[Buddha-l] Re: Men and women of good family

[jkirk]

> jkirk wrote in Re: [Buddha-l] Yogi with a cell phone:
>
>> If the Buddha was considered then, as ordinary Indians today
>> consider and address  powerful patrons/saviors/helpers--as
>> "Maa-Baap", Mother-Father--perhaps this  usage is as ancient as the
>> texts. If it had been common in those days, it  would serve to solve
>> the householder/monk ethical conflicts just noted, by  transcending
>> the householder  ethics level in favor of the sangha vows level, by
>> turning the Buddha into a  parent --as Catholics do when they
>> address a priest as Father.
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> What you writes sounds quite well as another possibility to understand
> the use of "good family". Popular uses in language sometimes are so
> old that nobody remember them, and some authors frequently use this to
> justify the roots of words meanings.
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   JK:
Let us not forget that in the just-passed century, people referred to and 
addressed Gandhiji as "Bapu", father. Another title of ref. or address 
common in India for spiritual guides is different: "swami," lord. This title 
conveys only respect, not filiality of the familial mode. It's possible that 
this swami mode dominated Angulimala's attitude toward his (probably 
Tantric) guru, i.e., before the Buddha caught him. Angulimala may never have 
observed filiality with his guru, only servility. There's a difference.

I now think I understand what you were getting at, Vicente: did the ancient 
texts offer any examples where filiality was transgressed because its object 
was a moral transgressor?  For possible evidence for India, see the Manava 
Dharma-shastra.---
Ma¯navadharmas´a¯stra. English.
_The laws of Manu_ , translated by Wendy Doniger with Brian K. Smith.
London & New York: Penguin, 1991.

And there's the peculiar jataka where the bodhisattva, Vessantara, 
transgresses reciprocal filiality toward wife and children in order to show 
compassion toward a faux person (really Indra who's testing the bodhisattva) 
who asks for them. Here, the moral of the story transgresses filiality in 
favor of compassion, no matter what the personal or social preferences might 
be.

Joanna