahnidna uses as sources for this segment of the text handles them. None of
the Jinamahnidna's four other principal prose source texts provides any narrative detail of the miracles
whatsoever. They all simply mention their having happened in a brief gerund clause: ahuhni
pihriyasahassni dassetv, "having manifested three and a half thousand miracles" (Ja I 82:30, Ap-a
87:21, Bv-a 19:33, Dhp-a 87:21). The Buddhavamsa does not mention this series of miracles at all. So,
while the Vinaya gives a lot more prominence to the miracles than these other texts, the Jinamahnidna
goes even further and really draws maximum attention to them.
184
Jmn 140-145.
185
The Madhuratthavilsin's account here (Bv-a 19-22) is, in parts, extremely close to that found in the
Jtaka-nidnakath (Ja I 82-85), but the Madhuratthavilsin contains material not found in the Jtaka-
nidnakath and, from the comparison of the texts' choices of individual words, we can tell that the
Jinamahnidna is following the Madhuratthavilsin's version.
186
Jmn 145-7; Vin I.39-43.
90
Dhammapadahakath.187
Though the Jtaka-nidnakath ends its account of the conversions at that point,
first four and a half pages are taken verbatim from the Sratthappaksin (the
story.191 This brings the Jinamahnidna's account of the Buddha's early conversions to
a close and it can now move on to King Suddhodana's efforts to see his son. It is at this
point that it takes up once more the text that had for long been its principal frame of
reference.
here and the careful interweaving of material from a number of sources the departure
necessitates are unequivocal testimony to the text's commitment to telling the Buddha's
187
Jmn 147:23-148:9; Dhp-a 95-6.
188
This episode will be considered in detail in the next chapter. I will argue there that it throws into high
relief many of the aspects of relationality that are key in the Jinamahnidna's portrayal of the Buddha.
189
Spk II.191-7.
190
S II.220-1.
191
Dhp-a 260-5.
91
into a clause or sentence from the primary source, which then acts as a structuring
framework, is the same. Yet if the material added consists of, say, philosophical
discourse, the insertion does not simply add narrative detail or raise the stylistic tone of
this monumentally significant event in two phrases that form part of a longer sentence:
The Jinamahnidna, on the other hand, stretches its account over more than three pages:
Evam dharamne yeva suriye Mahpuriso Mrabalam viddhamsetv uparpari
192
Ja I 75:24-6. "When the great man had rousted Mra's army in this way while the sun still remained,
being honored by the shoots of the bodhi tree falling around his robe, as though by chips of red coral,
having purified in the first watch of the night the knowledge of his previous existences and in the middle
watch the divine eye, in the last watch he directed his understanding to dependent origination. Then (while
he was reflecting on) the mode of causation with its twelve elements, forwards and backwards ...." The
clauses that are split up in the Jinamahnidna's version are underlined.
92
It is clear from the fact that the sentences which open and close the
version, that the Jinamahnidna's passage has been constructed from the Jtaka-
nidnakath's material and framed by it. It is also clear that the Jinamahnidna is using
the two clauses in which the Jtaka-nidnakath reports his actual attainment of the three
knowledges to structure its account of the attainments, with the knowledge gained in each
193
Jmn 83:10-86:16. "When the great man had rousted Mra's army in this way while the sun still
remained, being honored by the shoots of the bodhi tree falling all around him, like red coral, in the first
watch of the night he attained the knowledge of his previous existences that was manifold by
recollecting the succession of aggregates that lived in the past. That is to say: he recollects his manifold
previous existence with its forms and its specificities in this way: 'One birth, two births, three births ... [one
paragraph] ... .' Then in the middle watch he purifies the divine eye. How so? With his purified divine
eye that transcends the human he sees beings ... [one paragraph] ... he understands that beings progress
according to their actions. Then in the last watch he directed his understanding to dependent
origination. How so? The bodhisatta apparently reflected in this way: '... [two and a half pages] ...
knowledge arose, insight arose. Then [while he was reflecting on] the mode of causation with its twelve
elements, forwards and backwards ...."
Text that is shared with the Jtaka-nidnakath is underlined here to show how the Jtaka-
nidnakath's material frames the Jinamahnidna's. The clauses from the Jtaka-nidnakath's sentence
that were split up are further written in bold to make clearer the latter's structuring function. Seyyathdam
and katham are also written in bold to highlight their positionin between the structuring fragment and
the interpolation.
93
Creating this passage therefore involved breaking up into three sections and
stretching clauses, which in the original extended over five lines, over three pages.
and "the divine eye" (dibbacakkhu)the contents of what the bodhisatta came to know
in the first and second watch of the nightwere then taken from the Aguttaranikya194
and inserted into the framework created from the Jtaka-nidnakath. For the details of
what was understood in the third watch, "the knowledge of dependent origination"
(paiccasamuppde a), the Jinamahnidna does not use material from the
both content and form. The narrative context is all but lost sight of in the course of over
three pages of philosophical discourse. In reading these pages, the figure of the Buddha
194
pubbenivsaa, A I.164:5-17; dibbacakkhu, A I.164:23-165:5.
195
S II.5:9-9:13. Since the Samyuttanikya's version is recounted in relation to the previous Buddha
Vipassi when he was still a bodhisatta, every time the Samyuttanikya says atha kho bhikkhave Vipassissa
bodhisattassa etad ahosi ... ("then, monks, the bodhisatta Vipassi thought ..."), the Jinamahnidna
replaces it with athassa etad ahosi ("then he thought ..."). The Jinamahnidna also gives a slightly more
streamlined version than the Samyuttanikya.
Since the material used for the first two watches comes from the same passage in the
Aguttaranikya, we might expect that the material for the third watch would also be taken from there.
However, this was not possible, because the passage in the Aguttaranikya is not in fact about the
knowledges gained in the three watches, and the third knowledge delineated there is not the knowledge of
dependent origination, but that of the four noble truths. The passage as a whole explains the three
knowledges that truly define the brahmin.
94
gaining the knowledges is no longer at the forefront of the reader's attention. The content
of the knowledges is. The reader is twice made to change mental gears in passing from
the narrative account of the events leading up to this point to the laying out of the
alternative visions of existence that make up the knowledges and then back to the
From the opposite perspective, it can equally be said that by being incorporated
within this strongly narrative framework the reader has been made to encounter the
philosophical realities conveyed by the knowledges in a different way than when they are
divorced from the narrative context. From this perspective, framing them in this way
may lead the reader to process the content of the knowledges in a somewhat more
"narrative" way. This is a very interesting question, which merits further analysis.
We can at least say that philosophical discourse is not usually encountered in the
context of a biographical depiction of the Buddha. Encountering such discourse with its
distinctly non-narrative style within the body of the narrative would undoubtedly be
unfamiliar and noticeable to the reader. The reader could not therefore help but become
of types of material.
95
and that it relatively often has sections consisting of many pages of continuous verse.196
For our purposes here, I focus only on the way this feature contributes to the effect of
comprehensiveness created by the text. It is one more way in which we see the
Jinamahnidna work to include everything relevant to the Buddha's story at each point.
The Jinamahnidna frequently adds extra verses into its account that are not
found at the parallel points in its source texts. It does this in a variety of ways, of which
we will consider just a few. Often the source text that the Jinamahnidna is following
will refer to multiple verses being spoken, but actually include either only the first or the
first and the last. In recounting that part of the narrative, the Jinamahnidna will almost
always include all the other relevant verses, sandwiching the previously unincluded ones
between the first and last found in its primary source. A prime example of this is the
196
The Jinamahnidna contains proportionally many more verses than its principal prose source texts.
For example, it includes quite a few verses that eulogize the Buddha. The most prominent example of this
is found in the Jinamahnidna's account of the Buddha's performing the twin miracle and preaching the
Buddhavamsa from the gem walkway (Jmn 173-9). The Jinamahnidna here includes long sections of
verses taken from the Buddhavamsa that contain laudatory epithets of the Buddha and similes comparing
him to the moon in the sky, the sun at midday, a blossoming lotus, and so on. The Madhuratthavilsin
includes some of these verses, which it comments on individually, but most of them it does not consider.
The Jtaka-nidnakath does not include any of these verses.
There are also examples of descriptive verses of this type scattered throughout the
Jinamahnidna, though not usually in long sections. The Jtaka-nidnakath on the other hand contains
only four such verses altogether. Three of them report Sakka's praise of the Buddha (Ja I 84, included in the
Jinamahnidna on p. 142) and the fourth is the first of the narashagth spoken by Rhulamt when she
first sees the Buddha after his return to Kapilavatthu. The Jinamahnidna on the other hand includes all
eight narashagth (Jmn 180-1).
96
verses that Kudyin speaks to the Buddha, describing the beauty of the path to
Kapilavatthu. In its version of the episode as a whole, the Jinamahnidna follows the
reports Kudyin as speaking sixty verses but includes only the first and the last, the
Jinamahnidna reports him as speaking sixty-four verses and then includes sixty-four
verses, its first and last being the first and last cited by the Jtaka-nidnakath.197
The Jinamahnidna will also simply add verses at points where the text it is
following has none. This is clearly seen in the account of the King Suddhodana telling
the Buddha what a loyal wife Rhulamt has been during his long absence. Again, the
between two sentences that are contiguous in the latter the Jinamahnidna neatly splices
different verses (often many more in number) than are found at the parallel point in its
197
Jmn 156-167. The source of these verses is convoluted, and it is not the place here to offer a thorough
investigation. I will just note that while the Jtaka-nidnakath and the Madhuratthavilsin quote the
same two verses, the Apadna and its commentary and the Theragth and its commentary include many
more. The Visuddhajanavilsin, for example, includes forty-six (Ap-a 533-7). The first and fifth of the
Visuddhajanavilsin's verses are the same two as are found in the Jtaka-nidnakath and
Madhuratthavilsin, and the first and the last of the Jinamahnidna's sixty-four verses. However, the
remaining forty-four verses found in the Visuddhajanavilsin are not attested in this section of the
Jinamahnidna, which instead has a wholly different set. I have not been able to identify the source of the
verses in the Jinamahnidna that are not otherwise accounted for above.
198
Jmn 183-4. I have not identified the source of these verses.
97
primary source text. In its account of the donation of the Jetavana monastery by
donating monasteries.199 Its account of this episode overall moves back and forth
between material from the Jtaka-nidnakath and the Vinaya, which both quote the
same five verses.200 Yet it does not include those five verses, but instead quotes verses
not found in either of those sources. The Jinamahnidna has simply substituted the
verses more suited to its purposes for those found in its sources.
In these various ways, the Jinamahnidna errs always on the side of including
more verses than its sources. This abundance would surely be noted by the reader,
B Syntactic restructuring
The Jtaka-nidnakath describes the bodhisatta's progress towards the site of his
199
Jmn 194-9. Again, I have not located the source of these verses.
200
Ja I 93-4; Vin II.164.
98
The bodhisatta, having spent the heat of the day in a grove of abundantly
flowering Sl trees on the bank of the river, at evening time, at the time of
flowers' coming loose from their stem, like a lion arousing himself, facing the
bodhi tree set out along a path that was eight usabhas wide,202 decorated by the
gods. Ngas,203 yakkhas,204 supaas,205 and so on honored him with heavenly
perfumes and flowers and so on, they let forth heavenly songs. The ten-thousand-
fold world-system had a single fragrance, a single garland, a single shout of
approval.
201
Ja I 70:24-30.
202
An usabha is explained by the PED as a measure equivalent to one hundred and forty cubits (ibid., 156).
This would make the path over six hundred yards wide.
203
A nga is sometimes described as a kind of powerful snake spirit, but it is a complex figure frequently
found in Pli literature playing a range of roles, and that designation hardly does justice to it. See PED, 349
for a discussion of its range of meaning. Since the English language has no parallel that captures in any
meaningful way what is signified by the Pli, I have declined to translate it. The same also applies for the
terms yakkha and supaa. Ngas are natural foe of the supaa.
204
A yakkha is a kind of powerful, non-human spirit. See PED, 545.
205
The PED describes supaas as winged figures, a kind of mythical bird, and foe to the nga (ibid., 719).
206
Jmn 75:13-17.
99
The bodhisatta, having spent the heat of the day in a grove of abundantly
flowering Sl trees on the bank of the river, at evening time, when the beautifully
colored, sweet-smelling flowers were fluttering around his robe having come
loose from their stem; when ngas, supaas, and so on were honoring him with
heavenly flowers and perfumes and so on; when they together with the gods were
giving a shout of approval; when the ten-thousand-fold world-systems were filled
with a single fragrance and with the single sound of a shout of approval; like a
maned lion arousing himself, facing the bodhi tree (he) set out along a path that
was eight usabhas wide, decorated by the gods.
Rather than switch the subject and number (singular or plural) of the finite verbs
Jinamahnidna's version clarifies this long sentence around its singular subject and
finite verb (bodhisatto pysi), placed in initial and final positions respectively. By its
provide a more fluent and graceful account of all these different happenings.
At the same time it makes the import of the scene more visible. It demonstrates
the mutual relations of these diverse phenomena by pivoting them all around the
The effects of this syntactic restructuring are not restricted to aesthetics and
making more transparent the underlying dynamic of the scene. Additional layers of
This series of locative absolutes also adds a dimension to the reader's mental
picture of the scene described that is not so powerfully evoked by the Jtaka-
nidnakath's version. That is, the Jinamahnidna's use of a series of locative absolute
clauses that include present participles, each describing an individual occurrence, but
This fact has a significant impact on both the reader's experience of reading the
passage and the resulting mental picture that emerges from it. The effect on the reader in
both cases is a stretching of the mind's imaginative capacities to go beyond its regular
perceptual habits. This is certainly not something the reader is likely to be aware of,
either during or after the reading. Nonetheless, the way this grammatical structure
whatever other events are likewise conveyed by this form. This implication inevitably
simultaneously perceiving two discrete occurrences, and the even greater difficulty of
simultaneously perceiving, of fully taking in, both the particularities of the two individual
events playing out at the same time and the bigger picture of which they are just two
I suggest that being forced to confront this difficulty, if unconsciously, will likely
result in an interplay or imaginative rocking back and forth in the reader's mind between
mentally seeing a particular event occurring (the ngas and their cohorts offering flowers
and fragrance), which is what is conveyed by that particular locative absolute clause, and
perceiving somewhat diffusely the overall effect of the scene. In that rocking back and
forth, the reader may eventually be brought closer to a point where she is able to perceive
in one unitary yet detailed perception the total picture made up of all its particular
elements, which is what is conveyed by the totality of locative absolute clauses within the
What this means specifically is that part of what the Jinamahnidna presents the
reader with here is both the particular individual happenings (it is after all impressive that
ngas and supaas, natural enemies, should band together to offer flowers and perfumes
to the bodhisatta)207 and the bigger picture of a bodhisatta at the center of a universal
It may seem that I exaggerate the importance of the perceptual aspects of what
could equally be seen as a small if charming side incident in the overall flow of the
narrative. It could also be said that the Jinamahnidna is simply raising the stylistic
tone of the Jtaka-nidnakath's telling at this point and expressing the events more
207
This aspect of the image is brought out more clearly in the Jinamahnidna's version than in that found
in the Jtaka-nidnakath, in that the Jinamahnidna pairs and juxtaposes the two, nga and supaa,
while the Jtaka-nidnakath lists nga, yakkha and supaa.
102
felicitously. Both suggestions could be true. Nonetheless, taking seriously the clear
implications of the form used hereand these same happenings could equally have been
Beyond that, within the context of the text as a whole, I see the use of this
dynamics that truly are important in the Jinamahnidna's presentation of itself as a text
and of the related understanding of the Buddha it puts forward. That is, I consider that
the Jinamahnidna as a whole works to bring its reader closer to being able to perceive
the Buddha in just this waywhere breadth does not preclude focus, and focus does not
come at the expense of breadth. I also argue that, at the same time as it works to realize
this end, the Jinamahnidna also portrays this as ultimately an impossible act. Using
aspects of its form, the text informs the reader thatthough it may be able to bring him
omniscient as he is.
This has been a long discussion of but one small aspect within the larger sweep of
what we need to explore. But I would like briefly to draw attention to two other means
103
First, one of its locative absolute phrases develops and adds meaning to a phrase
in the Jtaka-nidnakath's version which there hangs a little starkly in the sentence and
pupphnam vaato mucanakle, "at the time of flowers' coming loose from their
stem." Sandwiched between "at evening time" and the description of the path decorated
by the gods, it is not clear whether this small detail has any other significance in the
scenario than to further specify the time, and add a touch of aesthetic appeal in bringing
The Jinamahnidna's reworked rendition takes this image of flowers and ties it
in more directly to the overall picture. At the same time it heightens the aesthetic
beautifully colored, sweet-smelling flowers were fluttering around his robe having come
loose from their stem") does not only conjure up a vivid and appealing image of the
bodhisatta sitting in the grove of Sl trees beside the river, with flowers beginning to fall
onto his robes around him. It also helps make clearer the transition from his day-time
activity to what he must do in the evening. That is, the way it is expressed (in a clause
which has a parallel structure to the series of clauses that follow it and therefore ties in
104
more closely to the actions expressed by those clauses) and its coming right after "at
evening time" suggest that this is one of the prompts which inform the bodhisatta that it
is now time to move on. It is tempting to see this as a subtle suggestion that the natural
world is joining the ngas, yakkhas, supaas, and gods in encouraging the bodhisatta to
foreshadows what happens to the bodhisatta at the time of his actually attaining
omniscience. The Jinamahnidna reports the bodhisatta at that time as "being honored
by the shoots of the bodhi tree falling all around him, like red coral."208 There is a clear
parallelism between these two descriptions of flowers or shoots falling from a tree around
The potential of this foreshadowing effect to impact the reader at this point in the
reading is strengthened by the fact that this is not a case where the parallelism only
becomes apparent in retrospect, when the reader reaches the later point in its account.
This description of the bodhisatta as he gained omniscience is also found in the Jtaka-
nidnakath, where in fact the description is even more explicitly parallel, reporting the
bodhisatta as "being honored by the shoots of the bodhi tree falling around his robe, as
208
uparpari patamnehi bodhirukkhakurehi rattapavasadisehi pjayamno (Jmn 83:10-11).
105
expected to have read the Jtaka-nidnakath's account already, and hence to have a
mental picture of the bodhisatta gaining omniscience with buds falling around his robes
from the tree above him. So it is reasonable to imagine that this image might be activated
(even if only at a sub-conscious level) in the mind of the reader as she encounters a
passage where the bodhisatta is described as sitting under a tree with flowers falling onto
his robe.
The chance of the reader's making this connection is made even more likely in
this case by the fact that the Jinamahnidna's first sentence ends with the bodhisatta
setting out "facing the bodhi tree."210 That is, the account of the events which involve
the first occurrence of the image explicitly makes a connection with the bodhi tree, under
which the second occurrence took place. In a context where an explicit connection
between the two events is made, an implicit connection is more likely also to be made.
We can perhaps see this foreshadowing effect as one more means by which the
Jinamahnidna's account of this small event becomes richer and more multi-layered
than that in its source text. It is perhaps also one more, small way that the build-up to the
209
cvarparipatamnehi bodhirukkhamkurehi rattapavadalehi viya pjayamno (Ja I 75:23-4). This
phrase is also found in identical form in the Visuddhajanavilsin (Ap-a 80:23-4), which is here following
the Jtaka-nidnakath's account. This descriptive detail is not found in the parallel accounts of this event
in the Madhuratthavilsin (Bv-a 289) or the Dhammapadahakath (Dhp-a 86).
210
bodhirukkhbhimukho pysi (Jmn 75:17).
106
also heightening the likely impact of the account of the enlightenment when it does
eventually come.
phrasing permits the Jinamahnidna to bring out facets of the Buddha's person and
story that might otherwise not have been visible. By such means the Jinamahnidna is
able to present an unusually rich and multi-layered portrayal of the Buddha and his life.
Let us now consider one final way in which the restructuring of this passage adds
depth to the portrayal of the Buddha. We can perhaps see it as a means by which the text
heightens the reader's awareness of the Buddha's beauty. The reworking of these
that it displays an attention to the power of Pli's poetic traditions, so closely related to
Sanskrit's.211
211
This aspect of Pli literature, its appreciation of conventional forms of textual ornamentation, has been
neglected by scholars in the field. A glance at catalogs of Pli manuscripts will show that texts such as the
Subodhlakra (a treatise on Pli poetics, composed by Sagharakkhita in Sri Lanka in the twelfth
century) and Vuttodaya (an exposition of Pli meter, also composed by Sagharakkhita) were important
parts of classical Pli scholarship in all countries where Theravda is found. See K.R. Norman, Pli
Literature: Including the canonical literature in Prakrit and Sanskrit of all the Hnayna schools of
Buddhism, A History of Indian Literature, ed. Jan Gonda, vol. VII, fasc. 2 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz,
1983), 167-8 for a brief discussion of the Subodhlakra and the Vuttodaya.
Some Pli texts reveal more concern with these literary aspects than do others, but our
understanding of Pli literature as a whole as well as of particular texts could only be profoundly enhanced
by greater scholarly attention to Pli's poetic traditions. One scholar who has produced valuable work in
this field is Siegfried Lienhard. See, for example, Lienhard, A History of Classical Poetry: Sanskrit - Pali -
Prakrit. A History of Indian Literature, ed. Jan Gonda, vol. III, fasc. 1 (Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz,
107
1984); also Lienhard, "Sur la structure poetique des Therathergth," Journal Asiatique 263 (1975): 375-
96. A useful work on the subject of meter is A.K. Warder, Pali Metre: A Contribution to the History of
Indian Literature (London: Luzac for the Pali Text Society, 1967).
The profound and widespread impact of Pli's poetic traditions is revealed by the fact that their
influence was not confined to Pli texts. Thomas Hudak has shown that the Vuttodaya was not only
important in relation to Pli literature but was also foundational in the creation of Thai poetry (see Hudak,
The Indigenization of Pali Meters in Thai Poetry). Hudak demonstrates that a class of Thai poetry was
developed from at least the fifteenth century on which used meters (named chn) derived from Pli (ibid.,
16). The Vuttodaya was instrumental in this process in that these Thai meters were outlined in a Thai work
called the Chindman, which included translations of parts of the Vuttodaya. See also B.J. Terwiel's
discussion of the relations between the Chindman and the Vuttodaya in Terwiel, "The Introduction of
Indian Prosody among the Thais," in The Ideology and Status of Sanskrit: Contributions to the History of
the Sanskrit Language, ed. Jan E. M. Houben, Brill's Indological Library, ed. Johannes Bronkhorst, vol. 13
(Leiden: E.J. Brill, 1996), 307-23.
B.J. Terwiel draws out more explicitly than Hudak the wider social value that knowledge of Pli
poetic traditions seems to have had in Thailand during the Ayutthayan period. He shows that such literary
knowledge was accorded a great social and political importance within Ayutthayan society, being the
measure of the cultivated person. He notes that not only did the king and his entourage learn prosody, "[it]
would appear that at least during a large part of the Ayutthaya period the learning of poetics was considered
an intrinsic part of the make-up of all administrators and that the Chindman must be seen as the textbook
for those who had ambitions to join those ranks" (Terwiel, "The Introduction of Indian Prosody," 321).
Sheldon Pollock also draws attention to the importance of the Vuttodaya in influencing Thai
poetry during the Ayutthayan period (Pollock, "The Cosmopolitan Vernacular," Journal of Asian Studies
57, no. 1 [February 1998], 14). Pollock here stresses the Vuttodaya's relationship to Sanskrit poetic
traditions, in being what he calls a "translation" (ibid.) of the Sanskrit metrical treatise Vttaratnkara
(written by Kedrabhaa c. 1000 C.E.). There seems to be some disagreement about the exact relation of
the Pli text to its Sanskrit predecessor. Hudak describes the Vuttodaya as being based on but modifying
this Sanskrit work to allow it to better suit the Pli language, as the text itself claims (Hudak, The
Indigenization of Pali Meters, 49). K.R. Norman also emphasizes this aspect of the text, going so far as to
call the Vuttodaya, "the only original work on Pli metre extant" (Norman, Pli Literature, 168).
Pollock emphasizes the Vuttodaya's instrumental role in spreading the cultural and political
impact of Sanskrit aesthetic theory beyond its limited application in Sanskrit literary works and over a wide
geographical and cultural area. It is certainly important to be aware of just how widespread in the Buddhist
world was the influence of the Sanskrit poetic tradition. Just as in Thailand it crossed outside the Indo-
Aryan language family to shape Thai literature, so did it with Sihala, Tamil, and Tibetan literature, to
name just a few. For example, Dain's Kvydaraprobably the preeminent Sanskrit work on
poeticswas translated into all three languages and profoundly influenced their respective literatures (see
Pollock, "The Cosmopolitan Vernacular," 14). See C.E. Godakumbura, Sinhalese Literature, 328-330 for
the case of Sihala. For Tamil, see Anne Monius, "The Many Lives of Dain: The Kvydara in
Sanskrit and Tamil," International Journal of Hindu Studies 4/2 (2000): 1-37. For Tibetan, see Leonard
W. J. van der Kuijp, "Tibetan Belles-Lettres: The Influence of Dain and Kemendra," in Tibetan
Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. Jose Ignacio Cabezon and Roger R. Jackson (Ithaca: Snow Lion, 1996),
393-410.
Pollock argues that the cultural and political impact of Sanskrit aesthetic theory was also felt in the
intellectual and ideological world of the Theravda. This is certainly true. However, the exact nature and
108
that plays out at the verbal level, rather than at the level of meaning, atthlamkra
extent of that impact is hard to determine. Steven Collins has recently argued that Sanskrit and Pli literary
cultures seem not have shared precisely the same aesthetic values. He points out that there is very little
evidence of kabya being composed in Pli in Southeast Asia (Collins, "What is Literature in Pali?" 678).
Collins acknowledges that "(v)ernacular literary production in Thailand was influenced by both Sanskrit
and Pli traditions," and that the Chindma was based on the Pli Vuttodaya (ibid., 678-9). Yet this
seems not to have coexisted with the creation of works of kabya in Pli itself. Collins explains this by
suggesting that: "Distinctively Pali senses of literate excellence, personhood, and subjectivity were
produced by Theravda monasticism, but that was notor better, was never predominantlya literary
culture; it was a scholastic culture producing ideology and its human embodiments" (ibid., 683). These
important questions require further study before we can determine with more confidence the probable range
of degrees and types of influence such literary values had in the composition of Pli works in different
times and places.
212
The importance of alliteration in the composition of Pli literature is revealed in the Subodhlakra
(Padmanabh S. Jaini, ed., Subodhlakra, Pora-k [Mahsmi-k] by Sagharakkhita Mahsmi,
Abhinava-k [Nissaya] [anonymous] [Oxford: Pali Text Society, 2000]), probably the work on Pli
poetics best known within the tradition. This work describes, amongst other things, the ten good qualities
(gua) of Pli composition, of which the third is the quality of madhurat, "sweetness" or "elegance."
This quality of elegance is defined by the Subodhlakra as consisting of an arrangement of words that is
characterized by alliteration (anuppsa), which it describes as being of two types: the combination of
homorganic letters (i.e. the combination of guttural letters, of labial letters, and so on), and the repetition of
similar letters. Subodh., vs. 127 reads: madhurattam padsatti-r-anuppsavas dvidh, / siy samasuti
pubb vavutti paro yath, "Elegance is the close association of words, which is of two types according
to [type of] alliteration. The first would be an aggregate of sounds that are homogeneous, the second the
repetition of letters, as [the following examples illustrate]" (ibid., 130). The text provides an example of
the first type in a verse containing many labial letters and dental letters. The verse exemplifying the second
type, the repetition of similar letters, shows a preponderance of consonant clusters consisting of the dental
nasal plus a dental unaspirated stop. In the sentence we are examining from the Jinamahnidna we see
repeated clusters of the same consonants appearing in close proximity to each other. In the verse from the
Subodhlakra the combination of consonants is tighter, involving single-syllable consonant clusters, but
the principle is the same. The example from the Subodhlakra, verse 129, reads: Munindamandahs te
kundasandohavibbham, / disantam anudhvanti hasant candakantiyo (ibid., 132; underlining added to
highlight the relevant consonant clusters).
One scholar who has drawn attention to the prevalence of alliteration in some Pli texts is Mark
Allon in Style and Function: A study of the dominant stylistic features of the prose portions of pli
canonical sutta texts and their mnemonic function, Studia Philologica Buddhica; Monograph Series, 12
(Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies of the International College for Advanced Buddhist
Studies, 1997).
109
alliteration, both of individual letters and, more strikingly, of clusters of letters. For ease
of reference, I repeat the sentence below with its constituent phrases separated out and
numbered.
There is a striking prevalence of "s"s throughout the sentence, in a way that could
be seen to contribute to unifying all its parts into one unit. There is an immediately
obvious prevalence of the syllable "su" that results from having a series of locative
absolute clauses in which there are at least two locative plural terminations ending in "-
su." Besides this, the syllable "su-" also appears frequently in phrases one through three,
followed by supaa in phrase three. The syllable "sa-" or "s-" occurs repeatedly in
One of the most striking clusters of co-occurring different letters is in phrases four
213
This distinction into saddlamkra and atthlamkra is the basic division of Pli and Sanskrit poetic
figures. Examples of ornamentation that plays out at the level of meaning are puns (silesa in Pli, lea in
Sanskrit), similes (upam in both languages) and metaphors (rpaka, again in both languages).
214
This was, of course, already present in the Jtaka-nidnakath's version.
110
and five where there is a very high preponderance of the consonants "s", "d/dh" and
"k", and within that of those consonants occurring followed by short or long "a."
Similarly in phrase three there is a high coincidence of the consonants "d/dh" and the
labial letters "p/ph" and "b." Apart from its presence in the repeating clusters of letters
we have seen, there is altogether a particularly dense reiteration of the consonant "d/dh"
in phrases three through five. These are the most obvious alliterations though there are
Alliteration can be put to various textual uses, such as unifying sections of text or
evoking specific aesthetic responses in the reader, according to the theories underlying
the use of alamkra.215 It also displays an attentiveness to literary form and provokes
sophistication of the text. At the same time, a display of literary sophistication might
raise the reader's estimation of the text's worth and perhaps thereby the authoritativeness
to be ascribed it.216
In the context of a portrayal of the Buddha, it is also likely to draw attention to the
beauty associated with the Buddha. Again this is an instance of the text's form reflecting
215
See Edwin Gerow's discussion of this phenomenon in Sanskrit poetic theory in Gerow, A Glossary of
Indian Figures of Speech, Publications in Near and Middle East Studies; Columbia University; Series A,
vol. 16 (The Hague: Mouton, 1971), 103.
216
Cf. Collins' discussion of Pli's value to political regimes as a source of prestige because of its status as
a "luxury good," which required training and seclusion from the mundane (Collins, "What is Literature in
Pli?" 683). See the Introduction, p. 18.
111
its contentthe beauty of the words describing the Buddha reflecting something of the
beauty of his person. Similarly, the pleasure such verbal play affords the reader can only
C Amplification
The concern manifest in the Jinamahnidna that every aspect of the story be
covered in full is not only witnessed in its inclusion of episodes omitted from other
extends to what would seem to be small narrative details. For example, the
bodhisatta's father had built for him when he was seven years old so he could play in the
water.217 The Jtaka-nidnakath's account, on the other hand, skips straight from him
momentarily from its sources and simply replacing their abbreviated version with a much
more elaborate alternative, which may be original to this text.219 A prime example of this
217
Jmn 53.
218
Ja I 58.
219
E. W. Adikaram discusses the commentaries' use of this practice, in which they would amplify the
canonical material they were commenting on (E. W. Adikaram, Early History of Buddhism in Ceylon
[Colombo: M. D. Gunasena, 1946], 35-8).
112
where Mra attempts to prevent the impending enlightenment by massing his forces to
inspiring:
description that appears to be original to this text. Covering over half a page, it is
certainly much more extensive than is found in any of its sources.221 In the
Jinamahnidna we are not just told that Mra's warriors had different colors and faces,
Mra's retinue had various weapons, various bodies, various colors, various
shapes, various faces: some had blue bodies and red faces; some had red bodies
and blue faces; some had yellow bodies and white faces; ... some had the body of
a nga for their top half and the body of a man for their lower half; some had the
220
Mraparisya dve jan ekasadisakam vudham na gahimsu, nnappakrava nnppakramukh
hutv mahsattam ajjhottharamn gamimsu (Ja I 72:4-6).
221
Cf. Bv-a 288:4-8, Ap-a 77:4-6. Shortly after this description the Jinamahnidna informs us of dire
omens that accompanied the realization that Mra and his vast army were about to attack the bodhisatta
sitting alone under the bodhi tree, abandoned by the terrified gods (Jmn 78:25-80:3). These omens are not
even mentioned by the Jtaka-nidnakath, but the Jinamahnidna has turned at this point to the
Madhuratthavilsin, and taken from its account an introductory sentence and seven verses (Bv-a 288:20-
289:7), which are neatly incorporated into the Jinamahnidna's version, before returning to the Jtaka-
nidnakath (Ja I 72:19). In this episode, then, we have seen two distinct routes used to create in the
Jinamahnidna a fuller, more comprehensive account than was offered by the structuring text. The
latter's material has been amplified and material from elsewhere has been added.
113
body of a man for their top half and the body of a nga for their lower half; ... But
all of Mra's army had eyes that were pierced with yellow, bulging out, and red;222
their teeth were gone; their eyebrows were crooked; their foreheads were split;
their nails were extended, sharp, and large; the hair of their heads was a different
color from that of their beard and eyebrows; they were disgusting, pungent, and
fierce; they were deformed and fearful; they had various weapons; their bodies
extended over an area of a gvuta,223 two gvutas, three gvutas, a yojana, two
yojanas, three yojanas and so on; as though they had gone to a mountain and had
leapt into the sky, falling from a thousand yojanas, crushing the entire earth,
massing in formation they approached the great seat of enlightenment.224
The Jinamahnidna's reader would not have read such a detailed description in
any of the other well-known biographical accounts, and as the imagery is so vivid, would
D Juxtaposition
accounts of the same events, told in different narrative styles or voices. For example,
information that was conveyed in prose may be retold in verse; or a report of events told
222
The translation of this compound, nibbiddhapigalanikkhantarattakkh (Jmn 78:14-5), is somewhat
tentative.
223
The PED defines a gvuta as "a quarter of a yojana=80 usabhas, a little less than two miles" (PED,
250).
224
Mraparis pi nnvudh nnsarr nnva nnsahn nnmukh ahesum: ekacc nlasarr
rattamukh, ekacc rattasarr nlamukh ... [14 lines continuing the alternation of different head- and
body-colors, but with different colors] ... Sabb pana Mrasen nibbiddhapigalanikkhantarattakkh
nikkhantadh kuilabhamuk bhinnanal nikkhantatikhiamahnakh bhamukesamassuvivaakes
vibhacckhakasadru virpabhay nnvudh gvutadvigvutatigvutayojanadviyojanatiyojanadi-
samuggatasarr yojannam sahassato pahya ksam ullaghitv sakalapahavim parimadditum
patamn pabbatagat viya mahbodhimaam avattharant va gat (Jmn 78:1-18).
It may be that something of the brutishness and overwhelming volume of these forces is conveyed
by the Jinamahnidna's bare bones, repetitive way of listing them (ekacc ... ekacc ... ekacc ...).
114
in the third person voice may be followed by a retelling of the same events in the first
person.
This is not simply otiose duplication. Being forced to encounter the same
information in two different guises breaks the sense of the onward flow of the narrative.
Shifting the tone or narrative voice causes the reader to encounter the information from
different way. She may also have a different aesthetic response, if the first telling were in
dry prose, for example, and the second in elegant verse. All of these effects might cause
the reader to focus on the relevant events or information in a more conscious way than if
they had been reported only once. They might also induce her to become more conscious
of the reading experience itself, which might then make her more conscious of the text as
suchas something she was encountering. If the reader were indeed to become aware of
the text in this way through its reporting the same events from two different perspectives,
she would be likely to experience the text as providing a full account. The ability to
convey the same basic things in two different ways gives an impression of abundance.
report of the physical events manifest in the world on the bodhisatta's attaining
begins with the bulk of that material, omitting its last five lines. In place of these five
lines, the Jinamahnidna includes three pages of verses describing the thirty-two
enlightenment.226 These verses recapitulate many of the events described in the prose
The way the Jinamahnidna introduces the verses reveals that they are used as a
way of reinforcing the account that precedes. The verses are introduced by the statement,
"So the compilers (sagtikrakas), describing the thirty-two portents that appeared at the
very moment of the Lord's enlightenment, said...."227 This draws extra attention to the
events, not simply by providing a much longer account of them (thirty-two verses as
opposed to five lines of prose) but also by offering an account of them as though from
another perspective. Stepping outside the flow of the dominant narrative voice and
offering the testimony of others may work to make the reader focus on the events in a
more conscious way. This would only heighten the reader's impression of the
225
Ja I 76.
226
Jmn 87:6-89:20. The text's editors inform us in a footnote that these verses come from an unpublished
text called the Buddhacarita, of which manuscript copies exist in the National Library in Bangkok.
227
Tena sagtikrak bhagavato bodhitakkhane yeva ptubhtni dvattimsapubbanimittni paksent
hamsu (Jmn 87:6-7). The term "sagtikrak" refers to the monks who first compiled the Buddha's
teachings at the first council held after his death.
116
the primary work it does in the text, can be changed through the sentence being
refashioned. Here we see that, even if the wording of the material is kept largely the
same, its semantic function within the passage may be altered, to accommodate its
different context. That is, as material used in the composition of the Jinamahnidna is
taken from texts of a variety of genres, adjustments sometimes need to be made to the
semantic work accomplished by the material being used, for it to be brought into line
with the narrative form. We sometimes find that the role particular sentences play within
the larger section is different in the Jinamahnidna from the role they played in the
source text.
creation of the jeweled walkway in the sky from which the Buddha would teach the
lineage of the Buddhas. The Jinamahnidna's account of this episode is, appropriately
228
Bv-a 28: Ath' evam bhagavat cintitamatte dasasahassacakkavavsino bhummadayo dev
pamuditahaday sdhukram adamsu. Tam attham paksentehi sagtikrakehi:
[I.6] "Bhumm Mahrjik Tvatims Ym ca dev Tusit ca Nimmit
Paranimmit ye pi ca Brahmakyik nandit vipulam akamsu ghosan" ti.
di gthya hapita ti veditabb.
Tattha Bhumma ti bhummah. [...]
Mahrjika ti mahrjapakkhik, bhummahnam devatnam saddam sutv ksahakadevat, tato
117
narrative sentence which recounts the event ("Then at the moment the Lord thought in
this way, the gods living in the ten-thousand world-systems, the earth gods etc., with
happy hearts, gave a shout 'Good'"). This is followed by an instruction that we are to
understand that this event was "established" (hapit) by the sagtikrakas who
clarified that meaning with a verse from the Buddhavamsa (I.6), which is then quoted.
Next comes commentary on the words of that verse. In the commentary on one of the
words is a long sentence that lists all the gods understood to be included by -dayo and
The Jinamahnidna's account, while including sentences that are almost exactly
the same as some of those found in the Madhuratthavilsin, orders them differently and
in so doing changes the function of the individual sentences.229 It begins with the
Abbhavalhak devat, tato Uhavalhak devat, tato Stavalhak devat ... tato Akanihak dev
saddam sutv mahantam saddam akamsu. Asaino ca arpavacarasatte ca hapetv sotayatanapavatti-
hne sabbe devamanussangadayo ptivasagatahaday ukkuhisaddam akamsu ti attho.
"Then at the moment the Lord thought in this way, the gods living in the ten-thousand world-systems, the
earth gods, etc., with happy hearts, gave a shout 'Good.' They [viz. 'the earth gods, etc.'] should be
understood as they were established by the sagtikrakas clarifying that meaning ['the earth gods, etc.']
with the verse beginning: 'The earth gods (Bhumm), the great gods [of the four directions] (Mahrjik),
the gods of the Tvatimsa heaven, the Yama gods, the Tusita gods, those who take pleasure in creation,
those who are created by another, and gods who belong to the company of Brahm, rejoicing, made a great
sound.' There [the word] 'Bhumm' means those who live on the earth. [The word] 'Mahrjik' means
those who are associated with the great kings. The meaning is 'Having heard the sound of the gods who
live on the earth, the gods who live in the sky, then the dark cloud gods, then the hot cloud gods, then the
cool cloud gods, ... then the highest gods having heard the sound, made a great sound. Both the not-
conscious gods andapart from the beings in the formless realmall gods, men, ngas, and so on whose
hearts are overpowered by joy in the arising of the ear's functioning, made a sound of shouting.'"
229
Jmn 170-171: Bhagavato cintitamatte dasasahassacakkavavsino bhummdayo dev pamuditahaday
sdhukram akamsu. Bhummahnam devnam saddam sutv ksahakadevat pamuditahaday
sdhukram akamsu. Tato Abbhabalhak devat, tato Uhabalhak devat, tato Stabalhak devat ...
118
narrative sentence that began the Madhuratthavilsin's account. This is then followed
by the long sentence listing all the gods who gave a shout of approval, which in the
Madhuratthavilsin formed part of the word-commentary on the verse I.6. Here the
sentence is not bracketed by ti attho, but stands alone. Finally it is said that this was told
and verse I.6 is quoted. The text then moves on to the next stage of the events.
While the first sentence in both versions plays the same role (that of recounting
the event), the Jinamahanidna's second sentence does not do what it originally did in
Madhuratthavilsin. There it provided a gloss on one of the words in the verse, making
explicit what was included in the -dayo, and in the process demonstrating how the
action described by the verse took place. By removing the ti attho from the end of the
sentence, and by repositioning it right after the first sentence, the Jinamahnidna has
It has also shifted the function of the Buddhavamsa's verse. The reporting and
commenting roles that the verse and the commentarial gloss played in relation to each
Madhuratthavilsin, the event reported in the verse (which is, in fact, explaining
something about the actual report of the event [namely the first sentence]), is then
commented on and explained by the gloss. In the Jinamahnidna, these roles are
switched, and what was the gloss becomes the report of the event, while the verse
taken from a commentarial section of its source text.230 It is a means by which the
Jinamahnidna is enabled to include material that in its original form is not suitable for
the Jinamahnidna's purposes, but for which there may not otherwise be a suitable
source. It greatly expands the range of potentially suitable material to be put to the
It also gives a sense of the potential bountifulness of the Pli literary heritage.
230
This is most often the case when material from the Madhuratthavilsin and the Sumagalavilsin is
used.
120
That is, it undermines certain assumptions that might be made about the vitality of later
Pli textual production on the basis of the Theravda's dominant literary values. These
values held that for later Pli texts to claim legitimacy or command esteem they had to
demonstrate a close relation with earlier texts. It might be thought that having to work
with a delimited (if extensive) body of already existent material would tend to restrict or
stultify the production of such texts. However, the compositional fine tuning displayed in
this example reveals that these literary expectations need by no means be seen as
obstructive of literary creativity. For if such seemingly small changes to the source
material as those we have seen here can have such a significant impact on the nature of
the material produced, there should be no limit to what could be produced from the
available material. From this perspective, the Theravda's literary values and the body of
earlier texts can in fact be seen as offering a potentially endless supply of compositional
methods and materials that could be put to the creation of new works in Pli.
Despite all the evidence we have seen through this chapter of the
Buddha's life feasible, there is also at the core of the text what amounts to an utter
monastery to the Buddha, the Jinamahnidna announces that it will now enumerate the
remaining years of his life. Apart from accounts of two events concerning members of
his family that occur in the fifth year,231 it proceeds to simply state where the Buddha
lived for each of the remaining forty-five years of his life, in the most minimalist way
possible. For example, it accounts for the third and fourth years of his teaching:
tatiyacatutthe pi tattheva ("In the third and fourth years [he stayed] right there").232 We
have here the events of two whole years reduced to four words. At the end of the
enumeration, we have his last twenty-five years covered in one sentence. The contrast
with the fifty-five pages that it took the Jinamahnidna to narrate the events of the first
enlightenment and his final year, the text recounts in approximately eighty pages the
story of his last ten months. We have to take seriously the effect of this section on the
tenor of the text as a whole. The Buddha did every bit as much living in each of those
forty-five years as he did in the ones that preceded them and the one that came at their
end. So theoretically each of those forty-five years could have been covered in as much
231
These events comprise the Buddha's tending to his dying father, and his establishment of the nun's order
under his aunt and foster mother, Mahpajpati Gotam (Jmn 201-9).
232
Jmn 201.
122
detail.
Of course, there is the pragmatic fact that no other already existent account of the
Buddha's life (that we know of) apportioned out by year all the events that are recorded
elsewhere as having happened during his long teaching career. What was available in its
However, this does not undo the effect of this step on the text's overall
presentation. It does not undo the fact that in a text we have seen consistently go to great
this relative lack of comprehensiveness together with the text's frequent steps to draw
5 Conclusion
We have seen in this chapter that the Jinamahnidna is, in a very literal sense,
made out of previous texts. The very fabric of its being is earlier texts. Yet the text does
not simply pass on what it received from the past. We have witnessed the text display an
extraordinary creativity in working with what was available from the past to fashion
One of the things that are most distinctive about the Jinamahnidna is its
attempt to present the Buddha and his story as fully as it is able. That it seems to
of its portrayal of the Buddha. To appreciate fully the Jinamahnidna's portrayal of the
importantwhat it says about the Buddha, what it says about earlier portrayals, and what
Taking up the latter questions first, the lengths the Jinamahnidna goes to
the Buddha's life are lacking. They imply there is a gap between those biographies and
the actual life of the Buddha. The reality of the Buddha's life is not adequately captured
by those previous accounts. They represent it only partially, and much of him remains
The Jinamahnidna's efforts to tell the story of the Buddha's life with as much
detail and depth as it can achieve can be seen as a straining to get back to the Buddha, to
recapture as much of him as is possible, and to re-present him to the reader with a
These efforts tell the reader that there is more about the Buddha that we need to
know than is conveyed in the earlier accounts. By including types of information and
registers of discourse not included in other biographical accounts within its biographical
framework, the Jinamahnidna tells its reader that to perceive the Buddha more fully
124
we must see those facets of him too. The discursive and stylistic diversity of the
Jinamahnidna's account tells the reader that all types of discourse are applicable to the
Buddha. They all communicate something of him and so are all reflective of him in some
way. So the diversity tells the reader that she must be receptive to approaching the
Buddha in a variety of ways, she must be prepared to shift between interpretive modes.
Further, this not just an intellectual proposition presented to the reader by the text.
It is a reality the reader has experienced something of in the reading experience itself. In
that is uniformly all about the Buddha, the reader has experienced the approach toward
At the same time, we have seen in various ways through the chapter that the
making a claim to definitiveness. The text has presented itself as the ultimate biography,
supreme at least in part by virtue of the fullness of its coverage. So the text's deflation of
This depiction of its own, and perhaps others', capacities as a text is at the same
CHAPTER II
WHOLENESS:
THE JINAMAHNIDNA AS A WHOLE
complex engagement with its own wholeness. The range of what is connoted by
"wholeness" will become clearer as we go through the chapter, but here at the outset of
the chapter it should be understood as the unity, completeness, and integrity of a text that
is more than the sum of its partsis its being the biography of amhkam bhagav, "our
Lord." This also reflects something about the biography's subject. It reveals that he also
has a wholeness, which lies in his being more than just the person who will become the
bodhisatta, the bodhisatta, and finally the Buddha. His wholeness lies in his being at all
closing statements describing its contents. We now need to consider them in more depth.
The pamagth identifies the text as jinanidnam, "The Story of the Conqueror." Its
126
opening statements then elaborate what is meant by this term. It is first said, essentially,
that jinanidnam means buddhanidnam, "The Story of the Buddha." Besides explicitly
equating the jina and the Buddha (by the statement "the jina is the Buddha"), the
Jinamahnidna's contents are described in a way that relates them entirely to the
Buddha. The content of this work called the jinanidnam, it says, should be understood
at a formal level, beginning all four compounds with the word buddha- conveys the
impression that the work is all about the Buddha, but let us look at the statement a little
more closely.
Buddhakuram, "the sprout of the Buddha," refers to Sumedha, who is not yet a
bodhisatta when the story begins. This designation is often applied to bodhisattas, so it
might be said that this compound only refers to Sumedha once he has become a
bodhisatta. However, this is made less likely by the fact that buddhakuram is followed
aspiration which precedes him becoming a bodhisatta.234 The last two words clearly refer
to aspects of his life once he has become the Buddha. However, by stating that the
jinanidnam consists of these four things, which all relate to the Buddha, even though the
233
Jinanidnam nmetam buddhajinam buddhakuram buddhapaidhnam buddhacaritam
buddhagocaran ti veditabbam (Jmn 1).
234
It is Dpakara's prediction that actually makes Sumedha into a bodhisatta.
127
first two refer to stages of his life before he is even a bodhisatta, the Jinamahnidna
suggests that it is unified in having a single subject. This is a statement that the whole
The next statement makes this singularity of subject even more explicit, but it also
alters slightly what that subject is. The second statement explains why the jinanidnam
should be understood as those four things that represent all stages of the Buddha's
bhagav from his first aspiration through to his death.235 The Jinamahnidna here gives
a more precise and explicit definition of what it is. Having defined itself first, effectively,
as the story of the Buddha, it now defines itself as the story of amhkam bhagav. The
implication of this twofold explanation of jinanidnam is that the Buddha is both the
Buddha and the bhagav. Yet, giving the more precise definition in terms of the bhagav
(and presenting it as the explanation for the statement about the Buddha) gives priority to
seeing him as amhkam bhagav over seeing him as the Buddha. The Jinamahnidna
These two self-definitions are also of course saying that the Buddha/bhagav is
the Conqueror. The second statement suggests that he is the Conqueror because his story
extends from making the aspiration to buddhahood to his parinibbna. In other words,
235
Amhkam hi bhagavato abhinhrato pahya yva parinibbn nidnakath "jinanidnan" ti
veditabb (Jmn 1).
128
the text is saying here that the Buddha is "our Lord" because he is the Conqueror,
because he succeeded in going from being just a sprout of a buddha (not even a
at his death.236
figure, no matter what his stage of development at any particular point. Whether he be
just a "sprout of a buddha" or the Buddha at the point of his parinibbna, he has an
additional identity that lies beyond those particular identities. This singularity of identity
throughout the story is the "whole" that is greater than the totality of all he is at all points
in the narrative. In fact, the text gives two singular identities that apply throughout the
we are about to see, the Jinamahnidna refers to him throughout the narrative as
amhkam bhagav, not jina. I therefore take the former as the primary whole
236
This suggestion is also reinforced by the Jinamahnidna's concluding statements, which again stress
him being the Conqueror and relate that to his story going from gaining the aspiration to his death: Ettvat
bhagavat laddhapaidhnato pahya yva parinibbn nidnakath "Jinamahnidnan" ti veditabb.
Iti sdhujjanasotasukhvah jinanidnakath samatt (Jmn 291).
129
There is a small but very significant difference between how the Jinamahnidna
and the Jtaka-nidnakath describe what they will cover, which is the first instance of
what is, in fact, a consistent pattern of difference between them. As we saw above, the
Jinamahnidna's second introductory sentence reads: "For the telling of the story of our
Lord (amhkam bhagavato) from his aspiration on until his parinibbna should be
understood as 'the Story of the Conqueror.'" Right from the very beginning of the text,
the Jinamahnidna tells us that it is "our Lord" that the story is about, and that, even at
description of what it will cover does it use the phrase amhkam bhagav.
"But since this explanation of the meaning of the Jtaka (i.e., the
Jtakahakath) is only understood properlybecause it is understood from the
beginning onby those who hear it when it is explained after having clarified
these three stories: the story in the distant past, the story in the not distant past, the
237
Ja I 2:1-11.
130
story in the present, therefore we will explain it after having clarified the three
stories. In that regard the division of those stories should be understood right
from the beginning. The account concerning [the period] from the great being's
aspiration made at the foot of Dpakara up to his birth in the city of Tusita,
having died from his existence as Vessantara, is called 'the story in the distant
past.' Then the account concerning [the period] from him having died from the
Tusita heaven up to his attainment of omniscience at the foot of the bodhi tree is
called 'the story in the not distant past.' Then his 'story in the present' is taken as
whatever places he lives in. Within that, this is 'the story in the distant past.'"238
The Jtaka-nidnakath breaks up its account of the Buddha's life into three distinct
periods. This prefatory passage explains why it is important to understand how these
periods are definedbecause it will allow the reader to understand the Jtakahakath
properlyand then defines them. We will return shortly to examine this passage in more
detail, but what is important for our purposes here is that the Jtaka-nidnakath does
The way the two texts then introduce the story of Sumedha again reflects this
and a hundred thousand kappas from now our Lord was, it is said, a brahmin boy in a city
called Amaravati."239 Again, the story is being told about "our Lord." The Jtaka-
238
As I indicated in the Introduction, the term nidna seems to be used in different contexts in somewhat
different ways. These three terms drenidna, avidrenidna, and santikenidna are usually translated
"the origin in the distant past," "the origin in the not distant past," and "the origin in the present."
However, that they are each glossed by kathmaggoliterally "the course of the story," so perhaps to be
translated simply "the account"suggests it is more appropriate to take -nidna here as having the sense
of "story, account" than as "origin."
239
Amhkam hi kira bhagav ito kappasatasahassdhikni catunnam asakheyynam matthake
Amaravatiy nma nagare Sumedho nma brhmaakumro hutv ... (Jmn 1).
131
nidnakath's parallel version reads: "At a distance of four asakheyyas and a hundred
thousand kappas from now there was a city called Amaravati. A brahmin called
This difference between the two texts' versions is maintained throughout their
respective accounts of the bodhisatta's encounters with the twenty-three other previous
buddhas. In each case, the Jinamahnidna names him amhkam bhagav241 while the
Jtaka-nidnakath calls him just bodhisatto.242 Not only does the Jinamahnidna
maintain the relational pronoun "our" where the Jtaka-nidnakath has none, but while
the Jtaka-nidnakath calls him a bodhisatta, the Jinamahnidna keeps reiterating his
This discrepancy in the way the two texts name their central figure is generally
maintained through their accounts. The Jinamahnidna's insistence that even back at
the beginning as Sumedha he was the bhagav is reiterated finally in the text's
penultimate sentence. It concludes its account by summarizing what has been covered in
the account: "... the telling of the story from the aspiration attained by the Lord up to his
240
Ito kappasatasahassdhikni catunnam asakheyynam matthake Amaravat nma nagaram ahosi.
Tattha Sumedho nma brhmao paivasati ... (Ja I 2).
241
Jmn 14ff.
242
The only exceptions to this in the Jtaka-nidnakath are in the case of the buddha Magala, where the
text calls him amhkam bodhisatto (Ja I 32), and at the end of the account of his encounters with all the
previous buddhas, when it again calls him amhkam bodhisatto (Ja I 44).
132
parinibbna ....'" It is saying here again that it was the bhagav who gained the
With this small but significant touch, maintained systematically in its account, the
Jinamahnidna stresses not just the relatedness between the bodhisatta back then as
Sumedha and the Buddha that he would eventually become an inconceivably long time
away in the future, but more radically their identity.243 This reinforces the sense of
temporal unity and integrity in the Jinamahnidna, as the entire story from beginning to
end is shown to be about this singular figure. A similar effect ensues from the fact that
our relatedness to the central figure remains unchanged throughout the story of his
lifehe was our Lord at the beginning, at the end, and all the way through.
One of the most significant ways the Jinamahnidna conveys a sense of textual
wholeness is its attempts to accord its narrative a temporal unity. It presents everything
in the narrative as taking place within a single temporal sphere, a continuous, coherent
Our consideration of this question will be extensive and will involve the close
243
See Bv-a 69:16-19 for interesting remarks on the nature of the identity of Sumedha and the Buddha.
133
presentation merits such attention for a number of reasons. At one level, the argument it
makes about the correct depiction of the temporal aspects of the Buddha's life is one of
its most distinctive features, one that separates it from other biographical accounts of the
Buddha. It also has significant implications for our relationship, as readers of the text,
with the Buddha. However, for the purposes of this chapter, it is foundational to the
coherent whole.
accounts define the temporal parameters of the Buddha's life, I will compare with them
the Jinamahnidna's definition. I will then trace out how the differences between the
244
I would like to forestall at this point a possible source of confusion, by making explicit something that is
perhaps obvious. This is the point that it is not contradictory to make use of comparison with external
things in the investigation of phenomena that are "internal" to a text. A text can create internal wholeness
by means of textual techniques which, when one is simply reading through the text on its own terms,
produce an effect of wholeness in the text without necessarily being noticed, but which become more
visible as techniques to a student of the text through the comparison of that text with others.
134
i. How the Jtaka-nidnakath and other earlier biographies define the Buddha's
temporal parameters
As we saw earlier, the Jtaka-nidnakath divides the Buddha's life into three
distinct periods, named according to their relation to the current time: "the story in the
distant past" (drenidna), "the story in the not distant past" (avidrenidna), and "the
story in the present" (santikenidna). It defines them in the following way: the story in
the distant past, it says, covers the period from the bodhisatta's first aspiration under
Dpakara until he is reborn in Tusita after his last human life as Vessantara; the story in
the not distant past goes from his birth as Siddhattha until his enlightenment; and the
story in the present consists of the period from his enlightenment to his death.245
This manner of defining the periods of the Buddha's life is based on their distance
from the time of the text (both the time of its composition and the time of its being read).
We can go even further and say that this amounts to distance from the reader.
Encountering a period named "the story in the distant past," the reader is likely to think
of that period as "distant from me." This presentation encourages a perception of the
245
The definition of the santikenidna, quoted above, does not seem to conceive of it in temporal terms so
much as spatialwhatever place the Buddha lived in. At the point in the Jtaka-nidnakath when the
santikenidna begins (Ja I 77), the above definition is reiterated, though in a more extended form.
However, at the end of the entire Jtaka-nidnakath the closing sentence alters and expands this
definition. There it says: Iti mahbodhimae sabbautappattito yva mahparinibbnamac yasmim
hne Bhagav vihsi idam Santikenidnam nma ..., "Thus the place where the Lord lived from his
attainment of omniscience at the foot of the great Bodhi tree until the couch of the parinibbna is called
'the story in the present'" (Ja I 94). Here the temporal aspect is added to the spatial, and the definition now
indicates that the period covered by the santikenidna is from the point of the Buddha's enlightenment until
his parinibbna.
135
earlier phases of the Buddha's life as being separate from and unconnected to the present
of the text, the reader's present. It is only the last phase of his life, from the
enlightenment on, that is described as being "in the present," giving the impression of
this is particularly the case for the division into nidnas. This is indicated most strikingly
by the statement in the nidnakath to the Cariypiakahakath that within this division
into the three nidnas, since the drenidna and the avidrenidna are shared by all
the Jtaka-nidnakath's division into time-periods was considered at that time to be the
within the tipiaka (alongside the Jtaka collection) that most overtly contain
246
Imesu tsu nidnesu yasm drenidna-avidrenidnni sabbasdhrani, tasm tni
Jtakahakathyam vitthritanayen' eva vitthrato veditabbni, santikenidne pana atthi viseso ti, tiam
pi nidnnam ayam dito pahya sakhepakath, "Within these three nidnas, since the drenidna and
the avidrenidna are shared by all, they should be understood in detail in the way they are explained in
detail in the Jtakahakath. But because there is particularity in the santikenidna, this is the abbreviated
account from the beginning onwards of the three nidnas" (Cp-a 3).
247
See Derris, "Virtue and Relationships," 133-8 for a discussion of developments in the nidna schema in
later Pli works, when the number of nidnas identified by texts grew from three to four, five or six.
136
biographical information about the Buddha, and all composed after the
Jtakahakath248use the same sentences in their own introductions as are found in the
Jtaka-nidnakath, to make clear the value of explaining the three nidnas.249 They all
also define the nidnas in the same way, with the Visuddhajanavilsin using the same
wording as the Jtaka-nidnakath for all three, and the Cariypiakahakath and the
248
von Hinber (Handbook of Pli Literature, 149 307) gives the tentative relative chronology of these
texts as: the Jtakahakath after 450 CE; the Cariypiakahakath (written by Dhammapla) after 550
CE; the Madhuratthavilsin's dating is much more uncertain, but von Hinber considers the suggestion
that it may date to the eighth century "not unlikely" (ibid., 146 301); and the Visuddhajanavilsin
between 1000 and 1500 CE. He suggests that the Atthaslin may be older than the Jtaka-nidnakath
(ibid., 152 316).
249
Cp-a 2-3; Bv-a 4-5; Ap-a 2. These other texts omit Jtakassa, fourth word of the Jtaka-nidnakath's
definition, otherwise their versions are almost identical.
250
See Ap-a 2; Cp-a 3; Bv-a 4-5. The Cariypiakahakath defines the santikenidna as:
mahbodhimaato pana pahya yva Paccuppannavatthu tva pavatto kathmaggo santikenidnam
nma, "But the 'santikenidna' is the account dealing with (the period) from the base of the great bodhi
tree on until the story of the present" (Cp-a 3).
The Madhuratthavilsin defines the santikenidna in the following way: "Ekam samayam
bhagav Svatthiyam viharati Jetavane Anthapiikassa rme" ti ca "Rjagahe viharati Veuvane
kalandakanivpe" ti ca "Vesliyam viharati Mahvane kagraslyan" ti ca evam "mahbodhimae
sabbautaappattito yva parinibbnamac etasmim antare bhagav yattha yattha vihsi tam tam
Santikenidnam nma" ti veditabbam, "'One time the Lord was living in Svatthi in the Jetavana grove in
Anthapiika's park,' and 'He was living in Rjagaha in the Veuvana grove in the squirrel's feeding
ground,' and 'He was living in Vesli in the Mahvana grove in the hall of the gabled house,' in this way it
should be understood that wherever the Lord lived in the interval between his attainment of omniscience at
the foot of the great bodhi tree and the couch of the parinibbna, that is called the 'santikenidna'" (Bv-a
5).
Immediately after defining the nidnas in this way, the Madhuratthavilsin adds another
classification by nidna: the division into the bhiranidna, "the external story," and the
abbhantaranidna, "the internal story." The bhiranidna is equated with the three nidnas that the
Madhuratthavilsin has just defined, while the abbhantaranidna is explained as what begins with the first
verse of the Buddhavamsa. The text reads: Ettvat sakhepen' eva tiam Duravidrasantikenidnnam
137
nidnas at the same points in time, though it defines the santikenidna differently.252
vasena Bhiranidnavaan samatt hoti. Idni pana: "Brahm ca lokadhipat Sahampat ... " ti
dinayappavattassa Abbhantaranidnassa atthavaan hoti, "To this extent the abbreviated explanation
of the external story by means of the three stories: far, not far, and present is complete. But now there is
the explanation of the meaning of the internal story which proceeds by means of the verse 'Brahm ca
lokadhipat Sahampat ...' and so on" (Bv-a 5).
This first verse is the beginning of the Ratanacakamakaam, "the section on the gem walk-
way," which recounts the specific circumstances of the Buddha's teaching of the Buddhavamsa (Bv 1-6).
The "external story" seems to refer here to the context that is the general history of the Buddha's life,
which is "external" in the sense that it is not explicitly mentioned in the text being commented on. The
"internal story" seems to signify the immediate context for this particular work, which is "internal" in that
it is mentioned within the work itself. This classification is therefore not so much a division of the
Buddha's life into time-periods, as a distinction between the relative significance of different aspects of that
life for this text.
The Visuddhajanavilsin also combines two types of nidna classification: the dre-, avidre-
and santike-nidnas as they are defined in the Jtaka-nidnakath, and then a brief section which it calls
the abbhantaranidnavaan, "the commentary on the internal story" (Ap-a 102), which is a word
commentary on the first verse of the Buddhpadna, the first verse of the whole text. However, the
Visuddhajanavilsin differs from the Madhuratthavilsin in not only defining the three temporal nidnas
in the same way as the Jtaka-nidnakath, but then following the Jtaka-nidnakath's account extremely
closely and breaking up its account in the same way.
251
The Cariypiakahakath recommends the Atthaslin and the Jtakahakath, i.e., the Jtaka-
nidnakath as the two places from which to learn about the division of time-periods of and between the
previous Buddhas: "The account that should be related on this subject should be understood by the method
described in the Atthaslin, the commentary on the Dhammasaga, and the Jtakahakath" (Cp-a 16).
252
See As 35. It defines the santikenidna as: Ekam samayam Bhagav devesu Tvatimsesu viharati
prichattakamle Paukambalasilyam. Tatra Bhagav devnam Tvatimsnam Abhidhammakatham
kathes ti idam assa Santikenidnam, "'One time the Lord was living among the Thirty-three gods on the
rock-seat that resembled a pale red blanket [the god Sakka's throne] at the foot of the coral tree. There the
Lord recounted the Abhidhamma to the Thirty-three gods.' This is its santikenidna" (As 35). It is in the
Tvatimsa heaven that in the seventh year after his enlightenment the Buddha taught the Abhidhamma to
the gods living there, headed by his mother (see Jmn 209-210).
138
However, this classification is treated in the Atthaslin as secondary and is simply cited
The extensive account of the Buddha's life that makes up a large part of the
different, twofold schema: the adhigamanidna, "the story of his attainment," and the
desannidna, "the story of his teaching."253 The first of these covers the period from
Dpakara to the enlightenment, and the second from the enlightenment to his first
same point as the Jtaka-nidnakath's santikenidna, ends much before the latter.
Although the classification used may be different from the Jtaka-nidnakath's, the
253
The Atthaslin defines these two nidnas: Aesu pana suttesu ekam eva nidnam, Abhidhamme dve
nidnni adhigamanidnam desannidna ca. Tattha adhigamanidnam Dpakaradasabalato pahya
yva Mahbodhipallak veditabbam, desannidnam yva dhammacakkappavattan. Evam
ubhayanidnasampannassa pan' assa Abhidhammassa nidnakosallattham ..., "In other suttas there is just
one nidna, in the Abhidhamma there are two nidnas: the story of his attainment (adhigamanidna) and
the story of his teaching (desannidna). In that regard, the story of his attainment should be understood as
being from the Buddha Dpakara to sitting under the great bodhi tree, the story of his teaching as being up
to the setting in motion of the wheel of the law. For the sake of skill in the story of this Abhidhamma,
which has both stories in this way, ..." (As 31).
Having given an account of the events up to the Buddha's first sermon and thus concluded the
"Dhammacakkappavvattadesannidna," the Atthaslin then says: Evam adhigamanidnadesannidna-
sampannassa pan'assa Abhidhammassa aparni pi Drenidnam Avidrenidnam Santikenidnam ti tni
nidnni, "But the Abhidhamma, which in this way has the adhigamanidna and the desannidna, also
has three other nidnas, namely the drenidna, the avidrenidna and the santikenidna" (As 35). It then
gives the definitions of the first two as they are found in the Jtaka-nidnakath and the definition of the
santikenidna as noted above, and that concludes the Atthaslin's nidnakath.
139
Atthaslin's account still divides its account of the life into time-delimited periods.254
What is important for our purposes here is that, however the particular segments
are defined, all these texts agree that the story of the Buddha's life should be divided up
into distinct, temporally defined segments, and almost all divide their accounts
accordingly.255 The one potentially significant divergence from this pattern is the
Madhuratthavilsin. It agrees that the story of the life should be divided up, but its two
accounts of the life are continuous, not divided. However, it is evident that the accounts
it provides are continuous because of the specific functions they fulfill within the text. So
this discrepancy does not undermine the importance collectively attributed to the division
254
In all of this we see that while the dre- and avidre-nidnas have a single, stable reference (namely,
the account of their respective periods extending from an event at one point in time to another), the term
santikenidna is defined in three, somewhat different ways. It is most commonly defined as the places the
Buddha lived in during the period from his enlightenment until his death (this is the case for the Jtaka-
nidnakath, the Madhuratthavilsin and the Visuddhajanavilsin). In another instance it is explained as
the account of the period from his enlightenment to the story in the present (in the Cariypiakahakath).
In another it is identified as the immediate context, with emphasis on the location, of the text's exposition
(this is the case for the Atthaslin).
Thus there is a slight difference in connotation between what is called the dre- and
avidrenidnas and the santikenidna, with the former referring to periods of time demarcated by events,
and the latter tending to emphasize spatial location within a period of time. Nonetheless, even though the
definitions of the santikenidna focus more on place than on time, the conception of the santikenidna still
(with the exception of the Atthaslin's version) involves the delineation of a period from one point in the
Buddha's life (his enlightenment) to another (his death). The significance of this is not undermined by the
fact that, even in texts which define it in the first way, the account of the santikenidna they actually
provide ends at the point that is relevant for the body of the text that follows.
255
The Cariypiakahakath agrees that the story should be divided, but its account is too abbreviated
(covering the period from Sumedha to the attainment of omnisciencethe content of both the dre- and
avidrenidnasin fourteen lines, [Cp-a 3:15-28]) for the actual division of the account to be relevant.
256
The biographical account of the Buddha's life that is given in the Madhuratthavilsin is told in two
140
In stark contrast to these texts, the Jinamahnidna expressly avoids dividing its
account of the Buddha's life into distinct time-periods. As we saw in the Introduction,
the Jinamahnidna defines what it will cover as the Buddha's singular nidnakath, the
single continuous story from his earliest point before he is even a bodhisatta to his final
point in parinibbna. This is first stated in the second sentence of its introductory
separate parts of the text: first, in the abbhantaranidnassa atthavaan, "the explanation of the meaning
of the internal story," at the beginning of the text (Bv-a 5, 64); and, second, in the
Gotamabuddhavamsavaan, "the explanation of the lineage of the Buddha Gotama," at the end (Bv-a
295). Both accounts end with the Buddha teaching the Buddhavamsa on the jeweled walkway (an earlier
point in the story than the donation of the Jetavana, the Jtaka-nidnakath's endpoint). In the first, the
account is extremely abbreviated (covering approximately fifteen pages out of a section of sixty-two pages,
with the narrative constantly broken up by commentary). In the second, it is longer and quite detailed
(covering approximately twenty-one pages, mostly continuous narrative, with word-commentary only
interrupting at the end of the account).
It is expressly indicated in the Madhuratthavilsin's introductory section that the account of the
Buddha's life found there is provided in order to show the legitimacy of the Buddhavamsa's nidna, which
deviates from the standard format (see Bv-a 5:31-6:3). The biographical account is framed in such a way
as will answer that question. It is not designed to recount the Buddha's life for its own sake. The division
of the life into segments is evidently considered extraneous to that purpose.
The Madhuratthavilsin's Gotamabuddhavamsavaanwhere the bulk of the text's account of
the Buddha's life is foundis an explanation of the Buddhavamsa's "Gotamassa Bhagavato vamso" ("the
lineage of the Lord Gotama"), a collection of twenty-five verses in which the Buddha tells his own life-
story up to that point (Bv 65-6.) Toward the end of this explanation it provides a typical word-commentary
on these verses, but this is preceded by approximately twenty-one pages of narrative that appear to have
been conceived of as retelling (and in the process clarifying) the story told in those twenty-five verses. As
the verses of the Gotamassa Bhagavato vamso are not divided into distinct time-delimited phases, it was
presumably considered inappropriate for an account that presents itself as a more extensive version of that
original to include such divisions.
The reasons we can reasonably deduce for the Madhuratthavilsin and the Jinamahnidna not to
divide up their accounts by time-period are thus different. While the Madhuratthavilsin accepted the
division of the Buddha's life into time-delimited segments as expressing something real about that life and
useful for people wishing to understand it, it did not incorporate the division within its accounts of the life
because they were designed to serve specific purposes, purposes for which the division was not relevant.
For the Jinamahnidnaan independent text, not constrained by such demandsthat approach was
adopted for its own merits.
141
passage: "For the telling of the story (nidnakath) of our Lord from his aspiration up to
his passing away should be understood as 'the Story of the Conqueror.'"257 This position
is then recapitulated in its concluding statement: "The telling of the story (nidnakath)
should be understood as 'the Great Story of the Conqueror' to the extent that it is from the
resolution gained by the Lord on up to his passing away."258 Nowhere here does it use
prefatory and concluding statements, is reinforced by the difference between the texts'
final introductory sentence before the beginning of the story proper. The
regard to that, this is 'the story in the distant past'" (tatridam drenidnam nma).
between the two versions. The difference in wording reinforces the overall difference in
approach in that, while the Jtaka-nidnakath's sentence introduces just one portion of
the Buddha's story, the Jinamahnidna's introduces the entire story. Beyond that, the
257
Amhkam hi bhagavato abhinhrato pahya yva parinibbn nidnakath "jinanidnan" ti
veditabb (Jmn 1).
258
Ettvat bhagavat laddhapaidhnato pahya yva parinibbn nidnakath "Jinamahnidnan" ti
veditabb (Jmn 291).
142
term anupubbikath introduces the idea of chronological sequence. This suggests that
the Jinamahnidna will go through the entire story successively, with the concomitant
implication that each episode will be a part of the Buddha's life in the same waythat is,
iii. What is the significance of the difference between these two approaches?
We have seen here that texts which begin with a nidnakath that recounts the
lifedisplay a strong pattern of beginning with a statement that the account of the
Buddha's life will be divided into distinct segments. We saw in Chapter 1 how
account and the care the Jinamahnidna takes to maintain the integrity of that account.
Given these facts, it is clear that the Jinamahnidna's definition of what it will
cover amounts to a statement that it is going to differ from those texts in how it handles
the Buddha's life-story. Further, in going so directly against what was the authorized
norm, the Jinamahnidna can be seen as making the case that the Buddha's life should
not be conceived of as falling into distinct periods, but rather should be viewed as a
its nidnas. In telling the reader why it is important to understand the three nidnas, the
Jtaka-nidnakath states that the reader will better understand the explanation of the
Jtakas (that is, the body of the Jtakahakath that follows), if he first understands the
division of the Buddha's life into these three periods. In other words, the Jtaka-
nidnakath effectively directs its reader to filter his understanding of the stories of the
Buddha's previous lives through the lens of viewing the Buddha's extended life-stream as
being divided into phases. The Jtaka-nidnakath thus has a programmatic aspect, in
that it tries to bring its readers to perceive the course of the Buddha's development in a
particular way. This would then clearly influence their thinking beyond the confines of
the interaction with the text.259 The division of the Jtaka-nidnakath's account into
three segments is therefore not simply a matter of the form of a particular text, but
Against this background we can see all the more clearly how significant this
aspect of the Jinamahnidna's portrayal of the Buddha is. Just as the Jtaka-
in offering an alternative portrayal that expressly repudiates this aspect of the Jtaka-
nidnakath's depiction, works to shape how its reader conceives of the Buddha in the
259
This is especially likely because the Jtakas were extremely popular and influential texts, interacted
with by Buddhists in a variety of ways.
144
It also has implications for the reader's understanding of her own relation to the
life is that the Jinamahnidna thereby avoids automatically distancing the reader from
what the other texts identify as the earlier phases of his life.
Within the confines of the text, the Jinamahnidna argues that the Buddha's life
continuous unit. The implication of saying at the outset of the text that the story of the
Buddha's life should be told as a continuous unit is that we should read the story in that
account that whatever we read in the text is part of one continuous entity. By not
dividing its account into segments, the Jinamahnidna makes such an experience of the
On the other hand, the Jtaka-nidnakath's division of the Buddha's life into
temporally defined segments also helps reveal that the Jinamahnidna is a whole. By
not claiming for itself any identity other than the account of the three nidnas, the Jtaka-
nidnakath is only the sum of its parts. This makes it more apparent that the
Jinamahnidna claims for itself an identity as something more than the sum total of all
its individual episodes and phases of his life. Its introductory and concluding statements
explicitly identify what that "something more" is. It is the Jinamahnidna's being the
145
In encouraging the perception that everything within its narrative takes place
within a single temporal sphere, the Jinamahnidna goes beyond arguing a case for a
certain way of viewing the Buddha, and, again, uses a quality of its narrative to reflect
something of its subject matter. In this way, it brings the reader to see that aspect of the
subject. The reader is encouraged to recognize that the single temporal sphere within
which the narrative unfolds amounts to a whole, something more than a continuous
stretch of time. Rather it constitutes a single temporal unitthe time defined by the
bhagav's existence.
marker at the two points where they would be expected from the Jtaka-nidnakath's
schema; namely, when the bodhisatta gets reborn in the Tusita heaven and when he
attains enlightenment.
The Jtaka-nidnakath concludes its account of "the story in the distant past"
with cursory information about Vessantara. It states that, as Vessantara, the Buddha-to-
146
be performed such meritorious deeds that the earth quaked, and that after death he was
reborn in the Tusita heaven. It then reiterates that the "story in the distant past" should
be understood as everything that has preceded in the story so far. After this statement,
which confers a sense of closure on what has been recounted to that point, it moves on to
report events in the next stage of his progressthe liminal stage in Tusita before he is
about the bodhisatta's rebirth in Tusita.261 However, it has no break-marker after the
news that he has been reborn in Tusita. The reader does not therefore experience the
260
Evam pramiyo pretv Vessantarattabhve hito "Acetanayam puthav ..." ti evam
mahpahavikampanni mahpuni karitv yupariyosne tato cuto Tusitabhavane nibbatti. Iti
Dpakarapdamlato pahya yva ayam Tusitapure nibbatti ettakam hnam Drenidnam nm 'ti
veditabbam. ... Tusitapure vasante yeva pana Bodhisatte Buddhahalhalam nma udapdi,
"Thus, having fulfilled the perfections, situated in his existence as Vessantara, having done great,
meritorious deeds which caused the great earth to shake in this way: '(Though) without volition, this earth
...,' having died from there at the end of his life, he was reborn in the Tusita world. In this way it should be
understood that this whole extent from Dpakara's feet up to this rebirth in the city of Tusita is called 'the
story in the distant past.' But while the bodhisatta was living in the city of Tusita, there arose a
proclamation of a (forthcoming) buddha," (Ja I 47). The underlining highlights the definition of the
drenidna, which will be seen to be missing from the Jinamahnidna's account.
261
Evam mahpuriso Vessantarattabhve yeva pramiyo pretv mahpahavkampandni puni
karitv prammatthakam katv yuhapariyosne sahivassasatasahassdhikasattapasavassakoiyuke
Tusitapure Santusitadevaputto nma hutv nibbatti. Tusitapure vasante yeva bodhisatte, buddhakolhalam
nma loke udapdi,
"Thus the great man, having fulfilled the perfections in his existence as Vessantara, having done
meritorious deeds which caused the great earth to shake, having brought the perfections to a head, at the
end of his life at the age of fifty-seven kois [a very high number] and sixty hundred thousand years old, he
was reborn as a god called Santusita in the city of Tusita. While the bodhisatta was living in the city of
Tusita, there arose a proclamation of a (forthcoming) buddha in the world" (Jmn 31).
147
his rebirth there and the events that ensue while he is living there. The individual
moments in the bodhisatta's life flow into each other more seamlessly.
The Jtaka-nidnakath closes its account of the enlightenment with two famous
verses (udnas) in which the now enlightened one joyously proclaims that though he has
long been wandering through samsra, seeking an end to suffering, he has finally found
the cause and made an end of craving.262 At this point the Jtaka-nidnakath
recapitulates the definition of the closing "story in the not distant past," telling the reader
that everything that has happened from the bodhisatta's leaving Tusita until this
momentthat is, the entirety of this individual life so faris considered one phase of the
262
Evam aparimena sirivibhavena pjayamne nekappakresu acchariyadhammesu ptubhtesu
sabbautaam paivijjhitv sabbabuddhnam avijahitam udnam udnesi: "Anekajtisamsram ...
tahnam khayam ajjhag" ti. Iti Tusitapurato pahya yva ayam bodhimae sabbautappatti tva
ettakam hnam avidrenidnam nm ti veditabbam. ... Santikenidnam pana "Bhagav Svatthiyam
viharati Jetavane Anthapiikassa rme, Vesliyam viharati Mahvane kgraslyan" ti evam "tesu
tesu hnesu viharanto tasmim tasmim hne yeva labbhatiti" vuttam, kic'pi evam vuttam atha kho pana
tam pi dito pahya evam veditabbam. Udnam udnetv ...,
"In this way, being honored with an immeasurable wealth of glory, when marvelous events of
many kinds had appeared, having penetrated the knowledge of omniscience, he proclaimed the joyous
proclamation that for all buddhas is not omitted: '... the circle of many births ... [my mind] has attained the
destruction of desires.' Hence it should be understood that this great stretch from the city of Tusita onward
up to this attainment of omniscience at the foot of the Bodhi tree is called 'the story in the not distant past'...
But the story in the present has been described: 'It is taken as those very places in which he is living, in this
way: "The Lord is staying in Svatthi in the Jetavana grove in Anthapiika's park, he is staying in the
Mahvana grove in the hall of the gabled house."' But although it has been described thus, it should still
also be understood in this way from the beginning on. Having proclaimed the joyous proclamation ..." (Ja
I 77). Again, the underlining highlights the definitions of the nidnas.
148
Buddha's life. It then introduces the following "story in the present" by again citing its
definition (though this time in an expanded form that particularly stresses the physical
location of the Buddha). It also reiterates the importance of understanding what this
phase consists of before one starts reading it. After this decisive and lengthy break in the
account, it resumes the narration proper: "Having proclaimed the joyous proclamation
(udnam udnetv) ...." The break it creates in its narrative gives the reader the sense
that a new and quite distinct phase of the life is now beginning. It also makes him self-
The Jinamahnidna, on the other hand, seamlessly follows its quotation of the
two udnas that ended the Jtaka-nidnakath's "story in the not distant past" with the
udnetv ...."263 Unlike the Jtaka-nidnakath's version, this gives no indication that
there is any significant difference between the moment of making the proclamation and
the moment just afterward. They are just successive moments in the ever-unfolding,
263
Evam bhagav aparimena sirisobhaggena pjayamno nnappakresu acchariyadhammesu
ptubhtesu sabbautam paibujjhi. So pi adhigatasabbautao hutv sabbabuddhehi avijahitam
udnam udnento imam gthadvayam ha "Anekajtisamsram ... tahnam khayam ajjhag" ti.
Udnam udnetv ..., "In this way, the Lord, being honored with an immeasurable wealth of glory, when
marvelous events of various kinds had appeared, awoke to omniscience. He also, having become one who
had attained the knowledge of omniscience, proclaiming the joyous proclamation that is not omitted by all
buddhas, said this pair of verses: '... the circle of many births ... [my mind] has attained the destruction of
desires.' Having proclaimed the joyous proclamation ..." (Jmn 89-90).
149
title the Jinamahnidna assigns to the episode. Titles can be used to bring about shifts
in emphasis in a story. Naming a section of text a certain way naturally draws attention
to a particular aspect of the material in the section. It focuses the reader's mind on that
aspect and so forges an explicit connection between whatever is recounted in the section
and that aspect. In this way the text can influence how the reader interprets its
material.264 By taking the same piece of material and naming it differently, a text can
however, when its source does contain such markers, the Jinamahnidna will follow the
material from the source very closely but change the title assigned to it.
A striking example of this is afforded by the way it names its account of the
Buddha's enlightenment. After citing the verses discussed above, in which the Buddha
264
This remains true, even though the section dividers in the Jinamahnidna, as in other Pli texts, are
placed at the end of the section. In processing the episode immediately after reading it as well as in relating
it to the material that follows, the section dividers are able to influence the reader's overall experience of
that section.
150
the Buddha's life with the chapter-ending "The story of the first week is finished."265
Viewed on its own this title is almost shocking, both in its non-acknowledgement of the
magnitude of the events described in this kath, and in the way it actively detracts from
the singularity of this momentous event. It does not name the section "The story of the
attainment of omniscience," or something to that effect. It names it "the story of the first
week." Not only does this make no reference to what was achieved in that period, it
will be seven sections. Designating the section this way propels the reader onward into
the future of the rest of the numbered group, rather than allowing her to focus on the
The jarringness of the title is only heightened when one compares it to what is
found at the parallel point in the Jtaka-nidnakath. As we saw above, the Buddha's
attainment of omniscience marks the end of "the story in the not distant past." Where
the Jinamahnidna has: "The story of the first week is finished," the Jtaka-
nidnakath has: "Hence it should be understood that this whole great stretch from the
city of Tusita onward up to this attainment of omniscience at the foot of the Bodhi tree is
265
Pahamasatthakath samatt (Jmn 90).
266
Iti Tusitapurato pahya yva ayam bodhimae sabbautappatti ettakam hnam Avidrenidnam
nm ti veditabbam (Ja I 77).
151
amount of text than the Jinamahnidna's, so I am not comparing like with like here.
Nonetheless, we should not ignore the effect of the way the Jtaka-nidnakath's closes
the section on its immediate context, on the narrative that surrounds it. Where the title
the Jinamahnidna assigns this section of the text directs the reader's attention forward,
on into the rest of the text, the Jtaka-nidnakath's parallel closure-marker points her
attention in the opposite direction. It brings to the reader's awareness the beginning of
this period, which coincides more or less with the birth of the bodhisatta as Siddhattha;
the extent of time passed between that moment and the end-point just reached; and that
end-point, which is an event that has just taken place, in the immediate past. All of these
times are squarely in the past, so the reader's glance is here cast backwards by this
divider.
By its creative handling of the chapter title here, the Jinamahnidna thus
structures the reader's progress through the text in a way that fosters a sense of the
The Jinamahnidna's policy of not dividing up the Buddha's life into time-
delimited periods is also apparent in how it handles the point where the Jtaka-
nidnakath's account ends, though the evidence here is a little more complex.
152
The Jtaka-nidnakath ends its account with Anthapiika giving the Jetavana
"In this way the place the Lord lived in from his attainment of omniscience at the
foot of the great Bodhi tree up to the couch of his parinibbna is called 'the story
in the present.' By means of this we will explain all the Jtakas. The telling of
his story is completed."267
The text then moves on to tell the first of the Jtakas. Though its definition of the
santikenidna marks out a period of time that continues on long past the point where the
Jtaka-nidnakath stops, it implicitly identifies the preceding section of the story as the
In telling the story of the donation of the Jetavana park, the Jinamahnidna has
used material from both the Vinaya and the Jtaka-nidnakath, but it picks up the last
to the Jetavana, and then reports in a couple of sentences the Buddha's subsequent
movements. It states that from then on the Buddha would go wherever he had seen there
were people capable of being instructed (veneyyapuggale), and would enlighten them. It
reaffirms this in three verses, after which comes the title: "The story of the receiving of
the Jetavana."268 There is then a marked shift in gear, as the Jinamahnidna informs us:
267
Iti mahbodhimae sabbautappattito yva mahparinibbnamac yasmim hne Bhagav vihsi
idam Santikenidnam nma, tassa vasena sabbajtakni vaayissma. Nidnakath nihit (Ja I 94).
268
Jetavanapaigghanakath (Jmn 201).
153
The Jinamahnidna then gives an extremely abbreviated listing of where the Buddha
At first glance it appears that in saying: "The telling of the story in order from the
Lord's attainment of omniscience up to his receiving the Jetavana is like this," the
story into nidnasboth in making a distinct break in its account and in delimiting a
phase of the Buddha's story (from his enlightenment to his receipt of the Jetavana).
Moreover, the Buddha's attainment of enlightenment is the starting point for the Jtaka-
taken in close connection with what immediately follows it. It signals that there is now a
shift in the type of information that the text is imparting. It is saying that up until this
269
Jmn 201.
270
Jmn 201-210. The enumeration of these years is taken from the Madhuratthavilsin's nidnavaan
(Bv-a 3-4).
It is interesting to note that by focusing exclusively on the places the Buddha lived in during the
period up to his death, this section of the Jinamahnidna is in fact providing the information that
constitutes the santikenidna as it is defined by the Jtaka-nidnakath.
154
point it has been telling the story of that period sequentially, i.e. as a narrative, with one
episode following another. It is now going to shift mode, and give an annalistic
enumeration of the succeeding years, with no attempt at relaying the episodes that
happened in them.
enlightenmentnot the aspiration under Dpakara, as one might expect since that is
what the whole story so far has coveredbecause the time from the Buddha's
enlightenment until his receipt of the Jetavana is the equivalent of the "first year" with
which the following enumeration begins.271 In other words, in making this statement the
Jinamahnidna is drawing attention to the fact that the period which has just been
described in one way is about to be described in another way (as the "first year" in an
delimiting a phase of the Buddha's life in the same way as the Jtaka-nidnakath's
nidnas do. The Jinamahnidna uses this overlapping of informationthe same thing
being described in two different ways back to backas the means of transitioning
between sections of the text that are very different in tone and content. It is now clear
that, despite possible appearances to the contrary, the Jinamahnidna has again
271
Earlier in its account the Jinamahnidna gave a synopsis of the time-line of the events from the
Buddha's enlightenment until he is summoned by his father to Kapilavatthu, and it calculated that the latter
occurs ten months after the enlightenment (Jmn 155:9-14). Journeying back to Kapilavatthu took two
months (Jmn 169:2), and after a couple of weeks spent there, the Buddha traveled on to Rjagaha, where he
met Anthapiika and was given the park.
155
eschewed the time division found at the parallel point in the Jtaka-nidnakath.272
We have seen in this section that the Jinamahnidna redefines and then
demonstrates how the Buddha's life should be portrayed in temporal terms, in a way
directly at odds with the standard portrayal of its sources. It proposes and depicts a
vision of the Buddha in which it is important that every moment of the four asakheyyas
and a hundred-thousand kappas between the beginning of his life-stream and his death
This presentation of the temporal aspects of the life also has effects on the
reader's experience of the text itself. The form mirrors the life it narrates. The reader
encounters the work, as the life, as a temporally unified entity, encapsulating a neatly
demarcated unit in which is included and equally mutually related everything between the
wholeness is the way its telling of the entire life-story is divided into kath, "stories" or
272
There is of course an implicit demarcation of a phase in starting to enumerate the years at the point of
the Buddha's enlightenment. This effectively makes the Buddha's life post-enlightenment into one period,
which is therefore by implication distinct from his life pre-enlightenment. Nonetheless it is significant that
this periodization remains implicit, that it is not spelled out as such.
156
follows a practice that is common in Pli literature. Pli texts frequently divide up their
material into sections named according to some feature of the segment so delimited.
assigned them. They are sometimes labeled numerically according to the number of
elements they contain. Often they are identified by reference to their subject matter.273
Another type of section-divider found in some texts makes no reference to the contents of
the section so created, but instead relates to its length. This is the bhavra or "portion
for recitation."
diverges from their lead to apply this practice in its own ways. The great majority of the
Jinamahnidna's principal sources do not divide their material into segments at all.274
273
An example of the first type is the ekanipta, "the section with ones" (as found in the Aguttaranikya
and elsewhere). An example of the second approach is the Saghabhedakkhandhaka, "the chapter on
splitting the Sagha" (located in the Khandhaka portion of the Vinaya).
274
The only exception to this is that many of them separate off the story of Sumedha by labeling it as such.
Other than the three divisions by nidna that we have seen, the Jtaka-nidnakath has only one division-
marker, Sumedhakath, which indicates that the account of Sumedha is finished (Ja I 28). The
Buddhavamsa marks the conclusion of each account of a buddha's life-story (e.g., Bv 66), but does not
break up the individual accounts. The Madhuratthavilsin labels only the end of the Sumedhakath (Bv-a
119) and of the sections on the various buddhas (e.g., Bv-a 132). There are no chapter-breaks within the
chapter giving the commentary on the buddha Gotama's history, the Gotamabuddhavamsavaan, from
which the Jinamahnidna takes material. The Apadnahakath, on the other hand, labels the end of its
Sumedhakath (Ap-a 31) but not the accounts of the different Buddhas, though like the Jtaka-nidnakath
it distinguishes the different nidnas (Ap-a 52, 81, 99). There are no breaks in the section commenting on
the Buddha's apadna (Ap-a 102-127). The Dhammapadahakath's "Account of the chief disciples,"
where the story of the Buddha's life up to the receipt of the Veuvana park from Bimbisra is told in
abbreviated form, contains no breaks at all (Dhp-a 83-114).
157
The only principal source that divides its account into sections named according to their
divide up their accounts on the basis of the length of the segments so created; that is, they
split them into bhavras. The most important of these are the
Mahpadnasutta.278
The Jinamahnidna, on the other hand, applies the practice of dividing its
account into sections defined by their content throughout the text. The part of the
Vinaya's Mahvagga that is relevant for the Jinamahnidna has frequent section-
275
For example, the first three sections of this text are called the bodhikath ("the story of the
enlightenment"), the Ajaplakath ("the story of the Ajapla tree"), and the Mucalindakath ("the story of
Mucalinda"), Vin I 2-3.
276
The portion of the Mahparinibbnasutta used here is divided into five bhavras (with the break-
points at D II 101, 121, 136, 153). For example, the second portion ends with the statement: "The second
portion for recitation is finished" (Dutiyakabhavram Nihitam, D II 101). In only two cases is any
reference made to subject matter, and even here the break-point is still determined by length. The fourth
bhavra ends: "The fourth portion for recitation concerning Ara-vedalla is finished" (Ara-vedalla-
Bhavram Nihitam Catuttham, D II 136); and the fifth: "The fifth portion for recitation set at the Hira
avatiya (River) is finished" (Hiraavatiya-Bhavram Nihitam Pacamam, D II 153). The
Mahparinibbnasutta as a whole is divided into six bhavras, but only the last five are used
continuously in the Jinamahnidna, the first being used elsewhere in the text.
277
The Sumagalavilsin has breaks only at the points where the Mahparinibbnasutta does and it labels
all of these by bhavra (Sv II 542, 549, 564, 572, 591). For example, the commentary on the second
bhavra ends with the statement: "The commentary on the second bhavra is finished" (Dutiyaka-
bhavra-vaan nihit, Sv II 549).
278
With one exception, the sutta is divided only into bhavra (D II 21, 35). The exception here is that
one break is labeled Jti-khaam nihitam, "the section on the birth is finished" (D II 21). The latter is
the reading given in the PTS edition of the text, but the variant readings indicate that a Burmese manuscript
and a printed Thai version of the text have the title Pahama-bhavram, "the first portion for recitation,"
instead.
158
dividers that name the principal event or figure in the episode they recount. The
Jinamahnidna follows those divisions quite closely. Nonetheless, the Mahvagga was
only a potential source for a limited section of the Jinamahnidna's account.279 For the
remainder of its account, the Jinamahnidna had to rely on sources that did not contain
such chapter-breaks. It therefore extends the practice of division by subject matter to the
recounting the Buddha's last year.280 The material used here is taken almost entirely from
Jinamahnidna's version of these events follows the wording of these two sources very
closely. Yet, while the sources' material used here is divided into five bhavras
labeled as such, the Jinamahnidna's is broken up into sixteen kath labeled according
That the Jinamahnidna diverges from its sources so decisively on this point,
while otherwise following their versions quite closely, suggests that the division into
279
It covers the period from the Buddha's gaining omniscience to his conversion of Sriputta and
Moggallna in his first year of teaching.
280
Jmn 210-291.
281
For example, "The account of Great Sriputta's nibbna is finished" (Mahsriputtanibbnakath
samatt [Jmn 216]); "The account of the releasing of the constituents of his life-force"
(yusakhravissajjanakath [Jmn 223]); "The account of the city of Bhoga" (Bhoganagarakath [Jmn
226]); and so on.
159
kath was adopted in order to carry out some work in the text. I suggest that one of its
chief benefits is, paradoxically, to help unify the text as a whole by fostering a sense of
narrative consistency, whereby the entire text is subject to the same general structuring
it would seem that chopping the story into kath would have exactly the opposite effect
of the one I am proposing here. Clearly this practice does break up what would otherwise
be a continuous account into individual sections, and in that sense it disrupts the effect of
seamlessness that such continuity would bring. However, it is also a way of bringing the
entire Jinamahnidna into a stylistic uniformity and coherence. Each part of the text
becomes like all others in consisting of smaller units, meaningfully defined according to
2 Conclusion
the text as a whole distinct from the sum of its parts. This wholeness is an element of the
text's claim to superiority as a telling of the Buddha's life, and so as a portrayal of the
Buddha himself.
The way it describes its subject matter at the outset portrays the text as unified by
160
its singular subjectit all shares one key quality, that of relating something about "our
Lord." Stressing the connection between Sumedha back then and "our lord" now (in the
"now" of his last life, of the time of the text's composition, and of the reader's encounter
with him in this text) gives a unity and integrity to the text and a sense of relational
uniformitywe are as related to him at the beginning as we are at the end. The story of
the Buddha's life being presented as a temporal whole gives a sense of the temporal
dimension of the bhagav's existence. The use of the stylistic device of dividing the
story into kath accords the text a higher degree of structural consistency.
whole. This both reflects and reveals that is not only the story of its subject's
bhagav, "our Lord," who is its subject from beginning to end. At each stage of his life,
therefore, the central figure is both the bodhisatta or Buddha and amhkam bhagav.
161
CHAPTER III
CONNECTEDNESS:
A HEIGHTENED SENSE OF RELATIONSHIP WITH THE BUDDHA
relation to its sources. The focus of inquiry now shifts. This chapter and the next
consider the text in its own right. While chapters 1 and 2 stressed the comprehensiveness
and wholeness of the biography, this chapter and chapter 4 will reveal an emphasis on the
biography's openness. This chapter examines how the text does this by working to
imagines his devoted follower's reaction might later be, once he is dead: "You might
think, nanda, 'The teaching is one whose teacher is past (attasatthukam). There is no
teacher for us.' But it should not be viewed like that, nanda."282
obvious and particularly apt double-reference. Atta can mean "past" both in the sense of
"gone, gone beyond, passed away" and specifically "passed away in death," and also in
the explicitly temporal sense of "in the past." Thus, attasatthukam conveys both
282
Siy kho pannanda tumhkam evam assa 'attasatthukam pvacanam, natthi no satth' ti; na kho
panetam nanda evam dahabbam (Jmn 260).
162
implications, that could be particularly troubling to a follower of the Buddha: the thought
that the teacherwhom all acknowledge to be deadis not only dead, gone from this
world, and so not immediately available to his followers, but also in the past, in the sense
The follower is faced with a two-fold dilemmahow to deal with the fact that the
Buddha is gone and how to conceive of his relation to the present.284 This chapter will
show that the Jinamahnidna allows its reader to feel that the Buddha is still connected
to the world and that she can have a relationship with him across time.
I will first analyze in depth an episode that revolves around the relationship
between the Buddha and one of his followers. This will give us an idea of how the
Buddha is shown as relating to others while he was alive. This picture conditions the
evident that the reader is already involved in a relationship with the Buddha, in being a
recipient of the care he extended while alive. This already existent relationship is
283
When the three dimensions of time, past, present, and future, are referred to, it is generally atta,
paccuppanna, and angata that are used to convey these meanings.
284
See K.R. Norman, "Death and the Tathgata," in Collected Papers IV (Oxford: Pali Text Society,
1994), 251-63 for further discussion of how the question of the Buddha's death was posed by some Pli
texts.
163
revealed in part by the way the beginning of the Buddha's teaching period is depicted. It
is made all the clearer by the Jinamahnidna's portrayal of the period leading up to the
Buddha's death. The text's coverage of the Buddha's last words then makes explicit how
this relationship is to be maintained into the future after the Buddha's death.
Ultimately, the text shows its reader that not only is the Buddha involved in the
present, but his involvement in an ever-ongoing future can be ensured. The text enables
its reader to be part of that process of maintaining his ongoing involvement in the world.
person. The paradigmatic qualities attributed to the Buddha are impersonal and
transcendent. They reveal the Buddha as a being incomprehensibly greater than any a
reader could know personally. The picture of the Buddha that emerges from the
distinctly human terms, and the reader is effectively encouraged to imagine knowing him
personally.
At the structural level, in ending with his death, the Jinamahnidna defines its
parameters by the biological limits of human life. It does not flinch from showing the
bodhisatta looking foolish, as whenin the face of his disrespect and lack of interest in
the then buddhahe is initially dragged by the hair by his low-born friend Ghaikra to
164
see the buddha.285 It also shows him as flawed, including the first and last of the
Visuddhajanavilsin's list of bad experiences he has to undergo in his last life, as a result
of wrongs done in previous lifetimes.286 However, it is above all the degree to which he
is shown as being involved in relations with others that portrays him as human.
also offers important insights into the dynamics at play in a relationship with the Buddha.
stresses the enduring connections between people that can be maintained over
extraordinary lengths of time and differences in status. It also emphasizes the value and
285
Jmn 26.
286
The Visuddhajanavilsin (in the Buddhpadnavaan section) gives a list of the twelve bad things
the Buddha experienced in his life as a result of prior bad actions (Ap-a 114). The Jinamahnidna
includes the first and last of these twelve. The first bad experience is his having to practice austerities for
six years, an unusually long time. This is identified as the result of having disrespected a previous buddha,
as a young man called Jotipla, and forced his friend Ghaikra to drag him by the hair to hear the buddha
(Jmn 70). The last such experience the Buddha has to endure is the attack of dysentery that ensues from
Cunda feeding him a bad meal (Jmn 227-8). This is identified as the result of his actions in a previous
lifetime when he made a living as a dishonest doctor. He deliberately gave a rich, young man substances
that would make him ill, in order to ensure his ongoing employment.
287
Jmn 149-154.
165
entry into the cluster of questions concerning relationships that figure prominently in the
Jinamahnidna.
by the fact that it is included in the text despite not being mentioned in the accounts of the
Buddha's life provided by its sources. The one place in the Jinamahnidna's main
sources that the story is told is the Visuddhajanavilsin's section on Kassapa. The story
is thus told in connection with Kassapa's life, not the Buddha's. By leaving out
Kassapa's story, the Jinamahnidna's primary sources indicate that they do not consider
story indicates the importance it accords it. It tells the story in great detail, including a
lengthy account over four pages of the events leading up to Kassapa's initial encounter
As these events do not directly concern the Buddha, it would have been quite
reasonable for the text to have reported them in abridged form, reserving extensive
coverage for the interaction with the Buddha. However, I suggest that the story of how
Pipphali (as Kassapa was known before meeting the Buddha) came to renounce the
household life has a particular value for the Jinamahnidna. It throws into high relief
questions about the nature and value of relationship with others. These questions are
166
significant not only for Kassapa's ordination, but more importantly for the portrayal of
and importance of relationships between people over vast periods of time. It is said of
Pipphali that whatever meritorious deeds he did in his previous lifetimes, he did not
alone, but in conjunction with his wife, and this is the woman he will marry in this
lifetime.288 This highlights that there is a connection between these two people that
continues past their deaths, through lifetime after lifetime. They marry each other again
and again. Indeed, Bhadd talks of a bond that has existed between them for a hundred,
thousand kappas.289
The value of personal relationships is brought out in the story by the way the
emotional reaction in the reader, a reaction that reinforces his estimation of the value of
The text tells us that after walking together along the path away from their
household life, the couple reaches a fork in the path where they mutually decide that they
288
Jmn 151.
289
satasahassakappappame addhne kato mittasanthavo ajja bhijjati (Jmn 152).
167
must go separate ways. It reports Bhadd saying at this juncture that "the intimacy of
That it is the right thing for them to do and they are both in agreement over it does
not prevent this from being a very poignant scene. The physical scenario alone is
poignantthey are standing at a point where the single path they are on splits in two, the
two branches leading away from each other. This scenario highlights the starkness of the
transition occurring at the momentary temporal levelat one moment they are together,
joined in standing at the same spot, and the next they are disunited, inexorably moving
Even more powerfully, the starkness of the contrast between the two time-
home both the enduring nature of that connection ("something that has lasted so long")
and the shocking suddenness with which it is being severed. Coupled with the starkness
of this temporal contrast, the starkness of the contrast in emotional tone of "the intimacy
of friendship" (with its connotations of something precious) and "is severed, split,
broken" (with the connotations of something sudden and violent) gives a sense of virtual
brutality to the split. This is likely to provoke in the reader a reflexive emotional reaction
Such an emotional response on the part of the reader is then reinforced by the
168
description of the earth's response that immediately follows. The first words after
Bhadd's statement and the report of her taking the path away from him are tesam
dvedhbhtakle, literally, "at the time they became in two (dvedh)." Again, there is a
striking starkness in that compound which comes from the bluntness and literal accuracy
of the expression. It captures in one verbal unit the reality that at one moment two who
are united are sundered. The sentence beginning with this phrase reports that the earth
shook, "roaring as though saying 'Though I can bear Mt. Meru and the mountains of the
caused by the force of the couple's qualities, which is too great for the earth to support.
Yet it carries the suggestion of an emotional reaction on the part of the earththat
The episode is recounted in such a way that, even though the reader knows it is
the right thing for the couple to do, his emotional response controverts his intellectual
evaluation of the situation. The result is that the reader is left with an awareness of the
290
Jmn 152.
169
connection with another in living a good lifePipphali does not perform his meritorious
actions alone, but in conjunction with his wife.291 The text also describes the couple as
leaving household life "in relation to" (uddissa) whatever arahants there may be in the
world.292 They consider it important to take this momentous step in their spiritual lives
not independently but in relation to others, even if they do not know who those others are.
The importance of being in connection with certain others is also suggested by the
Buddha's response to the earthquake caused by their separation. The sense of urgency in
his response confirms the seriousness of what has happened. He is reported as thinking:
"Having given up immeasurable wealth, Pipphali and Bhadd have gone forth in relation
to me. This earthquake was caused by the force of the qualities (guabalena) of those
two at the place of their separation (viyogahne). I should meet with them/show them
kindness (may etesam sagaham ktum vaat ti)."293 By the spare juxtaposition of
these three thoughts, the text coveys a sense of immediacy and urgency to his assessment
thatright at this point when they are separated and therefore alonehe should establish
a relationship with them. This suggests that it is important for them to be in connection
with someone, and because they renounced in relation to him (even if they did not know
it at the time), he has a responsibility to establish a connection with them right away.
291
There is a poignant image of the intersection of intimacy and the religious life in Pipphali and Bhadd's
cutting off each other's hair as they prepare to renounce (Jmn 151).
292
Jmn 152.
293
Jmn 153.
170
Buddha, let us first consider two aspects of their first encounter that are quite striking.
encounters. Second, the text portrays Pipphali as recognizing and asserting his personal
relationship with the Buddha with surprising forcefulness. This is all the more arresting
form for the meeting with Pipphali. After reporting the Buddha feeling the earthquake
and knowing he must establish a relationship with the couple, it shows him leaving the
place where he was staying, taking his bowl and robe and setting off. Once he has
reached the spot on the road between Rjagaha and Nland where he will meet Pipphali,
he sits down under a banyan tree. So far, the Buddha has been portrayed entirely in
human terms. The description could equally have been applied to any ordinary monk.
The Buddha is also situated in a naturalistic and particular settingin a hut, traveling
along a road, and now at a point in between two named and well-known cities. So the
mental picture the reader could be expected to have of him at this point would be of an
entirely human figure, doing things in ways any human might, and now sitting cross-
171
However, the text continues: "But sitting [there], he did not sit like some sort of
he sat there sending out rays dense for eighty cubits."294 It then goes on to describe the
Buddha poetically in the most extravagant way: his vast quantities of "buddha-rays"
(buddharamsiyo), spraying out in all directions, irradiated the clearing in the wood like a
thousand moons and a thousand suns rising at one time; with the brilliance of the thirty-
two physical marks of the great man he illumined the clearing, which now blazed like the
sky filled with stars and like water scattered with lotuses and water-lilies; the banyan tree
which normally had trunk, leaves and fruit of different colors was now uniformly golden.
The transformation is dramatic and absolute. The reader has to shift his mental
image of the Buddha from one sentence to the next. The text brilliantly highlights the
immediacy of the juxtaposition of the two manifestations of the Buddha by hinging them
in the singular, twofold act of sitting under a tree.295 I will return to consider some of the
294
... -rukkhamle pallakam bhujitv nisdi. Nisdanto ca pana aatarapamsukliko viya anisditv
buddhavesam gahetv astihatthaghanaramsiyo vissajjento nisdi (Jmn 153).
295
... -rukkhamle pallakam bhujitv nisdi. Nisdanto ca pana aatarapamsukliko viya anisditv
buddhavesam gahetv astihatthaghanaramsiyo vissajjento nisdi (Jmn 153). That it is the act of sitting
that is the hinge between the one Buddha and the other Buddhathe hinge which unites yet separatesis
highlighted by the back-to-back placement of nisdi nisdanto.
Here the first nisdi conveys the still-portrayed-as-human-Buddha's act of sitting, and nisdanto
sets in motion the transformation of the sitting into the act of sitting done by the more-than-human-Buddha.
It achieves this by repeating the verb and so explicitly signaling that a revision of the mental image of the
act conveyed by nisdi is to occur. This revision is then confirmed by the explicit contradiction of the
former image of sitting by the negating anisditv. The repetition of nisdi at the end of the sentence
172
issues at play in this juxtaposition of transcendent and human modes in the next chapter.
Here I wish to emphasize what the appearance of the Buddha in his transcendent form
says about the power of the connection between him and Kassapa.
It is striking how directly Pipphali recognizes and how forcefully he then asserts
his personal relationship with the Buddha. At the moment of seeing the Buddha,
Pipphali's body thrills with joy and he knows: "This must be my teacher. It was in
relation to him that I went forth."296 He immediately goes up to the Buddha and says in
the bluntest possible terms: "Sir, (you) the Lord are my teacher. I am (your) follower."297
After the lengthy description of the Buddha in such awe-inspiring terms, the
bluntness with which Pipphali's actions and words are described can only heighten the
sense of his shocking temerity. This temerity is testimony to the strength of the
relationship as a pre-existent given, something that existed in the world before Pipphali
confirms that the revision is accomplished, and the transformation of the sitting into that done by the more-
than-human-Buddha is complete. This nisdi now conveys a different act of sittingone modified not by
pallakam bhujitv but by astihatthaghanaramsiyo vissajjento.
The text has thus spotlighted the instantaneous nature of the transformation of the Buddha, by
writing into the one act of sitting down two: a sitting down carried out by a human Buddha who carried a
bowl and robe, and a sitting down carried out by a Buddha whose rays had the power of a thousand moons
and a thousand suns all shining at once.
296
Ayam mayham satth bhavissati. Imham uddissa pabbajito ti (Jmn 153).
297
Satth me bhante bhagav, svako 'ham asm ti (Jmn 153).
173
was aware of it, and before the two parties had even met. Altogether, the account of the
encounter focuses the reader's attention squarely on the relationship between Pipphali
and the Buddha and on the fact of their relatedness per se. It also impresses on the reader
The focus on the importance of personal connection for a good spiritual life that
we have seen throughout Pipphali-Kassapa's story now becomes even more overt.
Mirroring Pipphali's recognition of him, the Buddha recognizes Kassapa (as he is now
named by the Buddha) for the type of person he is and gives him suitable meditation
topics. This constitutes Kassapa's lower and higher ordination. They are now in the
clearly stated, personal relationship of teacher and follower, and Kassapa has been
The Buddha has thus given Kassapa the means to progress spiritually, but he does
not stop there. In the context of an intimate interaction, in which Kassapa lays down his
robe for the Buddha to sit on, the Buddha decides that he will "make" (karissmi)
Kassapa into a certain type of monk, one who "naturally" (jti-) follows some of the
more ascetic practices.298 There can be no question here of the importance for Kassapa of
his connection with the Buddha. His very status as a person, the type of monk he is, is
298
Bhagav "aham imam bhikkhum jtipamsuklikam jtieksanikam karissm" ti cintetv (Jmn 154).
174
determined by the Buddha. That the connection is a personal and intimate one is
highlighted by the manner in which the Buddha makes Kassapa such a monk, namely by
swapping outer robes with him. This leaves the Buddha wearing Kassapa's robes and
Buddha's.
The description of the Buddha's robes here may nuance the depiction of the
relationship between the Buddha and Kassapa, by means of particularly apposite puns.
Before giving the robes to Kassapa, the Buddha asks him: Kim pana tvam dhressasi
Kassapa sni pamsuklni nibbasanni? At the surface level, this translates as:
"Kassapa, will you wear the coarse robes, found on a dust-heap, discarded?"299 Wearing
such robes constituted one of the ascetic practices (dhutaga) that a monk could practice.
So the Buddha is offering Kassapa robes that fall within a recognized category of
monastic practice. At the same time, the attributes applied to them seem to call into play
a series of puns, that pivot, in a particularly appropriate way, around their dual statusas
worthless, discarded items, which are nonetheless religiously of great worth. Yet the
puns, if indeed it is legitimate to view them as such, add extra layers of meaning that may
have import for the relationship between Kassapa and the Buddha.
He then indicates their value by informing Kassapa that when he found the robes,
299
Jmn 154.
175
which had belonged to a slave-woman, infested with insects, in a cemetery, the earth
shook, the skies thundered and the entire world-system cheered in celebration. At the
surface level, the Buddha is asking Kassapa with this question whether he will be worthy
of wearing the robes. However, there may be puns at play in the two adjectives: sni
and nibbasanni.
Sa can mean both "hemp; coarse, hempen cloth," andas a combination of the
associative particle sa- and ia ("a debt")"having a debt, indebted, bearing a debt."300
Thus, while the surface meaning of sni here is that the robes are coarse, made of
hemp, there may also be a secondary meaning that they bring a debt with them, a debt
Kassapa will owe the Buddha. According to this reading, by doing something that
engenders a debt to him in Kassapa (giving him the robes), the Buddha is engendering yet
another form of enduring connection between them. At the same time, by accepting the
Buddha's robes, forewarned of the attendant debt, Kassapa is willingly accepting that
ongoing connection.
nibbasanni, deriving from the privative particle nis- and vasana ("clothing"),
conveys the meaning "no longer worn, cast off."301 However, it is possible that there is a
verbal echo of derivatives of the verb nibbisati, which means, amongst other things, "to
300
See PED, 702.
301
PED, 362.
176
earn, gain, reward."302 For example, nibbisa connotes "earnings, wages."303 Thus,
beyond the surface connotation that the robes are cast off, there may also be a suggestion
that they constitute earnings or a reward for Kassapa, i.e., something that he has earned or
merited. This would also suggest that they are something of value.
"something of value gained as a reward" is particularly apt here. Beside the obvious
double character of these robes mentioned above (as materially worthless but spiritually
beneficial), they also have enormous value because they are the Buddha's robes. This is
indicated by the gods' reaction when the Buddha found themwe were told that despite
have such extraordinary value that the whole universe reverberates in approval at their
finding.
Combining the two sets of references, it might be that this phrase is showing the
Buddha describing the robes as simultaneously crude and cast off and something that
brings a debt to him, but which is nonetheless merited by Kassapa and valuable. The
connection between Kassapa and the Buddha (enduring to the point of never ending, in
302
See PED, 365. Cf. Monier Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford: Oxford
University Press, 1899; reprint, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1986), 558 (nirviati).
303
PED, 365.
177
fact, as long as the robes are snias long as they still carry a debt, a debt that has not
been paid off). It is also a connection which Kassapa merits, presumably because of his
past actions, and which the Buddha bestows on him as reward, again presumably for
those actions.
The exchanging of robes changes Kassapa's status in that it makes him into a
certain type of monk, which in turn leads to his shortly attaining arahant-ship. It also
displays a real intimacy between the Buddha and his follower. Beyond that, it also
changes Kassapa's status in a way that is much harder to define. It creates and connotes a
type of relation that links Kassapa and the Buddha in an even more intensely personal
way, in a way that is focused even more intensely on their respective persons and the
relations between those persons. By giving Kassapa his robes to wear, and by wearing
Of course, this does not mean that Kassapa is actually the Buddha's equal. This is
an honor that the Buddha graciously accords Kassapa and that Kassapa gratefully accepts,
so the relation of superior and subordinate is still very much in place. Nonetheless, there
are distinct connotations of some form of close, personal overlap between them. This
overlap is further revealed by the fact that the earth responds to Kassapa's acquisition of
the Buddha's robes in a way that directly parallels how it responded to the Buddha's
178
acquisition of them: by shaking and roaring.304 The inanimate earth has recognized the
nature of relationships in themselves and also to how they apply to the Buddha. This
attention fosters a heightened awareness of these issues in the reader and encourages him
to bear them in mind in his encounter with the work as a whole. Such an awareness leads
him to see the profound importance to the Buddha's followers of being able to interact
with him, as well as the Buddha's grace in making himself available to others.
The relation of quasi-identity that the Buddha institutes with Kassapa is particular
to this pair. Yet it can still have a general relevance for the reader. By permitting
Kassapa to share in something of his own person, the Buddha shows to an extraordinary
degree his willingness to allow himself to become involved in his followers' persons and
lives. Knowing that relationship with him will be beneficial for his followers, he offers
his person as an instrument for their good. This is not something found only in this
episode. We see it at issue in many ways through the text. In recounting this episode, the
Jinamahnidna throws into maximum relief what it highlights throughout the work: the
Buddha's willingness to engage in profound connections with his followers, and his
304
Jmn 154.
179
efforts to permit othersincluding those who come after himto draw him into their
Awareness of these dynamics also lays the groundwork for the development in the
reader of a sense of being in relation with the Buddha himself. Relationship with the
Buddha is not only an imaginary possibility for the Jinamahnidna's reader. Rather, the
text shows the reader that she is already involved in a relationship with him. This is
revealed, for example, by the text's telling of the events surrounding the Buddha's
enlightenment, which contains something very unusual within Pli biographies of the
Buddha.
The tone of the Jinamahnidna's account of his activities during the weeks
immediately following his awakening is in general markedly different from that of the
savoring the happiness of release, the Jinamahnidna's version focuses more on how he
This difference in tone is particularly apparent in the texts' portrayals of the fifth
week of the seven-week period after his enlightenment, before he starts teaching. The
305
The version of events found in the Jtaka-nidnakath is shared by the Jinamahnidna's other
sources.
180
Jtaka-nidnakath here conveys a sense of the Buddha primarily following the prompts
of his curiosity and enjoyment.306 The Jinamahnidna's version displays the opposite
orientation. It shows the Buddha reflecting on the truth he has understood entirely in
However, what is most unusual about the Jinamahnidna's account of the fifth
week is that it introduces a significant and rather shocking element into the plot, which is
not found in any of its sources. It reports Mra coming to the Buddha and telling him to
306
It describes the Buddha during this period in the following way: "He sat contemplating the Dhamma
and enjoying the happiness of release," dhammam vicinanto yeva vimuttisukha ca paisamvedento nisdi
(Ja I 78). There is no sense here of the Buddha bearing others in mind.
307
The Jinamahnidna shows him examining the truth (saddhamma) that he has realized, analyzing it in
different ways in relation to the people who can be trained (veneyyapuggale) and what form of teaching
would help them. He thinks about what would be helpful to them based, first, on their personality and then,
on how they learn best (Jmn 93). He knows that those who can be trained will only be able to reach the
highest goal (ariyadhamma) when they have grounded themselves in morality, developed a state of focus
through concentration, and generated insight through wisdom (Jmn 94). So he reflects on the Dhamma
divided into groups of texts according to which of these qualities they foster: the Vinayapiaka, "which
illuminates the advantages of morality" (slnisamsadpakam); the Suttapiaka, the advantages of
concentration; and the Abhidhammapiaka, the advantages of wisdom. For each of the piakas, the text lists
all its individual books. Only then, after it has shown him rehearsing the Dhamma in all these ways, does it
report him as enjoying the happiness of release, finally picking up the Jtaka-nidnakath's wording
(ibid.).
308
Jmn 94. Mra figures in the Jtaka-nidnakath's account of the fifth week, but only to sulk
despondently at the Buddha's evident superiority. The account makes no mention of Mra instructing the
Buddha to enter parinibbna.
In his study of the biography of the Buddha, John Strong talks about the differences between the
Jtaka-nidnakath's account of the seven weeks and that found in the Catupariat-stra and the related
Mlasarvstivdin Vinaya. These two texts show a distinct parallel to the Jinamahnidna in reporting
Mra asking the Buddha to enter parinibbna, though they depict this as occurring in the third week after
enlightenment (see Strong, Buddha: A Short Biography, 79-80). It would be interesting to investigate
whether there is any historical connection between those two texts and the Jinamahnidna, which could
explain their containing this parallel element of the plot. Such an investigation is unfortunately beyond the
181
"The purpose for which you fulfilled the perfections is now fulfilled.
Omniscience has been penetrated. What is the point in you wandering around the
world? Enter parinibbna now ...."309
It then tells us that the Buddha refuses to comply with Mra's instruction, stating that he
will not enter parinibbnahe will not dieuntil certain conditions have been met:
Dying at this point would be easier for the Buddha. He would not have to endure the
strain of teaching what he has understood. Yet he refuses to leave the world until he has
done what is necessary to establish the teaching, the ssana, on a solid footing.311
The Jinamahnidna includes another account of Mra giving the Buddha this
instruction and the latter refusing to comply until these conditions have been met three
months before the Buddha's death. In this case, to each of the Buddha's stated
conditions, Mra replies: "Well, that condition is now met ... It is time to enter
months' time. He again postpones what would be a personal relief to him because,
evidently, there are still things he needs to do in the world before he dies. Those
outstanding tasks are the arrangements necessary to ensure the security of the ssana
By including the account of Mra's request and the Buddha's refusal within the
account of the period in which he taught, the forty-five years of his post-enlightenment
life. It reveals that his activities during those years constitute his efforts to ensure that the
ssana is strong enough to persist and flourish without him. The beneficiaries of this
preservation of the ssana are those who come after the Buddha's death.
Setting up the account of the teaching period in this way functions within the rest
of the story in some ways similarly to the statement at the beginning of the
Jinamahnidna that it would tell the story all the way through to his death. Both moves
influence the way the reader views and interprets the succeeding account. The reader is
made aware, before the account of the teaching has even begun, thatas one of their
everything she will read from here on she will see evidence of the Buddha's care for his
followers, including her. She is left feeling that she has personally been cared for by the
Buddha.
Raising the question of his death at the very moment of what would seem to be
his greatest success makes for a startling juxtaposition. Mra's comment that the purpose
for which the Buddha fulfilled the perfections has now been fulfilled helps the reader
interpret the connection that this juxtaposition forges between the Buddha's omniscience
and his death.313 If the Buddha's purpose truly were fulfilled, he would have no reason to
313
It was the gaining of omniscience that constituted his enlightenment, as we shall see in the next chapter.
184
remain in the world. So Mra's statement and the fact that the Buddha is not persuaded
by this argument make clear that omniscience was not the purpose for which he fulfilled
the perfections. The Buddha responds that he will diethat his purpose will have been
accomplishedwhen his followers are capable of maintaining the teaching and the
teaching is flourishing and widespread. Gaining omniscience and leaving the teaching
strong are revealed as the two elements of his purpose in fulfilling the perfections.314
This reinforces the reader's sense that everything the bhagav did in his long journey to
buddhahood and in the rest of his life as the Buddha was for the benefit of all his
By including the account of this incident at the beginning of his teaching career
and then repeating the episode shortly before its end, the Jinamahnidna brackets the
depiction of the intervening years, and so frames them, in a certain way. This framing
further reinforces the text's earlier portrayal of the teaching. It encourages the reader to
recognize all the more forcefully that everything the Buddha did in the forty-five years
from his enlightenment to his death, he did for the benefit not only of his contemporaries,
In these ways, the reader is made to see himself as a direct beneficiary of the
Buddha's actions while alive, a recipient of his care. He is shown that he is involved in a
314
By this logic, the Buddha's death is the point when his teaching is well-enough established to sustain
itself without him. It is in fact a mark of his success, as evidence that his mission has been accomplished.
185
direct relationship across time with the living Buddha so long past. He is shown that he
has in fact always been in a relationship with the Buddha, even if he was unaware of it
before.315
Ricoeur instructively draws our attention to the significance of the end of a story
for the work as a whole. He explains that "the configuration of the plot imposes the
'sense of an ending' ... on the indefinite succession of incidents,"316 and that it is "the
'conclusion' of the story ... [that] gives the story an 'end-point,' which, in turn, furnishes
the point of view from which the story can be perceived as forming a whole."317
"[I]t is in the act of retelling rather than in that of telling that this structural
315
Cf. Hallisey's discussion of the interest shown in medieval Sihala texts in "the formal relations
between the Buddha and his temporally distant disciples" (Hallisey, "Devotion in the Buddhist Literature
of Medieval Sri Lanka," 88). He argues that these texts, "seek to change a relation based on an
acknowledgement of the Buddha as a great, but distant figure from the past, to a new formal relation based
on a re-cognition of each individual's direct and personal dependence on this same figure" (ibid.). See also
his analysis of the motif of "self-involvement" in certain medieval Sihala texts (ibid., 120-6 and passim).
He shows that these texts often emphasize "the recognition of one's own self-involvement as a recipient of
the Buddha's saving action" (ibid., 125). See also Stephen C. Berkwitz, "Emotion and Ethics in Buddhist
History: The Sinhala Thpavamsa and the Work of Virtue," Religion 31 (2001): 155-173 for an
examination of similar dynamics in another Theravdin text.
316
Ricoeur, Time and Narrative, 67. This point is, of course, relevant for the ways that the text uses the
Buddha's death as part of how it defines its wholeness, as we saw in Chapter 2.
317
Ibid., 66.
186
ways.
makes the startling choice to end its story with the Buddha's death. Yet, paradoxically,
by ending with his death, it reorients the story of the Buddha's life in a way that permits
the reader to feel directly cared for by the Buddha and already in relationship with him.
The reader's understanding of the Buddha, his relation to him, his possibilities for
continuing to relate to him, and hence his subsequent actions and ways of being in the
world are significantly impacted. In the process, the Buddha's influence is made to
A Including his death means including his care for his future followers
The report of the Buddha's death is but a very small part of the Jinamahnidna's
account of the last period of his life. This section of the text is in fact overwhelmingly an
account of his concern for and efforts to ensure his followers' well-being after his death.
Its predominant tone is established in its very first sentences. The text reports that
318
Ibid., 67.
187
the Buddha directed his followers to spend the rains retreat nearby. It then explains that
he knew he would die in ten months, and, if the monks went far away, when the time
came for him to die, they would not be able to see him.319 It quotes him as imagining
their reaction: "They might then have the regret (vippaisra): 'As he was dying the
teacher did not give us even so much as a memory (of him). If we had known, we would
This is a poignant indication of the Buddha's concern for the feelings of his
important to themseeing him on his deathbed. He also does not want them to feel hurt
that he did not consider their feelings enough to grant them what might later be a source
of comfort, namely, the memory of him in his last moments. Above all, he does not want
them to have the regret that, had they known, they would have done things differently,
but now it is too late and they have forever missed the opportunity they had to see him.
A key word here is vippaisra, "regret." This short passage sets the tone of the
account of his last months with a picture of the Buddha thinking about the regret that
others might later feel because they are not able to see him. He is shown as caring about
the emotional well-being of his followers and taking steps to do what will be best for
319
Kasm evam ha? Evam kirassa ahosi "aham dasamsamattam hatv parinibbyissmi; sace ime
dram gacchissanti, mam parinibbnakle dahum na sakkhissanti. Atha nesam 'satth parinibbyanto
amhkam satimattam pi na adsi, sace jneyyma, na evam dre vaseyym' ti vippaisro bhaveyya ..."
(Jmn 210).
188
them. Throughout the section, it is made clear that those others he shows concern for,
who may feel such regret, are not just the monks in his community at the time. They
include anyone who follows him at any time in the future, who by definition will not be
The text shows the Buddha thinking about the needs of people of the future who
will want to relate to him as a person but will not have access to him. He insists that
people should not think they are without a teacher, that their teacher is gone and in the
past. Rather they should think of his teachings as occupying his position as their
teacher.320 However, he also recognizes that people will want contact with him that is
more personal than the teachings can provide. He therefore endorses them going to
places that were important in his life. After nanda laments that monks currently come
from far and wide to see him, but after his death they will no longer be able to do so, the
Buddha tells him there is an alternative. There are four places they will be able to see
which will be capable of inspiring the faithful: where he was born, attained
Describing the visitor as thinking: "The tathgata was born here," and so on, he
320
The text includes his detailed explanation of how the teachings can be the teacher, in which he outlines
everything he has taught, distributed into the three piakas, and concludes for each one: "When I have died,
this will fulfill the duties of teacher for you," mayi parinibbute, tumhkam satthukiccam sdhessati (Jmn
260-1).
321
Cattrmni nanda saddhassa kulaputtassa dassanyni samvejanyni hnni. Katamni cattri?
'Idha tathgato jto' ti nanda saddhassa kulaputtassa dassanyam samvejanyam hnam ... (Jmn 243).
189
makes clear that visiting these sites is a way for the future follower to have a connection
with him across time. The Buddha encourages the practice of going on pilgrimage to
these sites by saying that anyone who dies with a serene mind while on such a pilgrimage
will get a good rebirth.322 In a similar vein, he gives instructions as to where his burial
mound (thpa) should be built, so that people will be able to benefit from performing acts
of worship there.323 These are all ways that people in the future will be able to interact
One of the prime ways this section of the text shows the Buddha as taking care of
his future followers is by taking steps to ensure the continuation of his teaching (ssana)
into the future. The text shows him warning his followers of the potential dangers to the
ssana. He describes at length the seven things that will cause the decline of the
monks,324 as well as what would make the Dhamma not last long after the his death.325
He instructs the monks on the appropriate relations between the laity and the monastic
community, relations that will best allow both groups to live a good religious life.326 He
322
Ibid.
323
He says: "A thpa should be built for the tathgata at a crossroads. Whoever offers a garland, perfume
or sandalwood, glorifies him, or makes their mind serene there will have well-being and happiness for a
long time" (Jmn 245).
324
Jmn 262-7.
325
Jmn 266-7.
326
Jmn 267. He advocates a religious life of mutual dependence between the two groups. He explains
that brahmin householders are useful for monks because they provide the requisites, and monks are useful
for householders because they teach them the Dhamma. Both groups should therefore live their religious
190
also tries to ensure the continuation of the teaching in exactly the form he left it, by
mahpadesas).327
Most early Pli versions of the Buddha's biography kept the account of his death
separate from that of his life. This seems to have been motivated in part by a desire to
avoid conveying a sense of closure to the Buddha. The cost of this approach was that
they were not able to portray his efforts to ensure the continuation of the ssana into the
The Jinamahnidna brings the story of his life to a close. Yet doing so allows it
to bring the Buddha's efforts on behalf of the followers who come after his deathand
his influence on the futureinto relation with his whole life. When viewed in this way,
these efforts can be understood in ways they otherwise might not. The reader sees the
Buddha take care of those who come afterincluding himselfin just the same way as
he has witnessed him care for people he encountered in life. The reader and other later
followers of the Buddha are thus put on a par with those who received his care and were
able to express their devotion to him during his life. The reader can see himself as having
been cared for by the Buddha. The question only remains of how he can show his
B The Buddha instructs his followers on how to honor him after his death
At several points in the text we see people and gods being portrayed as
responding with sadness, feelings of loss, and regret at the prospect or the reality that
they will not be able to encounter the Buddha personally or offer him personally the signs
of their devotion as they wish. This is perhaps most poignantly expressed in the story of
the unfortunate Varavraa gods, which immediately precedes the account of the
Buddha's last words.328 The juxtaposition of these episodes is very informative for our
The Varavraa gods, who live an exceptionally long time, have known about the
Buddha from before he was even born. They have been weaving a garland of flowers to
offer him in homage (pj) from that very first moment. They keep meaning to give it to
him on pivotal days of his life (at his conception, his birth, his renunciation, his
enlightenment, his first sermon, and so on). Yet their sense of time is so different that
they keep missing the occasion. His entire life goes by until it gets to the day of his death
and they still have not given their garland, which is still not complete. They are told that
he is about to die and they are nonplussed. This whole period has been but one day to
them. They plaintively protest: "But it was just today that he was conceived. It was just
328
Jmn 238-9. The Mahparinibbnasutta does not mention these gods. The Jinamahnidna has
incorporated this material from the Sumagalavilsin into what it has taken from the
Mahparinibbnasutta.
192
today that he was born. It was just today that he left home. ... And now you say it is today
that he will die? Does there not even remain just the time to drink some rice-milk on a
second day?"329 The gods have no choice but to take their unfinished garland, which they
are painfully conscious of as an unfitting honor, to offer it to the Buddha. Yet the
universe is now so full of gods wanting to see the Buddha on his deathbed that they can
get nowhere near him and are reduced to hanging off the very edge of the world-system,
It is a pitiful situation for these devoted gods. They have known of the Buddha all
his life. They even had forewarning of him. Yet the opportunity to offer him in person
the homage they have single-mindedly worked toward is denied them, though the Buddha
is still alive. He is theoretically still available to them, but even so they cannot meet him
in person, and they are left at a position unimaginably far from where he lies.
Following right after this story is the report of the Buddha's last words and a
discussion of their import. As it contains so much that is significant for our discussion, I
The Lord ... addressing the venerable nanda, said ... : "The tathgata is not
venerated, honored, worshipped, paid homage, or reverenced by such means [by flowers,
sandalwood powder, music, singing], nanda. A monk, nun or layman who lives
conducting himself in accordance with the Dhamma, who behaves correctly, and who
acts in accordance with the Dhamma, venerates, honors, worships and pays homage to
the tathgata with the highest pj. Since the aspiration I made lying at Dipakara's feet,
once I had gathered the eight (requisite) qualities, was not made for the sake of garlands,
329
Jmn 239.
193
perfumes, music, and singing, since the perfections were not fulfilled for that purpose, I
am not paid homage by this pj. The monk and nun who does not transgress to even the
slightest degree the precept designated for them, the conqueror's restriction, the
conqueror's boundary, the conqueror's measuring line, conducts him- [or her-]self in
accordance with the Dhamma. The layman and laywoman who fulfills everything in
regard to the three refuges, the five precepts, and the ten precepts, who keeps the eight
uposatha [sacred day] vows for a month, who gives gifts (dna), who does a pj of
perfume or a pj of garlands, who looks after his [or her] father, mother, and righteous
ascetics and brahmins, conducts him- [or her-]self in accordance with the Dhamma. For
only this non-material pj is able to preserve my ssana. And only as long as these four
groups (paris) pay me homage with this pj, does my ssana shine like the full moon
in the center of the sky. For this reason, nanda, you should train yourself: 'Let us live
conducting ourselves in accordance with the Dhamma, behaving correctly, and acting in
accordance with the Dhamma.'"
[You may ask:] "But why does the Lordwho elsewhere described the result of
a p j done after taking just a single handful of flax-flowers, after reflecting on the
knowledgehere reject a great pj in this way?" Because of his loving care for the
groups (parisnuggahena) and his desire that the ssana last for a long time. For if he
had not rejected it in this way, in the future (angate), when the occasion for morality had
come, they would not fulfill morality; when the occasion for concentration had come,
they would not fulfill concentration; when the occasion for insight had come, they would
not take up the kernel of insight. They would only do a pj, getting their servant to take
it. But this material pj is not able to sustain the ssana even for one day, even for just
the time for one drink of rice-milk. It would not be able to sustain the ssana even if it
had a thousand monasteries like the Mahvihra and a thousand burial monuments
(cetiya) like the Mahcetiya. It is only for the one by whom it is done. However, correct
him (tena patthit) and it is able to sustain the ssana. That is why the Lord rejected
194
330
it.
The plight of the Varavraa gods is conveyed in very evocative terms. The gods
are portrayed as wanting intensely something that is clearly a valued thing to want: the
opportunity to pay homage to the Buddha. They exhibit to an extraordinary degree what
is by all accounts a laudable quality: devotion to the Buddha. There is no reason for the
reader to think critically of them. He will likely feel only pity towards them.
Their situation captures exactly the situation the reader is inthat of wishing to
meet the Buddha personally and offer him homage, but being unable to. Yet they are in
330
Bhagav ... yasmato nandassa rocento ha ... "Na kho nanda ettvat tathgato sakkato v hoti
garukato v mnito v pjito va apacito v; yo kho nanda bhikkhu v bhikkhun v upsako v
dhammnudhammapaipanno viharati smcipaipanno anudhammacr, so tathgatam sakkaroti
garukaroti mneti pjeti paramya pjya. Yasm nanda may Dpakarapdamle nipannena
ahadhamme samodhnetv abhinhram karontena na mlgandhaturiyasagtnam atthya abhinhro
kato, na etadatthya pramiyo prit, tasm na kho aham etya pjya pjito nma homi. Yo ca bhikkhu
y ca bhikkhun attano paattam sikkhpadam jinavelam jinamariydam jinaklasuttam anumattam pi na
vtikkamati, ayam dhammnudhammapaipanno nma. Yo ca upsako y ca upsik tsu saraesu
pacasu slesu dasasu slesu pariprikr hoti, msassa ahauposatham karoti dnam deti gandhapjam
mlpjam karoti mtaram upahahati pitaram upahahati dhammikasamaabrhmaena upahahati,
ayam dhammnudhammapaipanno nma. Ayam hi nirmisapj nma sakkoti mama ssanam
sandhretum yvakva ca im catasso paris mam imya pjya pjayanti, tva mama ssanam majjhe
nabhassa puacando viya virocati. Tasmtihnan[d]a 'Dhammnudhammapaipann vihrissma
smcipaipann anudhammacrino' ti evam hi vo nanda sikkhitabban" ti.
kasm pana bhagav aattha ekam ummrapupphamattam pi gahetv buddhague vajjetv
katya pjya buddhaen pi aparicchinnam vipkam vaetv idha evam mahatim pjam paikkhipat
ti? parisnuggahena ceva ssanassa cirahitikmatya ca. sace hi bhagav evam na paikkhipeyya,
angate slassa gatahne slam na pariprissanti, samdhissa gatahne samdhim na paripressanti,
vipassanya gatahne vipassan[-]gabbham na gahpessanti; upahke samdapetv pjam yeva
karissanti. misapj ca nmes ssanam ekadivasam pi ekaygupnaklamattam pi sandhretum na
sakkoti, mahvihrasadisam hi vihrasahassam pi mahcetiyasadisam cetiyasahassam pi ssanam
sandhretum na sakkoti, yena katam, tasseva hoti. sammpaipatti pana tathgatassa anucchavik pj.
s hi tena patthit ceva sakkoti ssana ca sandhretum. tasm bhagav tam paikkhipi (Jmn 239-40).
The Jinamahnidna is here combining sections from the Mahparinibbnasutta and from its
commentary in the Sumagalavilsin.
195
an even worse position than the reader. At least the reader has no possibility of seeing
the Buddha in person. The gods have the possibility and the opportunity, yet they miss
them. The way this story is told will almost certainly evoke a sympathetic response in
the reader. It goes to the heart of a potential source of sadness to them and magnifies it to
the extreme. The reader will likely experience a sympathetic resonance with the gods'
longing to see the Buddha and their desolation when they cannot. The story is thus likely
to put the reader more closely in touch with some of his own sadness at being forever
Given all this, the Buddha's explicit criticism of the gods' singing his praise has a
harshness that brings the reader up short.331 I suggest that this abrupt change in tone and
the marked non-reciprocation of the gods' good feelings toward the Buddha allow the text
to portray the Buddha as actively trying here to change his followers' emotional response
to his death. It is also a way the text can exert the same influence on its reader.
It is the gods' acts that are overtly criticized, but implicit in this is a criticism of
their attitude and motivation as well. Toward the end of the passage, the text tells us that
such material pj "is only for the one by whom it is done." This suggests that it is a
selfish act, because it benefits only the doer. A worthy act would benefit others as well.
331
This harshness may be highlighted (and perhaps partly explained) by the text itself in its juxtaposition of
paikkhipati ("he rejects") and parisnuggahena ("because of his loving care for the groups"). These two
words have very different emotional tones, and by bringing them into connection by closely juxtaposing
them, the text may offer "his loving care" as an indication of the reason for the harshness.
196
The gods' distress at not being able to give the Buddha their gifts was powerfully
expressed by the account. The passage that follows suggests that their act is selfish,
because it benefits only them, and their grief unproductive. An emotional response with
blameworthy. The Buddha contrasts with their act what he identifies as the appropriate
pj to offer him: "correct conduct." This is of benefit to all in that it preserves the
ssana.
The harshness of the Buddha's response to the devoted Varavraa gods seems to
be an attemptat one level by the Buddha but at another by the text itselfto persuade
his followers that they should not react to his death with an unproductive grief. They
should not feel bereft that they cannot encounter him personally. Rather they should get
on with honoring him in a fitting way, by performing actions that will further the ssana
A distinct parallel is created here between the followers' actions and the
Buddha'sboth parties act for the well-being of those in the future. By carrying out the
Buddha's wishes, the follower continues the Buddha's work, ensuring that the ssana
continues on into the future. Ensuring that the ssana is available to others allows those
others to themselves preserve it in turn, which again means that it remains available for
those who come after them. In this way, by honoring the Buddha in the way he requests,
the follower makes the ssana something that will continue to unfold ever-onward into
197
the future.
That it is concern for the future that prompts these attempts at persuasion is
expressly indicated by the passage's specification of angate, "in the future." The text
here makes clear, in explaining the Buddha's last words, that they were motivated by a
concern for the future. That future necessarily includes the reader, who is thus amongst
This section of the text (the report of the Buddha's last words and the explanatory
passage that follows) is clearly designed to foster in the reader an increased desire to
participate in the maintenance of the ssana. The text has already shown the reader that
the Buddha's teaching was his way of taking care of his followers. This passage now
makes it explicit. It identifies as one of his motivations for advocating action that will
preserve the ssana his "loving care," anuggaha, for his followers.332 In doing so, it
identifies the ssana as an expression of his loving care. Seeing himself as one of those
for whom the Buddha felt this loving care encourages the reader to feel personally
More important, the text shows the Buddha presenting the preservation of the
ssana as a means by which his followers can maintain an ongoing relationship with him
332
The PED lists among the meanings of anuggaha: "compassion, love for, kindness, help, favour."
Translating it "loving care" is an attempt to include both the affective component of its range of meanings,
expressed by "compassion, love for" and the component of acting for another's benefit of "help, favour"
(PED, 35).
198
in their present. This relationship can take a variety of forms. The Buddha twice talks
about the teaching as "my ssana" (mama ssanam). In preserving the ssana, the
follower is therefore keeping something of him in existence in the world. She becomes
the means by which his influence is continued on into the future. The Buddha also makes
clear in his last speech that his purpose was to preserve the ssana and that that is now
his follower's responsibility. The follower has therefore been entrusted a responsibility
by the Buddha. By fulfilling this responsibility, she continues his work; she becomes, as
it were, his agent in the world. She enables the carrying out of his will, and so becomes a
The text tells the reader that such "proper conduct" is something he wanted (s hi tena
patthit). The reader is therefore enabled to give the Buddha an offering she knows he
described by the Buddha as involving things that would have been parts of most
Buddhists' regular religious life (taking care of parents, abiding by the precepts, giving
dna, and so on). This means that whenever the reader does any of those things (as she
333
The contrast between honoring the Buddha by giving a material object and by carrying out certain
actions is appropriate in a very practical way. Giving a gift requires a recipient, and as there is no recipient
once the Buddha has died, such a means of honoring him is rendered impossible. Carrying out actions that
do not directly involve the Buddha, however, can be done at any time, irrespective of whether he is still
alive. The follower can therefore continue to honor him at any time.
199
routinely would), she can feel she is offering the Buddha homage and expressing her
devotion to him. In this way, as long as she lives in accordance with the precepts and so
on, the reader's life becomes a continual act of homage to the Buddha. She becomes
We saw earlier that the text portrays the Buddha as criticizing an unproductive
grief in response to his death. Here we see that the text nonetheless offers the reader
some solace to counter her potential sense of loss. The ways she can continue to be in
relationship with the Buddha, outlined above, may lessen her sense of absolute separation
and distance from him. They may allow her to feel that she is living her life in
connection with him. The suggestion that she can give him something he expressly
wanted may also help counteract her regret that he is no longer personally available. She
can feel that there are things she can still do for him, despite his being dead. Above all,
the reader can feel that the Buddha is not absolutely gone from the world, as the text has
4 Conclusion
Though it ends with his death, the Jinamahnidna does not leave the reader all
the more conscious that the Buddha is gone, forever inaccessible to the follower in the
present. On the contrary, it encourages the reader to feel an increased sense of the
This is in part because the text has shown that the Buddha's continuing influence
in the world lies to some extent in the reader himself. This is so in a variety of ways.
The Buddha's influence is felt in the worldwhich means it factors as an element of the
presentas the reader comes (through the Jinamahnidna's presentation) to see himself
more clearly as the recipient of the living Buddha's care. Conversely, the Buddha is
rendered an element of the present as the other half of the reader's increased sense of
From another perspective, the reader sees his own living within the institutional
framework of the ssana as evidence of the Buddha's ongoing influence. He also sees
his own carrying out of actions the Buddha wanted and requested as fulfilling the
Buddha's desire and requestin this way the Buddha's desire and request are implicated
in the present.
As long as the Buddha's influence is maintained in the reader, it can never be past.
By fulfilling his role in furthering that influenceby offering that same possibility to
future followers through doing what is necessary to preserve the ssanathe reader
ensures that the Buddha's capacity to remain influential in the world is passed on into the
future.
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CHAPTER IV
DENSITY:
INTERCONNECTEDNESS AND OPACITY
One way that Theravda texts mitigate the closure of the Buddha's death is to
focus on his limitlessness. They describe the Buddha and his qualities as inconceivable
While such descriptions of the Buddha are frequently encountered in its source
texts,334 they are generally absent from the Jinamahnidna.335 Given the
334
The Jinamahnidna's sources talk about his inconceivability, limitlessness, and so on in three principal
waysthey simply state it, they give overwhelmingly exhaustive lists of his qualities, or they use imagery
or similes to suggest them. An example of the simple statement is found in the Sumagalavilsin:
Buddhagu anant aparimn ti, "The Buddha's qualities are endless and without measure" (Sv III 877).
Another is seen in the last verse of the Buddhpadna in the Apadna collection: Evam acintiy Buddh
Buddhadhamm acintiy, "Thus the buddhas are inconceivable, the buddhas' teachings [or qualities] are
inconceivable" (Ap 6). Such bald statements that the Buddha is inconceivable do not in themselves capture
or convey any of that inconceivability. In opposition to the content of the concept, such blunt statements
rather delimit it, by making it into a quality that can simply be predicated of the Buddha. They inform us of
this fact about the Buddha but they give us no entry to appreciating what exactly this means.
The Cariypiakahakath furnishes a particularly striking example of the use of lists to convey
the limitlessness of the Buddha's qualities. It provides a list that extends over a page enumerating
multitudinous qualities: So anaasdhraam Bhagavato sla-samdhi-pa-vimutti-vimuttia-
dassanam hiri-ottappam saddh-viriya-satisampajaam slavisuddhi dihivisuddhi samatho vipassan
ti kusalamlni ti sucaritni tayo sammvitakk tisso anavajjasayo tisso dhtuyo cattro
satipahn cattro sammappadhn ... [31 lines] ... ti evamadike acinteyyanubhve Buddhague
dhammanvayato anugacchanto anussaranto n'eva antam na pamam passi, "[Sriputta]
recollectingproceeding [in sequence] according to their naturethe Buddha's qualities, whose
magnificence is inconceivable, such as these: 'The Lord's morality, concentration, wisdom, liberation,
knowledge and insight into liberation which are not shared with others; modesty and remorse; faith, energy,
mindfulness and attention; purity of morality; purity of view; calm; insight; three bases of goodness; three
[types of] good conduct; three right [types of] reflection; three [types of] blameless perception; three
202
Jinamahnidna's concern with comprehensiveness, this virtual absence from the text of
something so prominent its sources is striking, but also somewhat misleading. I will
show in this chapter that, rather than stating such positions, the Jinamahnidna elects to
demonstrate the Buddha's limitlessness and inconceivability. It uses its own narrative
having a density and opacity that we can distinguish into certain loosely delineated types,
elements of sense-perception; the four foundations of mindfulness; the four right efforts; ... ,' saw no end,
no measure [to them]" (Cp-a 6-7). Such lists are extremely unworkable for a reader. This is precisely their
forcethey overwhelm the reader, without providing any way in to appreciating how this multiplicity
works in relation to the Buddha.
An example of the use of imagery to convey the Buddha's limitlessness, which occurs in many
commentaries (including the Cariypiakahakath) is the following verse: "Buddho pi Buddhassa
bhaeyya vaam / kappam pi ce aam abhsamno, / khyetha kappo ciradgham antare / vao na
khyetha Tathgatass" ti, "If even a buddha were to speak the praise of the Buddha, not saying anything
else for an eon, when after a long time the eon waned, the praise of the tathgata would not be exhausted."
See Skilling, "Praises of the Buddha beyond Praise," Journal of the Pali Text Society XXIV (1998): 199-
200 for a full listing of where in the commentaries this verse is found. Such comparisons come closer to
conveying to the reader a sense of the utter immeasurability of the Buddha's qualities, say, than do either
simple statements or lists. They do so by giving the reader a mental image that is easier to grasp. Yet they
still do not convey in any nuanced way how it is that the qualities are immeasurable.
I will show that the Jinamahnidna takes the challenge of conveying the Buddha's limitlessness a
step further by means of its narrative form.
335
The Jinamahnidna does not deny the validity of such attributions to the Buddha. A handful of times
it refers to such conceptions of him, though even then in rather indirect ways. Just three times does it
explicitly refer to his qualities as being limitless. In talking about him teaching the Dhamma, it describes
him at one point as one whose strength of compassion had developed over a measureless time,
aparimitasamayasamuditakarubalassa (Jmn 100). When talking about the moment of his becoming
enlightened, it describes him as having attained omniscience that was adorned with collections of
measureless qualities, aparimitaguagalakatasabbautaappattiy (Jmn 86). He is also described
in the context of teaching the Buddhavamsa as having a body that was resplendent with the eighty minor
characteristics and embellished with the thirty-two glorious marks produced as the fruit of accumulated
goodness without measure, aparimitasamupacitakusalaphalajanitabattimsavaralakkhaopasobhit-
sitnubyajanavirjitam varasarram (Jmn 178).
203
though these types will sometimes overlap and are ultimately related. This analysis will
principally consider the following types: an explicitly temporal density, emerging from
his person; a causal density, which is the outcome of the multiplicity of agents and factors
shown to contribute to his being as he is; and a density of significance, which comes from
the impression left by the text that there is more to him than we can understand. This
chapter will examine some of the specific narrative techniques the Jinamahnidna uses
In the last chapter I explored how the Jinamahnidna helps keep the Buddha's
life open-ended after his death by facilitating the continuation of his influence into the
present and future. In this chapter we will see how the Jinamahnidna works to present
the Buddha's life as open-ended both before his birth and during his life.
The text shows the open-endedness of the Buddha's life before his birth by two
principal means. It ties the jtakas and the lives of the bodhisatta they represent firmly
into his last life by the way it depicts the perfections and their relation to the jtakas. It
also brings into close connection with this last life all the good actions he performed in
The Jinamahnidna portrays the present of his life as he was living it as open-
ended by showing his existence and actions at any time as opening out into and
connecting with myriad other times and other actions. It achieves this effect in part by
generating in the narrative a sense of temporal density through the constant intermingling
and mutual overlaying of times. The narrative in general displays frequent shifts in
temporal perspective, brought about by the use of textual devices such as flashbacks and
flashforwards. Beyond such generally applicable tactics, the text also makes particular
use of four phenomena that have explicitly temporal reference. These are the perfections
(prams),336 the portents (pubbanimittas), the physical marks of the great man
draws attention to continuities through time and links different temporal dimensions.
The text also uses the physical marks in their capacity as a paradigmatic
incorporate the impersonally temporal337 dimensions of the Buddha within the picture of
his person and life. In doing so, it can be seen equally as opening the narrative out into
other times, and as channeling those other times into the present moment of the narrative.
336
The perfections have an intrinsic temporal dimension, because the bodhisatta's long progress toward
becoming the Buddha is understood as the means by which he can perfect these qualities that are
prerequisite to the Buddha. It is because of their development through the long passage of time that the
Buddha is able to achieve what he does.
337
I use "impersonally temporal" to refer to those dimensions of time involving other buddhas and
bodhisattas, not within "our Buddha's" life-stream. When I use "personally temporal," I mean temporal
dimensions that occur within or relate to his life-stream.
205
The Jinamahnidna uses the perfections as a pattern to reveal how the bhagav's
career stretches out backwards through eons. It uses the perfections to connect the
jtakas directly to the Buddha's life. It portrays the connection between the perfections
and the jtakas initially with an unusual degree of determinacy that it then ultimately
undoes. The resulting picture of the jtakas' ultimate indeterminacy highlights the
Buddha's present and his past. They provide a way of tying his past more firmly to his
present. That is, as the perfections define who a buddha is now, in talking about the
Buddha, what happened in the past is in some ways still present. The Jinamahnidna
pushes this potential to its absolute limits and in the process makes brilliant use of the
perfections as a way to tie the jtakas inextricably into the Buddha's last life.339 Through
338
A similar result is achieved by different means in a Sihala text, the Amvatura written in the twelfth
century by Guruugm. Hallisey reports that there is a sentence in this work that starts with "our Buddha"
and then lists more than two-hundred jtakas. He comments: "The idea of 'our Buddha' is what gives
coherence to the whole sentence ... As the jtaka stories are listed in rapid succession, it becomes
impossible to keep any single birth distinctly in mind. Thus the effect of this long sentence is to emphasize
the constant presence of 'our Buddha': it is our Buddha who did all these deeds" (Hallisey, "Devotion in
the Buddhist Literature of Medieval Sri Lanka," 97).
339
An interesting feature of its coverage of the perfections is that it talks about the perfections in the lives
of the bodhisatta under some of the other buddhas that come after Dpakara. In quite a few of the
accounts, after having heard the prediction of buddhahood from the then buddha, the bodhisatta is
described as making great efforts to perfect specific perfections. In four lifetimes it talks about him
attempting to fulfill "the ten perfections" (under the buddhas Anomadass [Jmn 18]; Nrada [19];
Siddhattha [22]; and Vipassi [23]); in one, to fulfill that of sla (under the buddha Sumedha [20]); and in
206
the Buddha is now. The jtakas here become more about the Buddha than they are about
the bodhisatta. In the Jinamahnidna the perfections are thus presented as an aid to
buddhakrakadhammas, the qualities he will need to perfect in order to realize that end,
i.e. the perfections. He reflects on them one by one until he has thoroughly understood
upapram, and paramatthapram, going from lowest to highest form. The text defines
for us how the categories are distinguished: prams are classified as relating to one's
children, wife, or material possessions; upaprams involve one's own limbs, while
another, those of sla and pa (under Sujta [20]). In one case, it says that he did fulfill the perfections
of sla and pa in that lifetime (sla-papramim pretv) (under Kongamana [25]).
340
See Hallisey, s.v. "Pramits," Encyclopedia of Religion, 197 for a discussion of this view of the
relationship between the perfections and the jtakas.
341
Jmn 9-12.
342
"... 'bhirabhaapariccgena pramiyo nma agapariccgena upapramiyo nma jvitapariccgena
paramatthapramiyo nm' ti dasa pramiyo dasa upapramiyo dasa paramatthapramiyo" ti
samatimsapramiyo passi (Jmn 12). Curiously the Jinamahnidna has switched the names in this
hierarchized ranking of the perfections when compared to the ranking found in, say, the Jtaka-
nidnakath and the Madhuratthavilsin, which call the weakest form of a perfection the upapram, and
207
theoretically identify each grade of perfection. Yet in defining the grades only in terms
of whether they relate to one's limbs, and so on, it gives no practical guidance as to what
exactly that might mean in reality. The transparency of how this threefold distinction
might apply to the perfection differs from one perfection to the next. It is quite clear, for
example, how such a distinction might apply to the perfection of giving, but how exactly
does it apply to the perfection of wisdom? The abstract definition offered here leaves
The idea that each perfection has three grades and that the definition of those
grades is according to the category of thing affected is shared with the Jinamahnidna's
main sources. Some of its sources include a statement of what constitute the three grades
of the perfection of dna. None, however, explains in the section recounting the
Buddha's life how the three degrees of perfections two through ten (i.e., from sla to
upekkh) are defined. For example, the Madhuratthavilsin explains how the three
grades are defined for the perfection of dna and then simply states that the others should
defines the paramatthapram of dna and then says the pram and upapram grades
The Jinamahnidna explains the breakdown into grades for each of the ten
perfections.345 It clarifies, for example: "the three perfections of wisdom (pa) are
beings, having abolished craving for the means of existence, for one's limbs, and for
one's life;"346 and "the three perfections of mett (loving-kindness) are according to the
non-abandoning of mett even towards beings that are injuring one's possessions, etc."347
The Jinamahnidna here shows an interest in concretizing the grades and making them
more determinate, showing exactly what type of action is involved in each grade of each
perfection.
the picture of the perfections from being (a) general virtues (in the case of their
enumeration as ten); to (b) virtues that are theoretically analyzable according to the
division of whether they relate to one's possessions, one's limbs, or one's life; to (c)
344
... evam attapariccgam karontassa dnapram paramatthapram nma jt, itaresu pana
yathraham pram-upapramiyo veditabb (Cp-a 273).
345
This passage is taken from the final sectionnot the nidnakathof the Cariypiakahakath, which
discusses the perfections in the abstract (Cp-a 273).
346
... upakaraagajvitataham samuhanitv sattnam hithitam vinicchayakaraavasena tisso pa-
pramiyo (Jmn 29).
347
... upakaradiupaghtakesu pi sattesu mettya avijjahanavasena tisso mettpramiyo (ibid.).
209
way it selects, for each perfection, three jtakas that depict the bodhisatta manifesting
that particular perfection, and then distributes them according to whether they exemplify
The effect of this is to make the sense of the connection between the jtakas and
the perfections much more determinate. Where the canonical collection of jtakas does
not identify which perfection is displayed in the life it recounts, the Jinamahnidna
348
Daseva pram honti daseva upapram[.] / Paramatth dasa honti bodhiy paripcan[.] //
Velmadijasehassa dnapramit bhave / Sivirjassa sehassa dnena upapram. / Sasarj va yo dhro
cajayi jvitam sakam / dnena sadiso natthi paramatth dnapram. // Slavato ngarjassa slapramit
bhave / ngindabhridattassa slena upapram. / Sakhaplo ca yo dhro slarakkhya jvitam /
anapekkho anlaggo paramatth slapram. // ... Kacchapajtakdsu upekkhpramit bhave /
mahisarjajtake upapramit bhave / lomahamsajtake yeva paramatth pram bhave (Jmn 29-30).
In this distribution of jtakas by grade, for all ten perfections the story cited in the Jinamahnidna for
the paramatth grade is the same as that cited in the Jtaka-nidnakath. The Jtaka-nidnakath quotes
one verse from each of these jtakas in its account.
Note that the Velma story included as the example of the pram grade of dna is not a jtaka in
the canonical collection of jtakas. The story appears in the Manorathapra (the commentary to the
Aguttaranikya), where Velma is described as a bodhisatta. Velma's almsgiving became famous in
literature as the Velmamahya (see G.P. Malalasekera, Dictionary of Pli Proper Names, vol. II
[1938; reprint, London: Pali Text Society, 1974], 932-3). However, his story is found as one of the jtakas
(number 36) in the published version of the Pasajtaka collection (Padmanabh S. Jaini, ed. Pasa-
Jtaka or Zimme Pasa (in the Burmese Recension), vol. II [London: Pali Text Society, 1983], 402-414).
G. Terral-Martini discusses this jtaka in "Velmajtaka," Bulletin de l'Ecole franaise d'Extreme-Orient
XLIX (1959): 609-17.
349
For example, the Cariypiakahakath cites multiple stories for all ten perfections, highlighting one as
illustrating the paramattha grade (Cp-a 272-6). The Jtaka-nidnakath and Visuddhajanavilsin give
multiple references for the first five perfections only, again highlighting one as paramattha. For the
remaining five, they cite just one story as paramattha grade of each perfection, even though some of these
do not actually involve giving up one's life (Ja I 45-7, Ap-a 49-51). The Madhuratthavilsin refers to only
one story per perfection (apart from pa, which has two), each of which describes a paramatthapram
(Bv-a 59-61).
210
provides a model of the distribution of jtakas not merely by what perfection they
display, but, even more precisely, by what grade of what perfection the bodhisatta in that
story manifests.
This has various implications. It is likely to cause a reader to think of the jtakas
much more in terms of the perfections they might manifest, than she might otherwise. It
also gives the impression that each jtaka manifests one grade of perfection (again, a
much more determinate view of the jtakas). Further, it implies that when the reader
encounters a jtaka, she could apply this rubric to it and discover what grade of what
perfection is manifest in it. This is a very different perspective on the jtakas than a
reader would likely gain from the way they are standardly treated.
makes from the approaches of its sources. It accounts for Vessantara's life not by giving
a sequential narrative of the events of that life, but by breaking down and listing
Vessantara's acts, not according to narrative sequence, but according to what perfection
they demonstrate.350 These are listed in the order of the perfections, though within
individual perfections, if it cites multiple acts as instances of that perfection, it cites them
in chronological order.
350
The Jinamahnidna does not recount the story of Vessantara's life apart from this analysis. It begins
its discussion of Vessantara by listing the seven occasions on which the earth shook on account of his
generosity and then goes into this analysis.
211
351
Jmn 31.
212
giving (dna), but not even the Cariypiakahakath's telling of Vessantara's story
mentions the other perfections.352 That this presentation of all the perfections as being
highlighted by the fact that (at least one edition of) the Pahamasambodhi mentions it and
This takes the determinizing logic we have already seen unfolding to a whole new
level. This model suggests that, on encountering a jtaka, beyond simply identifying
what grade of what perfection it manifests, to really understand the story one would need
to go through identifying what perfection was manifest in each of the bodhisatta's actions
it reports.354
Given that the perfections are what link the bodhisatta to the Buddha, allowing the
reader to interpret the actions of a bodhisatta in a jtaka more and more in terms of the
perfections ties that jtaka more firmly into the life of the Buddha to which it is now seen
more clearly as leading. In this way the Jinamahnidna is able to tie the jtakas as a
wholepreviously treated textually as quite separate from the life of the Buddhamore
352
Cp-a 74-102.
353
Evam dpakarapdamle katbhinihrato pahya dndayo samatimsapramiyo prento
Vessantarabhvena sabb pram nihpesi. Ayan tu vitthro Jinamahnidne, "In this way, fulfilling all
thirty perfections starting with generosity from the (time of the) aspiration made at Dpakara's foot
onwards, he completed all perfections in his existence as Vessantara. But the long version of this is in the
Jinamahnidna" (Paham [ed. Surapol Jotia], 116).
354
We have already seen that in the account of his existences under previous buddhas the bodhisatta is
sometimes shown as working on more than one perfection.
213
The way the Jinamahnidna connects the perfections and the jtakas also
magnifies the total greatness of the Buddha's practice of those qualities. The jtakas do
not just demonstrate the accumulation of good qualities in a general way. Rather, by
encouraging its readers to view the jtakas more determinately as manifesting particular
perfections, and even multiple perfections, the Jinamahnidna leaves the reader with the
sense of an even vaster accumulation of good qualities than the canonical collection. Yet,
at the same time as magnifying his total greatness, this approach also makes his good
actions seem even more beyond one's comprehension. It gives the reader the sense of a
course, reflects on the Buddha who is portrayed as overdetermined with previous good
actions.
This effect is reinforced by the choice of jtaka in the model of their distribution
by grade of perfection. The text's combination of defining exactly what types of action
constitute what grade of each perfection and distributing the jtakas by grade of
355
This impulse is also evidenced by the fact that the Jinamahnidna depicts the Buddha recounting a
jtaka and includes the entire jtaka within its account (Jmn 247-9). Though it does not name it, this is the
Palsajtaka, number 307 in the canonical collection (Ja III 23ff.). In the Jtakahakath, the Buddha
introduces and concludes each jtaka. By placing a jtaka within the story of the Buddha's life, the
Jinamahnidna connects the immediate occasion identified by the Jtakahakath as the context for the
jtaka more tightly to the rest of the Buddha's life. This could equally be done for all other jtakas. By
this means, the Jinamahnidna again draws the jtakas more tightly into the context of the Buddha's
whole life.
214
perfection implies that if you apply that rubric to those jtakas, the way in which each
However, the clarity and systematicity promised by this neat categorization becomes
more elusive when one actually examines the stories cited. It then becomes apparent that
there is some overlapping of characters between stories356 and overlapping of names that
appear in two stories referred to by the text but actually designate different people.357
Interrelating the different lives of the bodhisatta in this way creates a sense of temporal
overlapping and interrelation in those lives. The impression the reader is likely to be left
with is that, even if he thought he could pin down what particular grade of what particular
perfection was manifested in a jtaka, he still would not get all the meaning for the
Buddha's life out of it, because of the possible interconnections between characters across
jtakas. In this picture, each jtaka can potentially take you into others (where other
356
For example, for the perfection of wisdom, the papram grade is exemplified by
"Sambhavakumrassa." This refers to the bodhisatta Sambhava in the Sambhavajtaka (Ja V 401). In that
jtaka the king of Indapatta, Dhanajaya Korabba, sets the story in motion by asking a question. The same
Dhanajaya Korabba also appears in the Vidhurapaitajtaka (Ja VI 255-329), which is cited for the
pa-upapram (referred to by "Vidhurassa paitassa").
357
There are two sets of overlapping names: Vidhurapaita and Dhammaplakumra. The bodhisatta
Vidhurapaita is the subject of the Vidhurapaitajtaka. This name is shared with a character called
Vidhura, also known as Vidhurapaita (and who is the father of Sambhava, the bodhisatta), who plays a
pivotal role is played in the Sambhavajtaka. The bodhisatta Dhammaplakumra, whose story is told in
the Culla-Dhammaplajtaka (Ja III 177-82), is cited for the khantipram. However, a character called
Dhammaplakumra also occurs in the Vidhurapaitajtaka, where he is the son of Vidhurapaita (the
bodhisatta).
215
game, where it is, on the one hand, working to make the jtakas much more determinate,
and, on the other, showing that they are nonetheless quite indeterminate. Both moves
reveal to a greater degree the temporal complexity, density and opacity of the Buddha's
life-stream. Just as the revelation of the sheer number of his previous good actions
comprehend, the revelation of the mutual interrelation of his previous lives creates a
impenetrable. The history of the Buddha's previous lives is revealed as opaque, and he is
creates a sense of density in its narrative: what we may call "pattern-making." That is,
the text makes use of patterns in a way that initially offers to clarify the matter at hand.
Yet if the reader takes up the text's implicit invitation and tries to trace out all the
unraveling of all that is implicated in the pattern is impossible. The very logic of the
pattern entails that the number of elements it potentially involves explodes out before the
clarification thus gives way to opacity and a sense of the elusiveness of the information
that was sought. We will see several other instances of this device in the following
analysis.
216
The marks of the great man, perhaps most obviously, draw the distant past and the
first reported that the five-day old prince was endowed with the thirty-two marks of the
great man, and because of this it was predicted that if he lived the household life, he
would become a cakkavatti king, but if he renounced such a life, he would become a
buddha.359 The Jinamahnidna then asks the rhetorical question: "With what thirty-two
marks of the great man?"360 The straightforwardness of this simple question gives the
impression that the text is about to provide the reader with a nice clear, definitive answer.
It answers the question in a formulaic and repetitive manner, involving two steps for each
mark: each physical characteristic the boy has is identified, and it is then stated that that
characteristic is a mark of a great man. For example, it is said of the first mark: "Sir, this
boy has feet that are firmly set. This is a mark of the great man for this great man."361
358
For discussion of the physical marks see Frank Reynolds, "The Several Bodies of the Buddha:
Reflections on a Neglected Aspect of Theravda tradition," History of Religions 16 (1976-7): 374-89;
Bareau, "The Superhuman Personality of the Buddha;" John Strong, Buddha: A Short Biography, 31-2, 41-
3 (where the marks are conveniently listed). Endo discusses the commentaries' understanding of the
Buddha's physical characteristics (Endo, Buddha in Theravada Buddhism, 138-142).
359
... dvedh bykarimsu "Ayam hi deva kumro dvattimsamahpurisalakkhaehi samanngato. Imassa
dve ca gatiyo bhavanti ana[:] sace agram ajjhvasati cakkavatti hoti ... sace kho pana agrasm
anagriyam pabbajati araham hoti sammsambuddho loke vivaacchado ..." (Jmn 45).
360
Katamehi dvattimsamahpurisalakkhaehi (ibid.).
361
Ayam hi deva kumro supatihitapdo[.] Idam assa mahpurisassa mahpurisalakkhaam bhavati
(ibid.).
217
After a page and a half of this description, the twofold prediction is repeated, but one
The text then provides an exhaustive explanation of the marks, which it prefaces
by a comment that stresses the central point concerning the marksthe direct connection
they witness between his current appearance and his own actions in the past: "The great
man was endowed with these thirty-two marks of the great man through the actions he
did himself (attan katakammavasena)."363 It then includes four pages of analysis, which
it identifies as spoken by the Buddha himself in the Lakkhaasutta. The pattern of cause
and effect inherent in the marks is illustrated in the explanation of the first one:
Because the Lord, when he was a man in the past (pubbe manussabhto samno)
in an earlier birth, an earlier existence, an earlier abode, was firm in his
resoluteness in virtuous matters, ..., because of that action's having been done,
because of its accumulation, its abundance and its manifoldness, after the break
up of his body after death he is reborn in a good situation, in a heavenly world.
There he exceeds the other gods in the ten conditions: .... Having died from there
and being (now) come to this current existence (itthattam gato samno), he gets
the mark of having feet that are firmly set.'"364
For this first mark, three stages of existence are talked aboutthe past when he
was a man (though it is implicit that this signifies countless individual lives as a man); an
362
"... ekanteneva vivaacchado buddho bhavissat" ti ... ekam eva bykaraam byksi (Jmn 46).
363
Mahpuriso hi attan katakammavasena imehi dvattimsamahpurisalakkhaehi samanngato hoti (Jmn
47).
364
Yam pi bhikkhave tathgato purimajtim purimabhavam purimaniketam pubbe manussabhto samno
dahasamdno ahosi kusalesu dhammesu ... so tassa kammassa katatt upacitatt ussannatt vipulatt
kyassa bhed param mara sugatim saggam lokam upapajjati so tattha ae deve dasahi hnehi
adhigahti ... so tato cuto itthattam gato samno supatihitapdalakkhaam pailabhat" ti (ibid.).
218
intermediate existence as a god; and his current existence. This adds an extra layer of
temporal complexity, drawing the reader's attention to the fact that there were intervening
lives in between those good actions and his being born as the bodhisatta. Nonetheless,
the direct causal connection between his actions in the past as a man and his current
possession of the marks is not thereby weakened. Though this tripartite structure is only
attested for the first mark, there is no reason to doubt that by implication it applies
Repeated in the explanation of all the remaining marks is the following formulaic
structure, in which the temporal aspects of the causal relations could not be more overtly
expressed: "Because when he was a man in the past the Lord was X, because of that
action's having been done, (now) that he has come to this current existence he gets the
mark Y."365 The repetition over and over through the passage of pubbe manussabhto
samno ... itthattam gato samno acts to saturate the reader's understanding of the
marks existing in the present with the awareness of their inextricable relation to the past.
The analysis of the marks viewed on its own is entirely about the relation between
the present and the past. However, the Jinamahnidna prefaced its description of the
marks with the account of the prediction that the marks permit. The text therefore brings
the significance the marks have for the future to the reader's attention before he
365
Yam ... tathgato pubbe manussabhto samno X ahosi ... so tassa kammassa katatt itthattam gato
samno Y-lakkhaam pailabhati (Jmn 47-50).
219
encounters their description and analysis. Thus, though the wording of the analysis of the
marks focuses entirely on the relation of present and past, the reader cannot but be aware
Generically we can say of the physical marks that they function in the following
way: the bodhisatta/Buddha's actions in the past had effects visible in the present that
inform of his future. However, the temporal dimension to which the marks most
relevantly point changes according to where in his life-story he is when they are raised.
As a five-day old baby the marks, created by his past, are primarily about his present as it
is defined by his future (he is one who will become a buddha), though they are also about
the future that lies ahead of him. Once he has become the Buddha, the future aspect of
the marks (that he will be a buddha) is irrelevant because he has already achieved that
status (that future has by now become his present). As the Buddha, it is primarily the
past aspect of the marks that is highlightedhe is a buddha now because of all the good
So far, I have focused on the temporal aspects of the analysis of the marks, which
seems to offer a straightforward picture of the relation between past actions and present
366
These considerations apply to the immediate temporal dimensions of the marks, the dimensions that
relate to his position within his own life-stream. The marks also have a temporal aspect outside the realm
of the sequentiality of cause and effect. It might be considered an impersonally temporal aspect. This is
that it identifies the Buddha as one of a category of beings that bear these marks, namely other bodhisattas
and buddhas. (Cakkavatti kings are also included in this category, but this is not relevant for the argument
here.) We will consider this aspect later in the chapter.
220
characteristics. However, the clarity and determinacy that the foregoing discussion might
have suggested is in fact undermined from the very outset by a couple of other aspects of
the analysis. We should note that in the analysis of the causes of the first mark many
other good qualities and actions were also included after his "resoluteness in virtuous
matters," including filial love toward his mother and toward his father, observing the
uposatha days, and paying due respect to the elders in the family.367 Multiple actions are
also identified as the cause of many of the later marks in this analysis. The number of
good actions that are identified as leading to each mark means that the reader starts to
lose the ability to keep track of all the actions relevant for each quality. The marks thus
become overdetermined with causes and the connections between them become less
clear. Within the very midst of the pattern that promises clarity, a sense of indeterminacy
resoluteness" and "having feet that are firmly set." So this may give the reader the
impression from the outset that the connections between causes and marks will be more
or less transparent. However, as the reader goes through the list, he is presented with
connections that are anything but transparent. For example, what exactly is the
connection between "being one who brings together friends long separated, who brings
367
These extra qualities were omitted from the above translation in order to preserve the clarity of the
overall structure of the passage.
221
together a mother with her child, a brother with his sister" and so on and "having his
private parts ensheathed in a pouch"?368 Again, within a schema that seems as though it
should provide clarity, a profound opacity is only just below the surface.
Right at the end of its analysis of the causes of the marks, which overall affirms
both the effect of the past on the present and our ability to see something of that past, the
In this way the person of the great man is decorated by the ten perfections through
his intention by means of his intention [to do] what is meritorious and his
intention to give. Neither those in the world who have every artistic skill nor
those who have every magical power are able to make a replica [of his person].369
This is saying that, despite what it has just said, one cannot in fact see all of the
past because, though the physical aspects of his actions are manifest, it is impossible to
represent the mental aspects. In adding this comment the Jinamahnidna is refusing the
reader the ability to see all of the pastwhat we see in the present is not all of the past,
there is more of it than we can see. In its handling of the physical marks, as in its
handling of the jtakas, the text leads us to the conclusion that one can never know all the
368
Jmn 48.
369
Iti dnacittena puacittena cittato dasahi pramhi sajjito mahpurisassa attabhvo[.] Loke
sabbasippino v sabbaiddhimanto v pairpakam pi ktum na sakkonti (Jmn 50). This comment is added
by the Jinamahnidna, it is not found in the Lakkhaasutta, which is the source for the preceding section.
222
We should also note in connection with this that the Jinamahnidna explicitly
draws attention to our inability to know everything about the Buddha in another way. At
the beginning of its account of the physical marks, the text raises the question of whether
one who has the marks has the ability to know the connection between those marks and
the actions that brought them about. It reports the Buddha as saying: "Even seers from
other traditions bear these thirty-two marks of the great man that the great man has, but
they do not know: 'One gains this mark because this action was done.'"370 The
implication is clearly that the Buddha does have this knowledge. The possibility of such
knowledge ties the marks in the present even more determinately to the relevant actions
of the past. On its face, this would seem to support the idea that a follower could
potentially come to a full understanding of the Buddha. Yet at the same time, though the
Buddha, as reported by the text, here informs the reader what types of actions led to him
later bearing the related marks, only he can know specifically what particular actions in
all his individual previous lives led to those results. Again, we see the Jinamahnidna
make use of patterned relations to undermine the understanding that such patterns
promise. The reader is here left with the awareness that what she can know is limited, it
370
"... imni kho bhikkhave dvattimsa mahpurisassa mahpurisalakkhani bhirak pi isayo dharenti na
ca kho te jnanti 'imassa kammassa katatt imam lakkhaam pailabhat' ti ..." (Jmn 47).
223
pubbanimittas at length three times, with three different sets of verses:371 when, having
received the prediction from Dpakara, the bodhisatta sits contemplating the qualities
moment he is born;373 and at the moment of his enlightenment.374 After the second of
these accounts, the text provides an extensive explanation of what each of these portents
signifies. We should also note that, immediately after its analysis of the second
371
The overall impression given by reading the groups of verses in relation with each other is
predominantly of overlap between the types of phenomena being reported in them (particularly between the
second and third groups). We should nonetheless note that the collections of thirty-two portentous events
described by the three groups of verses are not identical. There are only a handful of happenings reported
by all three groups: jewels in the sky and on earth shone; the moon and the stars shone brightly; and
beautiful smells wafted around. Otherwise there are happenings that are reported equally in the first and
second groups of verses only (e.g., the fires of hell went out; water did not flow in the rivers; and the wind
did not blow); in the second and third groups only (e.g., drums and lutes sounded by themselves, without
being struck; animals that are natural enemies consorted happily together; and the blind saw, the deaf
heard, the dumb spoke, the hump-backed became straight, and the lame walked); and a handful in the first
and third groups only (e.g., water burst out from the earth; the ocean was decorated with flowers; and
flowers fell from the sky). In each of the groups of verses (and particularly the first) there are happenings
that are not found in either of the other two groups. For example, the first group of verses alone reports that
lust, hatred and delusion disappeared; there was no fear; all the gods (except the formless ones) and all hells
were seen; and there was no birth or death at that time. Only the second group reports that the gods
gathered in one world-system and that thirst disappeared from the world of the Piscas (a class of demon)
that had not seen water for eons. It is only the third group that tells us that horses did not run, but stood
still; fans made of animals tails waved; and that lotuses of five colors burst through the surface of the earth.
372
Jmn 6-8.
373
Jmn 39-41.
374
Jmn 87-9. Some of the portents are described in prose first, then they are all redescribed in verse.
224
collection of the thirty-two portents, the text includes an analysis of the bodhisatta's
actions at birth that are identified as portents. This suggests that the text is deliberately
associating them with the thirty-two portents, not seeing them as different in kind in any
meaningful way.375 The thirty-two portents are also mentioned as appearing (though not
is worth taking a moment to consider what they are. They are extraordinary happenings
that manifest spontaneously in the natural world, in response to certain pivotal events in
the bodhisatta and Buddha's life. The earth quakes. Brilliant light blazes everywhere.
All trees burst into flower. Rivers stop flowing. The waters of the ocean become sweet.
Animals that are naturally enemies come together in harmony. People lose the physical
afflictions they have had from birth. All these things reflect the profound connectedness
of the natural world to the bodhisatta and Buddha, and its radical orientation to his
person.
The text gives no indication of any deliberation on the part of the universe in
responding in this way. In fact, it expressly states in another context that though the earth
has no volition and no mentality, it responds automatically to the bodhisatta and his
375
Jmn 42-3.
376
Jmn 35.
225
"sympathetic resonance" between the natural world and the person of the bodhisatta and
changes in the universe. However, this intangible connection between the Buddha and
the natural world adds to the density of his person. More is involved in him than his own
personal history and the impact of others he encounters. The entire universe is shown to
Three other types of pubbanimitta are also mentioned in the Jinamahnidna: the
five portents of the death of a god, which occur for the bodhisatta on the day of his death
in the Tusita heaven, in his last existence before becoming Siddhattha;378 the four portents
that are the sights that will prompt the bodhisatta to renounce;379 and the portents that are
377
Commenting on the seven earthquakes that took place during Vessantara's lifetime, the text reports the
Buddha saying: "This earth which is without intention (acetan), not understanding happiness and
suffering, shook seven times because of the power of my generosity," "Acetanyam pahav aviya
sukhadukkham / spi dnabal mayham sattakkhattum pakampath" ti (Jmn 31). We should also note here
the Buddha's explanation to nanda of the causes of eight earthquakes (Jmn 220-1). Six of the eight
earthquakes are explained as responses to the Buddha, three to events in his life and three as the result of
his qualities: twice because of the force of his merit (puatejena) and once because of the force of his
knowledge (natejena). This discussion makes explicit that the earth cannot but react spontaneously to
the Buddha's qualities.
378
Jmn 32. The portents manifest in Tusita are that the bodhisatta's garlands wilt, his clothes become dirty,
he sweats profusely, his body becomes unattractive and he does not remain on his divine seat.
379
These portents are first identified on the bodhisatta's naming day (Jmn 51), but the text's primary
discussion of them is when they are actually witnessed by the bodhisatta (Jmn 57-9). The portents that
prompt the bodhisatta to renounce are what appear to be a sick man, an old man, a dead man and a
renunciant (though in fact they are a young god disguised in these forms by the gods).
We should note that these portents are a further instance of the multiplicity of causality or agency
that figures in the bodhisatta's life. The gods make the determination that the time of his awakening is near
(Siddhatthakumrassa abhisambojjhanaklo sanno [Jmn 57]) and so explicitly act in a way that will
226
aspects of the five dreams Gotama has on the night before he will become enlightened,
It is immediately apparent from the above classification that there are differences
restates or refers to what is talked of as a single grouping four times, while each of the
other groups is only reported once. There are also significant discrepancies in magnitude
between the groups of thirty-two portents and the following groups of portents. Not only
is there a great disparity in the number of portents manifest (thirty-two as opposed to four
or five), but the thirty-two portents (in whichever version they are described) represent
extraordinary happenings on a grand scale that affect the entire world-system and would
be apparent to many if not all the inhabitants of the world. The other groups of portents
are on a much smaller scale and are witnessed by more restricted groups of beings.
These marked differences between the groups of the thirty-two portents and the others
suggest that it is likely both that the groups of thirty-two are linked in particular ways and
that the other groups are doing something different in the text from the groups of thirty-
two.
I will first consider ways the groups of thirty-two portents are brought into
relation with each other. By restating at length on three separate occasions (and
mentioning on another) what the text identifies by a single label, while using different
sets of verses, which do not in fact report entirely identical happenings, the text brings
both the portents from these different occasions and the different occasions associated
At the very least, this would mean for the reader that, on encountering the account
of the portents at the time of the Buddha's enlightenment, for example, the parallel
versions cited at the time of his contemplation of the qualities that make a buddha after
receiving the prediction, and at his birth and conception, and hence those events, would
probably be brought to mind. This suggests that they are connected in some meaningful
way. If so, it implies that a reader cannot properly appreciate the individual events
without also bearing in mind the others. It also encourages the perception that they are
all points along a single trajectory, elements of a singular process stretching over a vast
time-span from prediction to enlightenment, and that some of their individual meaning
comes from that. For example, the full significance of Sumedha's post-prediction
reflection cannot be fully appreciated without thinking of the enlightenment that it will
end in, as well as how far away that is. From the opposite viewpoint, the full enormity of
what the Buddha has achieved in his enlightenment is only appreciated when one is
228
aware that the process that led to it began way back with the prediction. In this light, his
which perhaps adds to the sense of the monumentalness of that event, as well as
imparting a sense of growing urgencythat after so long, the anticipated end is finally
drawing near. In such a way, further layers of temporal complexity have been added to
leads to a different type of multilayering. That is, the way the text structures its initial
account of the portents, with the description of each portent being followed by the
assertion that the bodhisatta will become a buddha seems, as it were, to saturate each
portent with the quality of affirming the future buddhahood of the Buddha.381 In the later
analysis, the particular link between a portent and its significand is made.382 The two
signification: each portent reaffirms both the bodhisatta's future buddhahood and a
the thirty-two portents conveys the sense that the general future as well as the specifics of
381
Jmn 6-8.
382
Jmn 41-2.
383
We should note that even though each particular portent is not found equally in all of the groups of
thirty-two, the Jinamahnidna's presentation implies that it is. This permits the dual quality discussed
here to apply (at least theoretically) to each portent in each of the groups of thirty-two.
229
the future are inherent in the present and are able to be revealed in the present. This extra
facet of temporal complexity is likely to be carried over and added to the later account of
The fact that these four occasions are depicted as provoking a similar response
(the manifestation of thirty-two highly unusual happenings in the natural world) suggests
that there must be some commonality to them, something shared by all of them. This is
likely to encourage a reader to try to work out what that shared quality is. Should the
reader identify such a quality, he will then have a greater awareness of that particular
quality in any one of the individual accounts of the portents than he would have had if the
One quality that can readily be identified as shared by the gaining of Dpakara's
prediction, the conception, the birth, and the enlightenment is that of effecting a radical
Sumedha is made into a bodhisatta, one who will eventually gain buddhahood.384 By his
384
Canonical and commentarial accounts of the Buddha's life agree that, for a prospective bodhisatta's
aspiration to buddhahood (abhinhra) to be successful, he has to have fulfilled eight conditions
(ahadhamm). See Endo, Buddha in Theravada Buddhism, 253-4 for discussion of these conditions. The
Jinamahnidna describes Sumedha, when Dpakara has approached him, as having fulfilled the eight
conditions (Jmn 4). Immediately after its report of Sumedha's resolve, the Jinamahnidna recounts
Dpakara's confirmation of Sumedha's future buddhahood, expressed in his prediction (Jmn 5). In other
words, gaining Dpakara's prediction is proof that his aspiration will be successful and that he is therefore
now a bodhisatta. See also Gombrich, "The Significance of Former Buddhas in the Theravdin Tradition,"
230
conception, he is made into one who has entered into his last existence, the existence that
will see him become a buddha. By his birth, he has entered the world in the life during
which he will become the Buddha. By his awakening, his enlightenment, he has been
transformed from being a bodhisatta to being a buddha, he has finally become the
Buddha.
However, the transformations that occur in the bodhisatta as they are portrayed in
the Jinamahnidna are more complicated than the above synopsis might suggest, and
the thirty-two portents (at least on two occasions) play a crucial role in the transformative
process. It is more than that they simply take place on an occasion when the bodhisatta's
status is radically changed. Rather, the thirty-two portents overall are portrayed on those
occasions as crucially informing either the bodhisatta/Buddha or others, or both, that the
transformation has occurred. This is particularly significant in the case of the portents
that are manifest at the time of Sumedha's reflection after receiving the prediction and at
transformation has occurred in him, the portents bring about a self-knowledge which
68. See Derris, "Virtue and Relationships," 152-181 for a discussion of this episode as it is portrayed in
the Sotahakmahnidna.
385
At the times of his conception and birth, the portents inform others (conception) and also him (birth)
that his status has changed, and this affects how he is treated. However, it is not clear that the changes in
his treatment brought about by the knowledge gained through the portents are significant in his personal
development.
231
permits him to do what is necessary to begin the next stage of his career.387
reflection it is the manifestation of the extraordinary events that constitute the portents,
reported to him by the gods, that permits his self-recognition as a bodhisatta. It is this
self-recognition that then enables him to accomplish what he needs to do to set out on his
path as a bodhisatta, namely, identify the perfections he must fulfill to become a buddha.
The Jinamahnidna puts a lot of emphasis on the important part the portents
386
Derris discusses the transformative effect of the prediction on the bodhisatta (ibid., 175-6). Her analysis
highlights the bodhisatta's self-experience as part of this effect.
387
The argument that causing the collections of thirty-two portents to be viewed together as a group makes
more visible the fact that they share, to varying degrees, a certain common quality is also strengthened by
the fact that the other groups of portents mentioned by the text do not share this quality. They do not
indicate that a change in the bodhisatta's status has occurred. Rather they can be seen to indicate that a
change in his status is about to occur, as well as to contribute, to varying degrees, to bringing about that
future change by prompting the bodhisatta to do whatever is necessary for the future event to take place.
The five portents that manifest when the bodhisatta is in the Tusita heaven indicate that he is about
to die and be born into the life in which he will become a buddha. The combination of seeing the portents
(and so knowing he is about to die) and hearing the gods' request prompts the bodhisatta to take certain
preparatory actions which set that event in motion. These are the five mahvilokanas, his looking around
the world to see if the five necessary conditions for the birth of one who will become a buddha in that
lifetime are available and to locate them (Jmn 33-4). The portents that are the four sights do not only
indicate that he is about to change from one living the household life into one who has renounced that
status and instead adopted that of one committed to attaining enlightenment, they positively contribute to
that change's coming about (Jmn 51). They set in motion a chain of thought (the realization that he too will
become ill, get old, and die) that leads to the bodhisatta deciding to take this transformative step. The
portents that are aspects of his dreams on the night before his enlightenment indicate that he is about to
become enlightened, no longer a bodhisatta but a buddha (Jmn 71-2).
232
involvement of the natural world in the unfolding of his life, and it shows that it has been
this way for every other bodhisatta/Buddha before him. It will therefore be helpful for
our project to analyze in detail how the text depicts the portents' role.
The Jinamahnidna shows both his progression from one who has received the
prediction that he will become a buddha and is thereby a bodhisatta to one who knows
that he is a bodhisatta, and the concomitant progress in his attempts to identify what he
sinking in of Dpakara's assertion that he will become a buddhais seen in: his thought
after hearing Dpakara's prediction, his thought after hearing the report of the portents,
his thought after his thought after hearing the report of the portents. As we will see, the
crucial point in this process is between stage two and stage three, a point when his status,
his very nature irrevocably changes. This change in status is confirmed by his
Stage one: After hearing the prediction: "he will become a buddha in the world"
(buddho loke bhavissati),388 Sumedha is very happy (ativiya somanassapatto ahosi), yet
388
Jmn 5. Dpakara is described as sending out his knowledge of the future (angatamsaam pesetv)
to investigate whether Sumedha's wish for buddhahood will succeed and, seeing that indeed it will
(samijjhanabhvam disv), proceeding to make the prediction (bykaraam). He then fleshes out this
prediction with an outline of the important events and the identities of the important people in Sumedha's
future life as the Buddha (Jmn 5-6).
233
Having heard the Lord's words, the ascetic Sumedha was very happy, thinking,
"Apparently my wish will succeed."389
This adverb kira conveys that Sumedha cannot yet fully take in and accept as indubitable
As soon as he is on his own, he sits looking out over the world with the thought,
action that will occur in the future, the future tense can also indicate the intention or the
This is the tone conveyed here. The sentence does not say, "Sumedha sat investigating
389
Jmn 6.
390
The PED gives as among kira's uses, an emphatic sense of "really, truly, surely," as well as a
"presumptive" sense: "I should think[,] one would expect" (PED, 215). Yet it goes on to say of kira that
"in ordinary statements, it gives the appearance of probability, rather than certainty, to the sentence"
(ibid.), and this seems to be the sense in which it is most frequently found. Another usage of kira that is
frequently seen is that of indicating that the sentence in which it is located is conveying something learned
through hearsay. The commentaries include this sense of "hearsay" among their explanations of its
meaning, though the PED argues this interpretation is sometimes too conventional and inappropriate for the
context (ibid.). Nonetheless, it is a usage that is regularly found in Pli texts. The sense of hearsay could
certainly apply in this context, seeing as it is within a sentence in which Sumedha reports what he has just
learned from Dpakara. However, the connotation of a lack of certainty seems the most appropriate here,
and this interpretation is supported by the subsequent development of the narrative.
391
Jmn 6.
392
Something of this sense is referred to by A.K. Warder, in his discussion of the meanings expressed by
the future tense, where he includes the expression of "determination or decision," especially when the verb
is in the first person, as here (A.K. Warder, Introduction to Pali, 2nd ed. [London: Pali Text Society, 1984],
55).
234
the qualities that make a buddha." Rather, it portrays him sitting thinking about his
future thought (his future investigation). The impression given is that Sumedha is a little
unsure and does not know quite where to begin in his investigation of what he must do to
Right at this point the gods of all the world-systems approach him with some
important information:
But while the bodhisatta was sitting there like that, the gods of all the ten-
thousand world-systems came up, and giving shouts of approval, praising him,
said:
"Those portents (nimittni) that were seen when bodhisattas in the past sat
cross-legged are seen today.
The cold is gone and the heat is cooled. Those are seen today. You will
definitely become a buddha (dhuvam buddho bhavissasi).
The ten-thousand world-system is silent and undisturbed. Those are seen
today. You will definitely become a buddha."393
They continue in this vein citing each of the thirty-two extraordinary happenings manifest
in the world, and after each one repeating: "This one has been seen today. You will
definitely become a buddha." The gods are informing Sumedha that the miraculous
happenings that were seen in the world when previous bodhisattas were at the same point
393
Evam nisinne ca pana bodhisatte, sakaladasasahassacakkavadevat samgantv sdhukram
dadamn abhitthaviyamn hamsu: "Yni pubbe bodhisattnam pallakavaram bhuje / nimittni
padissanti tni ajja padissare. // Stam byapagatam hoti uha ca upasammati / tni ajja padissanti
dhuvam buddho bhavissasi. // Dasasahass lokadht nissadd hoti nirkul / tni ajja padissanti dhuvam
buddho bhavissasi ... " (Jmn 6).
235
from a buddha, resolving to find out what is necessary for thathave again been seen.
Since the gods know that those bodhisattas in the past did indeed become buddhas, these
shared portents are proof that Dpakara was not wrong in his prediction and that
Sumedha will indeed become a buddha. As Derris says of this event, "The past confirms
Stage two: The text tells us that Sumedha has now become even happier
Having heard that, the ascetic attained an even greater happiness and joy and
reached the conviction: "Buddhas certainly do not speak falsely. I will definitely
become a buddha."395
This statement is followed by a series of verses in which Sumedha shows that he now
fully accepts the truth of Dpakara's words and knows that he will become a buddha, by
asserting over and over that buddhas do not lie, each time concluding, "I will definitely
394
Derris, "Virtue and Relationships," 172.
395
Jmn 8.
396
Advejjhanavacan buddh amoghavacan jin / vitatham natthi buddhnam dhuvam buddho
bhavmaham. // (Jmn 8-9).
236
The bodhisatta having reached conviction in his own status as a bodhisatta in this
way, reflecting on the qualities that make a buddha, saw first the perfection of
giving that is practiced and pursued by all bodhisattas.397
There is a lot in this statement. We see here that Sumedha has now gained conviction not
only in his future buddhahood, but also in his current status as a bodhisatta.398 That this
represents a real difference is reflected in the transition from his previous designation as a
tpaso to now bodhisatto. What has intervened between these two statements is only
Sumedha's repeating to himself over and over that buddhas do not lie and that he will
him by the report of the portents (dhuvam buddho bhavissasi) that we witness the final
sinking in, the internalization of the truth of Dpakara's prediction of his future, and the
consequent recognition of what this means for him now, in the presentthat he is now no
397
Jmn 9.
398
It is interesting to note the difference between the Jinamahnidna's account and that found at the
parallel point in the Jtaka-nidnakath. The Jtaka-nidnakath there recounts that what allows him
finally to break through and identify the qualities he needs in order to become a buddha is the realization
not that he is a bodhisatta, but that he will certainly become a buddha. The parallel sentence reads: So
"dhuv' ham Buddho bhavissm" ti evam katasannihno buddhakrake dhamme upadhretum ... (Ja I
19). This difference simply highlights the Jinamahnidna's distinctiveness.
399
The gradual internalization of the truth of the prediction is deftly reflected by the Jinamahnidna in the
progression in the agent who expresses the prediction: from Dpakara to the gods to the bodhisatta
himself, and commensurately the progression in the person of the verb expressing the future state: from
third singular to second to firstbuddho loke bhavissati (Jmn 5) to dhuvam buddho bhavissasi (Jmn 6-8) to
237
knowing he is a bodhisatta is also revealed by the above statement. At first, after hearing
Dpakara's prediction, Sumedha sat down with the intention of working out what he
tense]), but he was depicted as not knowing exactly where to begin. Now the
buddhakrakadhammas are again picked up, and this time he just gets straight into the
statement cited above passes directly from "having reached conviction in his own status
as a bodhisatta" to "reflecting on the qualities that make a buddha" to "(he) saw first the
perfection of giving." It is the knowledge of his own bodhisattahood that prompts him to
take up again the question of what he must do to become a buddha, and it is also that
knowledge that permits him to see what the requisites are. Knowing that he is a
bodhisattaa result of the portentsis what allows him to see what all other fellow
bodhisattas before him did to become buddhas. We can thus see the portents as the point
It was Dpakara's prediction that made Sumedha a bodhisatta, but it was the
portents that allowed him to know himself a bodhisatta. This knowledge enabled him to
take the first step into full inhabitation of that status, whose fulfillment he would be
dhuvam buddho bhavmaham (Jmn 8-9). The multiple, repetitive verses spoken by the gods and then
Sumedha also extend the narrative time accorded this episode, which conveys the sense of the passage of
time needed for this information to sink in for Sumedha.
238
occupied with for the remainder of his time until buddhahood. The thirty-two portents
are thus events occurring in the present that, by using knowledge of the distant past (that
these same events occurred for other bodhisattas at the same point in their development),
allow knowledge of the immediate past (that he has just become a bodhisatta), a past that
was brought about by knowledge of the future (the prediction), to act in the present in
such a way as helps bring about that future, by shaping all the intervening time between
The Jinamahnidna's emphasis on the role of the portents in this crucial phase
of the bodhisatta's life helps bring to visibility the concentration in this moment of
makes clear that all of the parties involved have a history behind them that has brought
them to this point. It also draws attention to the necessity of those histories for the
playing out of this episode, which is shown to depend entirely on the histories that lie
The Jinamahnidna has shown us that it is the portents, reported by the gods,
that allows the bodhisatta to know his own bodhisattahood. The text's presentation
reveals that it is patterns of recurring events playing out across time that allow Sumedha
to be passed this information. The key pattern here is the following sequence of events
that is reported as having taken place time after time: a bodhisatta of the past, having
needed to do next; miraculous events occurred in the world; and that bodhisatta
because it was witnessed by the gods who saw it happen time and time again. The gods
then bring the knowledge of this pattern to bear in the bodhisatta's present.
Therefore, to perceive fully all the factors that went to make this event in the
bodhisatta's life transpire as it does, the reader would need to know: the story of the
bodhisatta's development through untold eons and through all the events of this life so far
that have helped bring him to this point; the story of Dpakara's development stretching
back over eons that led him to being able to make the prediction of Sumedha; the
biography of the gods, in which they witnessed multiple other bodhisattas in the past
(whom they knew to have received predictions) carry out this action, the same miraculous
events occur at each of those times, and the same result ultimately ensue in each case; the
biographies of all the previous bodhisattas that had brought them to that point; the
biographies of all the buddhas that gave those bodhisattas a prediction; and the
extraordinary ways to this event in the lives of each of the previous bodhisattas.
The Jinamahnidna's presentation shows the reader that it is the pasts of all
these parties that allows this moment in Sumedha's life to unfold as it does. Yet it does
not tell us those histories at this point. The story is thus dense here with untold stories of
the past that are nonetheless implicit in and crucial to the playing out of this phase of the
240
story.
The text has also shown us that it is a pattern that has made this point in the
bodhisatta's life intelligible (both to the bodhisatta within the story and to the reader).
Yet the very logic of the pattern it displays here creates a narrative density that
necessarily means the reader cannot know everything involved in making this moment of
the bodhisatta's life take the form it does. The density that ensues from the pattern
undermines the intelligibility promised by the pattern and shows the reader that in fact we
The extreme narrative density here provides us with a glimpse of the extreme
density of the bodhisatta's life. It vividly shows us that we cannot know everything about
even one moment of his life, let alone its entirety. In this way, the Jinamahnidna uses
its narrative form to lead the reader to an appreciation of the density and, ultimately, the
Before moving on from this episode, I would like briefly to draw attention to
three aspects of the narrative's form that work to add extra dimensions of temporal
complexity to the picture of the bodhisatta at this point. In the verses where the gods
report the manifestation of the individual portents, the repetition in each verse of the
statement, "Those [portents which were seen before] are again seen today" reinforces the
sense of an overlap between Sumedha's present and the past times when those same
events occurred before. The repeated paralleling of his now with all those thens evokes a
241
The verses also create a sense of the confluence in this moment for Sumedha of
the past, his present and his future. Each verse points simultaneously in three
directionsthese things happened in the past, they are seen today, you will become a
buddha in the future. This combination of flashback and flashforward hinged in the
present repeated over and over creates a sense of temporal density, with the three times
buddha" in the gods' verses with that of, "I will definitely become a buddha" in
Sumedha's also strengthens the sense of the virtual presence of that future in the present
moment. It creates a sense of the present as pregnant with that future. This also
contributes to a sense of the temporal density of this episode. The reader is left with a
picture of the bodhisatta in which his person is at that moment densely imbued with the
b) At his enlightenment
portents leads the reader to seek commonalities between the occasions so marked. I
suggested that, having been encouraged to find shared qualities in those occasions, the
reader is then more likely to be aware of those particular qualities in the individual
accounts of the relevant occasions. We will now see that what we have learned from the
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account of Sumedha helps make clear how the process works at the time of the Buddha's
enlightenment.
twice, first in abbreviated form, and immediately afterward in more detail. The
abbreviated account makes no mention of the portents,400 but the detailed version reveals
the role of the portents in the process. It tells us that when he had gained omniscience
(tasmim sabbautam patte), the miraculous happenings that are the portents appeared
(describing some of them in prose). It then makes explicit that the portents appeared "at
the very moment when the Lord awoke" (bhagavato bodhitakkhane yeva ptubhtni
clearly, he became a buddha at the moment that omniscience arose and it was therefore
the arising of omniscience that made him a buddha. This parallels the fact that it was
After the verses describing the portents the text tells us:
In this way, the Lord ..., when miraculous happenings of various kinds [i.e., the
portents] had appeared, understood his omniscience. Then having become one
400
This account tells us that at dawn, after the three watches of the night in which he gained three types of
knowledge, he understood (paibujjhitv), by means of the omniscience he had thereby gained, the
difference between samsra and nibbna (Jmn 86). Then because of the arising of this omniscience
(sabbautaappattiy) he understood that he was perfectly enlightened (sammsambuddham
paibujjhi) (ibid.).
401
Jmn 87. Notice the use of the past participle bodhitakkhane, as opposed the simple abstract noun bodhi
or the action noun bujjhana. This reinforces the sense of the portents as signalling a transformation that has
occurred.
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who had understood his own omniscience, exclaiming the exclamation that is not
omitted by all buddhas, said this pair of verses:
"I have wandered samsra for many lives seeking but not finding the
house-builder ... House-builder, you have been seen. You will not make a
house again. ... My mind has reached a state without compounded
elements. I have achieved the destruction of cravings."
Having exclaimed the exclamation, the Lord sat right there cross-legged for seven
days. So the Lord said:
"Having given the gift that was to be given, having fulfilled morality
completely, having reached the perfection of dispassion, I have reached
supreme enlightenment/awakening (patto sambodhim uttamam). ... Sitting
on the seat of endeavor for a week, I attained attainments numbering many
hundreds of kois."402
We see here a progression exactly parallel to that after Sumedha's gaining the prediction.
Here the Buddha (a buddha because he has attained omniscience), understands, because
of the natural world's spontaneous response to him, that he has obtained omniscience.
Knowing this, he does what all others buddhas have done at this point403 and proclaims
joyously his understanding of what this means for his current situation: he has achieved
what he has been trying to achieve for eons, there is nothing more to be donehe has
attained nibbna, and is therefore now a buddha. He then tells himself that he has done
402
Evam bhagav ... nnappakresu acchariyadhammesu ptubhtesu sabbautam paibujjhi. So pi
adhigatasabbautao hutv sabbabuddhehi avijahitam udnam udnento imam gthadvayam ha:
"Anekajtisamsram sandhvisam anibbisam / gahakram gavesanto ... / gahakraka diho 'si puna
geham na khasi / ... / visankhragatam cittam tahnam khayam ajjhag" ti.
Udnam udnetv bhagav sattham tattheva ekapallakena nisdi. Tenha bhagav: "Datv
dtabbakam dnam slam pretv asesato / nekkhamme pramim gantv patto sambodhim uttamam. / ... /
Satthekapallakena nisinno viriysane / sampatt sampajjim anekasatakoiyo" ti (Jmn 89-90).
403
Notice here the parallel to Sumedha who likewise is brought into relation with all previous bodhisattas
at the parallel point in his development, at the point when he gains self-awareness as a bodhisatta. It is as
though, for the Buddha, knowing that he is a buddha, and for Sumedha, that he is a bodhisatta, allows him
finally to join the ranks of all those others who have equally belonged in this category before him.
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what he needed to do (namely, he has fulfilled all the perfections) and has achieved
complete enlightenment. As we saw Sumedha repeat over and over to himself, "I will
definitely become a buddha," internalizing that truth, we now see the Buddha repeat over
and over to himself (after stating that he has fulfilled each perfection), "I have reached
supreme enlightenment." In this way, the recognition that he is now a buddha gradually
sinks in, and because of it he gains all the attainments of a buddha. Also because of this
recognition, the Buddha remains sitting in contemplation for another six weeks doing the
necessary preparations for the next phase of his career (i.e., being the Buddha and
Here again we see the natural world's manifestation of these extraordinary events,
prompted by the transformation of his person (his becoming one who has attained
omniscience and is therefore a buddha), reveal to the Buddha his immediate past (that he
has attained omniscience), which allows him to come to a self-knowledge about his long-
term past and his present (that the task he has been working on over the eons since
that then permits him to do what is necessary to fully occupy that present status by
actualizing it in the future. The text here reveals to us how it is the complex
intermingling in the Buddha's present of knowledge of the immediate past, the long-term
404
This preparation involves examining in detail all aspects of the Dhamma and working out how best to
teach it so that it will benefit people.
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past, the present, and the future that permits the actualization of that future.
We can thus say in overview that bringing the various groups of thirty-two
portents into connection with each other has three major outcomes. It allows the reader
events in the bodhisatta/Buddha's lifethe reader is brought to perceive more finely the
ways time works in his life. Yet, at the same time, this finer perception ultimately leads
the reader to an appreciation of just how little she can actually understand of the
of the natural world to the bodhisatta and Buddha and its involvement in his
development. This draws attention to the collaboration of multiple agents and factors in
producing the Buddha. This creates a narrative density that undermines the reader's
sense of the Buddha's intelligibility and portrays him rather as being beyond
comprehension.
add considerable temporal complexity to its account of the Buddha's life. It also reveals
an even greater complexity in another way. The logic of the linkages forged between the
portents and the aspects of the Buddha's life they foretell leads to chronologically
The following examples will illustrate how this process works. The first two
portents reported at the time of the bodhisatta's birth are that the ten-thousand world-
systems quaked and that the gods of all those ten-thousand world-systems gathered
together in one world-system.405 Right after the verses listing all the other portents, the
Jinamahnidna provides the reader with an analysis of which aspects of the Buddha's
future life those portents foretold. It begins: "There the shaking of the ten-thousand
world-systems is the portent of his gaining omniscience. The gathering of the gods in
one world-system is the portent of the receiving of the Dhamma having gathered all at
once at the time of the setting in motion of the wheel of the Dhamma."406
Here we have two events that happen simultaneously in the world at the moment
of the bodhisatta's birth signifying two events that will happen at quite different times in
his futureat the moment he becomes enlightened and when he preaches his first
sermon. By being foretold by events that occur at the time of his birth, those two separate
events are directly implicated in the time of his birth. Inversely, his birth is implicated in
the times of his becoming enlightened and of preaching his first sermon. Even more
striking is the explanation of the last portent analyzed here. This portent is in fact not one
of the thirty-two miraculous manifestations in the world but one of the bodhisatta's
405
Buddhakure ... jte[,] / pakampi sakampi tad samant / sahassasakhy dasalokadhtu[.] //
Cakkavasahassesu dasesv eva ca devat / ekamhi cakkavamhi tad sannipatimsu t (Jmn 39).
406
Tatrpi dasasahasslokadhtukappo sabbautaassa pailbhapubbanimittam, devatnam
ekacakkave sannipto dhammacakkappavattanakle ekappahrena sannipatitv dhammapaiggahanassa
pubbanimittam (Jmn 41-2).
247
actions at birth, his "lion's roar" or cry of victory that this is his last birth. The text
informs us that this action he took at birth is the portent of his parinibbna, that is, his
death.407 So his death also is implicated in the time of his birth. These utterly non-linear
connections between times that are narratively separate are thus revealed by the text's
linking of portents manifest in the present moment with events that will occur at quite
other times.
It is not only other individual times in the Buddha's career that are shown by this
means to be connected with the moment of his birth. Other kinds of times are also
connected with the birth by the same mechanism. For example, particular events that
happen successively over a period of time (such as "the gaining of monasteries in order,"
implicated in his birth. So also are events that happen over the entire period of the
Buddha's teaching career but are too numerous to be assigned to specific points in that
career (such as "the going for refuge by beings who have heard the great man's
teaching," foretold at his birth by birds' going to earth).409 Also implicated in his birth by
this means are qualities that applied continuously throughout his existence as the Buddha
407
"Ayam antim jt" ti shando anupdisesya nibbnadhtuy parinibbnassa pubbanimittan ti, "His
'lion's roar' crying: 'This is my last birth' is the portent of his parinibbna in the element of nibbna with
no remainder" (Jmn 43).
408
Jmn 42:2-3.
409
Jmn 42:16.
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(such as "the quality of being loved by many people," foretold by the moon shining very
A very striking picture of the times of the Buddha's life emerges from this
elaboration. Through the textual mechanism of the analysis of the portents, the
Jinamahnidna reveals that in the moment of the bodhisatta's birth is implicated the
entirety of his future life as the Buddha, from individual moments within it to its entire
sweep. The Jinamahnidna here uses a textual strategy to reveal an aspect of the
years as the Buddha encapsulated within that one moment of his birth.
This aspect further implies thatsince all moments of the Buddha's life are
implicated in his birtheach moment of the story has the potential to open outwards into
all other moments. Each moment of the bodhisatta/Buddha's life is here revealed as
limitless in that myriad and potentially infinite other times can be implicated in it.
The way the Jinamahnidna has revealed these aspects of the Buddha's
temporality also has effects on the text's narrative tone and commensurately the reader's
experience of the narrative. The text's linking of the portents and the elements of the
Buddha's later life they foretell reveals and draws to the reader's attention to a principle
that elements of the narrative that are sequentially separate can nonetheless be connected
410
Jmn 42:13-4.
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in meaningful ways. This principle implies that to understand the bodhisatta or Buddha
fully a reader needs to be able to extract the meaning conveyed by such intranarrative
connections. The Jinamahnidna can be seen to exploit the reader's awareness of this
principle to create an impression of density and opacity in the narrative and to generate in
the reader the sense that he cannot fully penetrate this opacity.
An example will demonstrate some of the ways this can work. "Knowledge
occasions. It was first foretold at the time of the bodhisatta's final birth by his looking in
all directions.412 Later, on the night before he became enlightened, it was foretold by one
of the aspects of the first of the five dreams he hadthat there was a single light all the
That those two occasions share a reference to the same attainment creates a
narrative linkage between them. The reader has already been shown that two sequentially
by narrative linkages. Therefore, the reader may reasonably wonder here whether there is
411
"Knowledge without obstacle" is the fifth in a group of six attainments, six very specific types of
knowledge, which is defined by the tradition as possessed only by buddhas. See Endo, Buddha in
Theravada Buddhism, 26-7.
412
Jmn 41-3.
413
Jmn 71-2.
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something meaningful in this narrative link, whether the text is thereby revealing that
these two occasions have some intrinsic connection. If there were such an intrinsic
connection between the two occasions, a reader who wants to understand fully the
Buddha's life would need to understand the nature of the connection. Yet he is not given
any indication as to what such a connection might be, so he is left with an unanswered
On the other hand, opacity is also added by the relation between the portents and
other elements of the narrative. Being identified as a portent draws attention to an event
as especially significantit is not only an occurrence in itself but has the capacity to
connote something else. This makes it more likely that when the reader next encounters
the same event, he will remember that it occurred earlier in the narrative and that it was a
portent of something else. It is also likely that the particular phenomenon that event was
earlier identified as connoting will come to the reader's mind at that point. If a certain
event is defined in one context as having the capacity to foretell a particular thing, it is
reasonable for a reader to wonder, when he later encounters that same event, whether that
capacity is intrinsic to the event in question. If so, the later occurrence of the event
would also foretell that same thing. Therefore, when the reader encounters the event for
a second time, he may wonder whether the particular significand is foretold and so
For example, when a reader later encounters an occasion in the narrative when a
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single light was manifested up to the highest pointsuch as when the Buddha was on the
jeweled walkway after teaching the Buddhavamsa and made a wish that there be such a
light414he will be reminded of this same event occurring as part of one of the
bodhisatta's pre-enlightenment dreams. As that event was there identified as the portent
of "knowledge without obstacle," the reader will also be reminded of that paradigmatic
quality in the context of the account of the Buddha on the jeweled walkway. The reader
may then wonder whether this narrative linkage indicates that the Buddha's "knowledge
without obstacle" is in some way implicated in the later scene. Again, the reader is not
provided with the means to answer these questions and is left in a state of uncertainty.
By such means, the narrative fosters a sense in the reader that there are
interconnections between different elements of the narrative lying below its surface that
he cannot quite grasp. Intratextual echoes such as these thus increase the reader's sense
of the narrative as overdetermined and elusive. His perception of these qualities in the
E The marks tie the Buddha's impersonally temporal dimensions into his life
and buddha. The attributes or qualities that are specifically described by the
commentaries as being definitional of a buddha fall into two broad groupings: physical
414
Jmn 171.
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(belonging to his rpakya or "physical body") and spiritual or mental (relating to his
interrelated, ways. As we saw earlier, they act as the connecting point between the
and bodhisattas.417 On the other hand, they also function in a way that is not temporal per
415
Endo discusses the commentaries' understanding of the Buddha's physical characteristics (Endo,
Buddha in Theravada Buddhism, 135-165) and his spiritual characteristics (ibid., 51-133).
416
Endo lists the relevant physical attributes of the Buddha as: 1) the thirty-two marks of a great man
(dvattimsamahpurisalakkhaa); 2) the eighty minor marks (astnubyayana/astyanuvyajana); 3) the
mark of a hundred merits (satapualakkhaa); 4) a halo that extends a fathom (bymappabh); and 5) feet
marked with a wheel (hehapdatalesu cakkni jtni) (ibid., 138). Endo notes that characteristics 3) and
5) in this list are found less frequently than the other three (ibid., 157, 163). He also comments that, as we
have seen here in the Jinamahnidna, the thirty-two marks, the eighty minor marks, and the halo are often
mentioned together, while the other characteristics are sometimes mentioned separately (ibid., 343, n. 16).
He provides an extensive list of citations of such discussions in the commentaries (ibid.).
417
It is this aspect of the Buddha's temporality that is addressed by Jonathan S. Walters' distinction
between "the calculable and incalculable dimensions of time" (Walters, "Buddhist History: The Sri
Lankan Pli Vamsas and Their Community," in Querying the Medieval: Texts and the History of Practices
in South Asia, ed. Ronald Inden, Jonathan Walters and Daud Ali [New York: Oxford University Press,
2000], 103) and Steven Collins' discussion of repetitive and non-repetitive time (Collins, Nirvana and
other Buddhist felicities, 257-267).
This dimension of the Buddha's temporality is also occasionally manifested in the
Jinamahnidna by descriptions of his actions as also having been done by all bodhisattas or by all
buddhas. We have already seen three examples of this. The first was in the discussion of Sumedha's
reflection on the perfections, which are described as "practiced and pursued by all bodhisattas
(sabbabodhisattehi)" (Jmn 9-12). This characteristic is ascribed to almost all of the perfections, though the
text alternates between attributing the practice to "all bodhisattas" (sabbabodhisattnam) and to "previous
bodhisattas" (pubbabodhisattnam). We also saw the Buddha's exclamation of joy at realizing he is now
enlightened described as "not omitted by all buddhas (sabbabuddhehi)" (Jmn 89). Similarly, the verse he
proclaims right after his birth, declaring that he is supreme in the world and that this is his last birth is
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se (although they can never be completely divorced from their temporal aspects). This is
cakkavatti king).
There is a fine line to walk here, because the Jinamahnidna itself shows that
sometimes when the thirty-two marks are used to mark a bodhisatta or a buddha, their
temporal dimensions are overtly part of the picture. Yet it also shows that the marks can
be used in their categorical function with no indication that the temporal aspects are
Sriputta sees him on the jeweled walkway, prior to teaching the Buddhavamsa. He is
described here as having three of the physical attributes of a buddha (the thirty-two
marks, the eighty minor marks, and the halo), so he is clearly being portrayed in
categorical terms as a buddha. However, the thirty-two marks are qualified in such a way
as to draw attention to their temporal dimensionit is said of him that "his superlative
body was resplendent with the eighty minor characteristics and embellished with the
On the other hand, in the story of the Buddha's encounter with Pipphali-Kassapa
it is expressly indicated that the Buddha is manifesting his categorical form (he is
thirty-two marks are here mentioned with no indication of their temporal dimensions
mode and the thirty-two marks are mentioned, no overt references to the marks' temporal
aspects are found. This suggests that it is legitimate to talk about the marks as, at least
Pli texts is their capacity both to open out into other qualities and at the same time to
distill a lot more within them.420 On the other hand, the power of narrative comes in large
419
The Buddha is described as illumining the forest clearing with the glory of his thirty-two marks (Jmn
153).
420
Cf. Gethin's portrayal of the dual capacity of lists and mtik to open out into other lists and to condense
vast amounts of information within them (See Rupert Gethin, "The Mtiks: Memorization, Mindfulness,
and the List," in In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and
Tibetan Buddhism, ed. Janet Gyatso, SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies, ed. Matthew Kapstein [Albany:
State University of New York Press, 1992], 149-172).
One of the works accomplished by the Theravdin classificatory schemas is to generate a
complexity of categorization that defies universal consistency and mutual coherence (ibid., 161). This
generation of complexity by their classificatory schema is part of their power. For it allowed them to say
more about their common subject, the Buddha, than is apparent when the individual schema are considered
independently.
Gethin calls the lists not simply mnemonic devices but "a creative medium for Buddhist literature
and thought" (ibid., 164). He describes the mechanisms by which they function as follows: "one Nikya
list acts as a veritable matrix for a whole series of further lists. We may begin with one simple list, but the
structure of early Buddhist thought and literature dictates that we end up with an intricate pattern of lists
within lists, which sometimes turns back on itself and repeats itself, the parts subsuming the whole" (ibid.,
153)
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part from its synthesizing, structuring functionputting singular entities into a sequential
structure that ties them in more tightly with the other entities surrounding them. The
qualities' opening outwards into other dimensions unconnected with the specific events
surrounding the quality at that particular point in the story, would seem to break the
narrative flow.
aspect within the narrative enriches both modes. It permits a collaboration between their
enabled to communicate in another dimensionnot only the timeless but also the "in-
time." Being placed within a sequence does not prevent it from also opening out into
He says that lists may have been "intended to function as succinct compendia of the Dhamma, but
at the same time they also appear to be regarded as representing a kind of distilled essence of the Dhamma"
(ibid., 157). He quotes the Mohavicchedan of Kassapa of Coa (c. 1200 CE), a commentary on the mtiks
of the Abhidhamma as explaining that the mtiks are essentially ways to generate and preserve "dhammas
and meanings without end or limit," which here involves, "the bringing together and preserving of the
neglected and hidden meanings of the texts" (ibid., 161). The texts here referred to are the seven canonical
books of the Abhidhammapiaka, of which Kassapa says that if they were "expanded in full, each one
would involve a recitation without end or limit (anantparima-bha-vra)" (ibid.). In other words, the
mtiks are able to both condense and generate all the meanings that might be contained in works whose
individual recitation would be infinite.
This is a very apt image for some of the principal ways the Jinamahnidna finds to communicate
things about the Buddha and his immeasurableness. The Jinamahnidna uses these and similar devices,
not to give the reader information, so much as to demonstrate that the entirety of the subject matter can
never be captured, that there are always infinite other potential angles of vision from which it can be seen,
and infinite other aspects that would thereby be seen.
In his study of the canonical and commentarial Pli texts' portrayals of the Buddha, Endo similarly
shows that the categorical complexity arises particularly in regard to the Buddha's knowledge, and
ultimately that this complexity acts to demonstrate the immeasurability of the Buddha's knowledge. He
tells us: "Lists of Buddha-gua and a-bala of the Buddha above suggest that some items are inclusive
of each other and some are not. This fact suggests that a comprehensive list is impossible to make owing to
the vastness of the Buddha's knowledge" (Endo, Buddha in Theravada Buddhism, 58).
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other dimensions outside the sequence. The paradigmatic aspect is still able to open out
into the atemporal, but in that opening out can equally be seen the funneling of the
atemporal into that particular moment in the temporal. The collaboration of the two
modes allows the opening out of the marks' paradigmatic aspect to pull the atemporal
into the temporal, and the impersonally temporal into the personally temporal. This in
turn enriches the temporalit adds dimensions to the temporal that could not be accessed
entry into the question of how the thirty-two marks allow for the articulation of the
paradigmatic and the narrative, the impersonal and the personal dimensions of time.
Bearing the thirty-two physical marks identifies the Buddha as one of a category
of beings that bear these marks. So whenever the Jinamahnidna portrays the Buddha
in this way, it is not just innocently describing particular aspects of his physical
appearance at that moment in the story. It is, as it were, widening out its account at these
points, to reveal the Buddha as acting on a broader, less temporally defined stagehe is
not only being or acting in the particular ways relevant for that part of the story, but is
However, talking about the Buddha as having the thirty-two marks in the account
of his encounter with Pipphali-Kassapa does not simply mark him off as a buddha in the
categorical sense, a being that transcends all other humans, or tie him instantly into the
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sequence of past buddhas and bodhisattas who equally had these marks. It also ties those
depictions of him into the story of his encounter with Kassapa, and so makes those
To see the power of this, we need to consider how that opening out into the
transcendent works at the individual moment in the story, and within the framework of
the story as a whole. At this point in the story, it is what informs Kassapa of who the
Buddha is, both in himself and therefore in relation to Kassapa. It makes it clear to
Kassapa that the Buddha is an arahant. This tells Kassapa that it was in relation to him
that he went forth, and therefore that the Buddha is his teacher. The opening out into the
transcendent also reinforces how vital and valuable to Kassapa is his relation with the
Buddha. It highlights that the relation is so strong and so important that it empowers
Kassapa to approach the awesome Buddha, revealed as a buddha, and inform him of their
being in relationship.
Within the framework of the story as a whole, the opening out permits the forging
of connections between points in the story that are not sequentially connected, but which
are enrichedmeaning is added into themby being brought into connection with each
other. In this case, it brings into connection with each other occasions when the Buddha
is portrayed as manifesting his thirty-two marks. So it brings the story of the Buddha's
encounter with Kassapa into connection with, for example, the account of the Buddha
sitting in the banyan grove after his return to Kapilavatthu before he preaches the
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Buddhavamsa to his family, as well as the account of his preaching the Buddhavamsa
while walking on the jeweled walkway in the sky. Viewing these stories in relation with
each other, the reader sees a common feature in them of the need for persuasion. That is,
it reveals them as occasions in which it is necessary for the Buddha's superior status to be
Such opening out into the transcendent also gives the reader a greater
are brought into relation by the categorical function of the atemporal. That is, an event
can be connected with those either side of it sequentially by narrative, but it can also be
connected with many other events/dimensions of time that do not fall within chronology
(events which can be in the past/future in relation to that moment, or can refer to other
Buddhas, etc.). All of the Buddha's life can simultaneously be seen as both a sequentially
ordered and a non-sequential whole in which all aspects are simultaneously immanent.
2 Conclusion
We saw in the last chapter that the Jinamahnidna presents the Buddha's
influence as continuing forwards in time into an ongoing future, by the care he is shown
as having already taken for those who come after. This chapter has shown that the text
also portrays his life as extending vastly backwards into the past by bringing the jtakas
259
firmly within the fold of his life, and by highlighting that the traces of his previous good
deeds in countless lifetimes are manifest in his physical form. The Jinamahnidna also
depicts his present as inconceivably dense with manifold times and temporal dimensions.
We have seen it produce this effect particularly through its depiction of the interaction of
the portents, his physical marks, and predictions revealing in his present the influence of
his past and future. The text also shows his present as denser by drawing his
impersonally temporal and atemporal qualities firmly into the present of his life and
person. The outcome of all these moves is to leave the reader with a sense of the Buddha
Ricoeur has shown us that narrative makes impersonal time human.421 The
story of the Buddha's life, making it into a non-human narrative, by emptying it of the
sense of a human life lived in human time and making it rather the story of an immense
I have shown that this is not the case, that the Jinamahnidna is in fact
attempting to do something much more complicated. We saw in the last chapter how the
text strives through its use of narrative to show the Buddha as a human figure, one that
421
See Ricoeur, Time and Narrative I, 52.
260
lived a life and then died. We have seen in this chapter that the Jinamahnidna uses its
temporalitythe sequential and the non-sequential, the personally temporal and the
is not thereby emptied but in fact made denser and intensified. The Jinamahnidna
offers its reader a portrayal of the Buddha in which his particular personhood and his
CONCLUSION
I have argued in this thesis that the Jinamahnidna highlights four qualities in its
narrative, which characterize simultaneously the text itself and its subject, the Buddha.
These qualities are variously mutually reinforcing and mutually undermining. A final
challenge is to appreciate what their collective predication of the Buddha says about him
and about the reader's apprehension of and relation with him in reading the biography.
Buddha to his mother offers a distillation of all four of the qualities of the
The account goes as follows:422 Sriputta realized he would die in seven days, and
while he was wondering where he should die, he started thinking about his mother. He
knew that, although she had been a mother to seven arahants, she had no confidence in
the Buddha, his teaching or his community.423 He also knew she had the capacity to be
422
The first two paragraphs of my rendition are a paraphrase and the following two a translation of the
Jinamahnidna's version (Jmn 214-5).
423
Her seven children all left home to join the monastic community and subsequently became arahants. It
is said elsewhere that losing all her children like this caused her great grief and she was hostile towards the
262
freed from this state and enter the stream that will lead to nibbna, but only if he taught
her. He decided he would free her from her wrong view and then die in the room in
which he was born. After performing various miracles at the Buddha's behest, he
Thinking he had finally returned to rejoin her as a layman, his mother was hurt to
find otherwise and so left him unattended in his room. When he became desperately sick
with dysentery, the four guardian gods, Sakka, king of the gods, and the god
Mahbrahm came wanting to take care of him, though they were dismissed by his
brother, who was keeping watch at his door. His mother saw these great beings visiting
her son. She asked Sriputta who the first party was. He replied:
"They were the four great gods, laywoman." "Son, are you greater than
the four great gods?" "From our teacher's (amhkam satthuno) crossing over
into his next existence on, like attendants in a monastic park the four great gods
protected him, sword in hand, laywoman."424 "After they had gone, son, who
came?" "Sakka, king of the gods." "Son, are you greater than the king of the
gods too?" "When our teacher descended from the Tvatimsa heaven, like a
novice carrying his possessions Sakka carried down his bowl and robe,
laywoman."425 "After he had gone, son, who came radiating light?"
"Laywoman, he is called Mahbrahm." "Son, are you greater even than my
Lord Mahbrahm (mayham bhagavat Mahbrahmato)?" "On the day our
teacher was born, four Mahbrahms caught the great man in a golden net,
community as a result.
424
"rmikasadis ete upsike amhkam satthuno paisandhigga[ha]ato pahya khaggahatth hutv
rakkham akams" ti (Jmn 215).
425
"Bhaaghakasmaerasadiso esa upsike amhkam satthuno tvatimsata (sic) otaraakle
pattacvaram gahetv otio" ti (ibid.)
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Various things stand out from this account. First, the Jinamahnidna is
describing someone describing the Buddha. What Sriputta does in this episode is what
description juxtaposes radically different ways of conceiving of the Buddha, as does the
Jinamahnidna. Third, the account shows Sriputta teaching about the Buddha for the
sake of his mother's well-being. He tries to help his mother by giving her something that
will be of benefit to her. Fourth, hearing Sriputta describe the Buddha transforms his
426
"Amhkam satthuno jtadivase cattro mahbrahmno mahpurisam suvaajlena paigahims" ti
(ibid.).
427
"Mahupsike mayham satthu jtakkhane mahbhinikkhamane sambodhiyam dhammacakkappavattane
dasasahasslokadhtu kampittha, slena samdhin paya vimuttiy vimuttiadassanena samo nma
natthi; iti pi so bhagav araham sammsambuddho" ti din nayena buddhaguapaisamyuttam
dhammadesanam kathesi. Brhma piyaputtassa dhammadesanpariyosne sotpattiphale patihya ...
(Jmn 215).
264
mother. She becomes someone who is assured of nibbna. It also transforms her
manifested in the portrayal of the Buddha this episode offers. For each quality, I will
explain: (a) how this episode reveals it; (b) how that relates to the Jinamahnidna's
portrayal as a whole; and (c) what the portrayal of that quality reveals of the Buddha.
A Independently
i. Comprehensiveness
first"From our teacher's crossing over into his next existence on, like attendants in a
monastic park the four great gods protected him, sword in hand" and "at the moment of
my teacher's birth ... the ten-thousand world-system shook." He then describes him by
means of what is generally known as the iti pi so gth cited here. This list of attributes
highlights both the Buddha's supremacy (he is someone gods waited on) and his human
Buddha.
paradigmatic, relational, and so on), this episode mirrors the comprehensiveness of the
wider range of types of information about the Buddha than was included in the earlier
biographies.
(c) It is clear to the reader that these different perspectives all reflect something
of the Buddha's nature. This indicates that the Buddha is multi-dimensional, one of
whom many different types of information can be predicated. For a full understanding,
ii. Wholeness
(a) The many events Sriputta mentions (entering his penultimate existence,
coming down from Tvatimsa heaven, his birth, renunciation, enlightenment, and first
teaching) form a synopsis of the narrative of his life. The list in fact acts as a form of
narrative, manifesting the development of events. Yet his life is more than just a
progression of events. This is revealed by the actions of the gods and the ten-thousand
world-system. The gods respond in essentially the same way (by tending to him) to the
first three events, all of which happen before he is the Buddha. Likewise, the ten-
thousand world-system responds identically to the last four, although he is actually the
266
This shows they recognize there is something about him that is beyond what he is
at each of the individual events. They recognize that there is in him a "more" that is
always in addition to the being he is at each stage. It is that more they respond to in the
same way each time. Their response shows that they can see the whole that lies behind
these individual events. The gods and the world-system respond because they recognize
As the story of the bhagav, this synopsized narrative has an underlying unity that
makes it more than just the sum of the individual episodes. Moreover, it is that it is the
story of the bhagav that gives the individual episodes their meaningthey are not only
events in the unfolding of the one who will be the Buddha, they are expressions and
(b) This same dynamic applies in the Jinamahnidna altogether. The text goes
to great lengths to make it apparent to the reader that its contents form a temporal whole.
It states at the outset that it will tell the story from his aspiration to his parinibbna. I
showed in Chapter 2 that the Jinamahnidna diverges from the model of earlier Pli
biographies in not dividing his life-stream into three temporally delimited segments.
amhkam bhagav from his first appearance in the work, before he is even a bodhisatta.
It continues to call him that throughout the account. As a temporal whole, the biography
267
portrays both levels of his being. It portrays the entirety of the events of his life, which is
his coming to be and being the Buddha. It also portrays the more, always beyond
(c) This dynamic tells the reader that at all times the bodhisatta/Buddha
functions at two levels, as it were: inhabiting/acting out/realizing his life; and being the
bhagav. There are always two aspects to himin each of the incidents of his life there
is the bodhisatta/Buddha who is engaged in that incident, and there is also the morethe
bhagav. To have a full appreciation of him, therefore, the reader would need to be able
to see both aspects of him at all times. This would mean seeing his bhagav-aspect all
iii. Connectedness
(a) This episode pays great attention to the Buddha's connectedness with his
followers. It is striking thing that, when speaking to his mother, Sriputta calls the
Buddha amhkam satthuno, "our teacher." It is not that he uses the first person plural
pronoun to refer to himself because he cannot use the first person singular. He refers
later in the passage to mayham satthu, "my teacher." He knows his mother has no faith
in the Buddha. That is why he has come to teach her. Yet he identifies the Buddha to her
as "our teacher," implicitly including her in the category of those to whom the Buddha is
the teacher. She even identifies Mahbrahm as her bhagav, but Sriputta disregards
268
this to repeat the designation of the Buddha as "our teacher." He hereby informs his
mother that, whether she knows it or not, whether she likes it or not, she is already
involved in a relationship with the Buddha. The Buddha is already involved with her.
The "mayham satthu" that precedes the list of events from his birth on applies
equally to each one of those events. This establishes a connectedness between the
Buddha and Sriputta on each of those occasions. This creates a sense of ongoing
connectedness between them extending through time, from before they have even
Moreover, using the pronoun amhkam in the text necessarily involves the reader
too. The pronoun draws the reader into the community for whom the Buddha is the
teacher. So the amhkam here conveys that we readers also, alongside Sriputta and his
mother, are connected with the Buddha. By saying, "from our teacher's crossing over
into his next existence on ...," the text implicates us all with him at that point. By the use
of that amhkam, a direct connection is established between points in the long distant
past and the present of the reader. The Jinamahnidna here creates the impression of a
great web of connectedness with the Buddha extending from early in his development to
the present. In this web are involved innumerable people and other beings, including
particular figures from his life (such as Sriputta and his mother), other unidentified
followers of the past and the present who view the Buddha as their Lord, as well as all
(b) This again we have seen throughout the Jinamahnidna, right from its
description of Sumedha as amhkam bhagav on its first page. We have also seen
repeatedly in the text that people find out they are already involved in a relationship with
the Buddha, even though they did not know it. For example, though Kassapa did not
know it at the time, the Buddha knew that Kassapa had renounced the household life in
relation to him. He therefore took the necessary steps for their relationship to be realized.
The text's report of the Buddha's last words also show the Buddha making clear that his
future followers can consider themselves involved in a direct relationship with him. He
gives those followers who come after his death the means by which they can connect
their entire lives with him, fulfilling his wishes and carrying out his purposes.
(c) This all tells the reader that the Buddha is involved with and in us and we are
involved with him. That connectedness extends backwards into the past, continues into
our present, and will continue on into the future as we move into the future, carrying with
us the connectedness with him as "our Lord." As we have seen from the case of
Sriputta's mother, that connectedness can also extend outwards to draw others more
self-consciously into it (even though they, like Sriputta's mother, will have already been
connected with him, without knowing it). Through Sriputta's intervention, his mother is
brought to recognize her connectedness with the Buddha. This is something that will
iv. Denseness
(a) The four great gods, Sakka, and Mahbrahm all came wanting to look after
Sriputta in his illness. Each of those three parties is connected to previous events or
periods in the Buddha's life: the period after he crossed over into his penultimate
existence, his descent from Tvatimsa, and his birth. In wanting to perform a parallel act
of care for Sriputta, the gods bring those different times of the Buddha's past into
relation with the present. The present moment becomes overlaid with the Buddha's pasts.
Those three times also become mutually connected in the Buddha's life, through
sharing the characteristic of involving the gods' aid. If one wants to know everything
about any one of them, one has to bear in mind the others connected with it. Similarly,
his birth, renunciation, enlightenment, and first teaching. This brings the various
occasions into relation with each other in a way that creates a sense of mutual overlaying
and interconnectedness. In each of these occasions are implicated the other times the
world-system shook. This implies that each of these events cannot be fully understood
without bearing in mind its relation with the others. Such overlaying and
Buddha.
For example, the time when, after receiving Dpakara's prediction, Sumedha sat
271
his birth, and his enlightenment became interconnected and mutually overlaid by all
temporal interconnectedness was created by the text's inclusion of the analysis of the
pubbanimittas. By this device those four occasions were also connected with other
particular moments in his life, with events that happened on multiple particular occasions
(such as the donation of monasteries), and with events that happened innumerable
unspecified times (such as when people went to the Buddha for refuge). Ultimately this
device exposes an utter synchronicity in the biography, where all times could be
(c) Connections between times being established in so many ways tells the
reader that it is impossible for him to be aware of them all. Even if he could grasp
everything said explicitly about the Buddha in the biography, there is always more
involved in each moment that is not made visible. The reader is led to realize that there is
vastly more to the Buddha than he can be aware of. Rather he perceives the Buddha as
time, it offers the reader the opportunity to encounter multiple aspects of the Buddha and
By highlighting that he is the bhagav, the text's wholeness offers the possibility
of apprehending both aspects of his person: the bodhisatta/Buddha and the bhagav. This
apprehension of both aspects at all times would be truer to the fullness of his being.
Viewed together these two qualities encourage the reader to hope that she will
come to a unified, complete apprehension of him, one in which she will see
simultaneously the details that make up his life, the entirety of that life, and its further
of the Buddha's connectedness with his followers suggests that the Buddha's influence
cannot be seen as delimited. The biography gives no reason to think the Buddha's
connectedness with his future followers will ever end. It can potentially continue
potentially continue to extend ever outwards. From another angle, he is shown as being
273
in relationship with innumerable people and being of other kinds. This entails that the
biography could never capture him as he is in all his relationships. His relationships also
extend indefinitely in all directions. In these ways, the Buddha's life is shown to be
Buddha's life can potentially open out into and involve endless others, through the
comprehension of one particular moment of his life, the text would need to show the
reader all the other times implicated in that moment. As the number of those times is
portrayal of even just one moment in the Buddha's life, let alone of its entirety. Thus the
profoundly open.
makes a claim that the text provides an unusually full portrayal of its subject. It is true
that the Jinamahnidna presents the reader with many facets of the Buddha, and so
offers her the possibility of attaining a deeper, fuller appreciation of the Buddha than was
renders a truly comprehensive account impossible. It shows that however much the
274
biography may display of its subject, it can never say it all. There will always be more
that remains out of sight. The reader may learn more about the Buddha from the
Jinamahnidna than from other biographies, but he remains at the last acintiya,
iv. The text's wholeness makes a bid for containedness, connectedness undoes it
imputes to the biography a containedness whereby the entirety of its subject's existence is
encapsulated within the account. By the same measure, it imputes a containedness to the
person of the Buddha himself. The text locates his wholeness in his being the bhagav.
It thus implies that his person is encapsulated in itself, by virtue of his being the bhagav.
However, the emphasis the text puts on his connectedness with others undoes any
imputed containedness, either of his person or of the text. Far from being contained,
discretely encapsulated within his own person, the Buddha is shown to be profoundly
involved and interconnected with others. Although he is the bhagav, he is also engaged
with and by others. His person is shown as extending indefinitely outward, already
engaged in and available for connection with followers into the present and future. He
bhagav, the bhagav in relationship with his followers and the bhagav for his
followers.
275
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