[Buddha-l] A Different Take on Devadatta

[Katherine Masis]

Thanks, Stuart and Joanna, for your comments.  What makes Hocart’s claim intriguing to me is that the Buddha himself seems to have engaged in verbally abusive behavior as well.  As Hocart says in Appendix A:
 
“I should  like to draw  the reader's  attention  to Vinaya, vol.  II, p.188, where  Devadatta  approaches Buddha  most respectfully  and offers to relieve  his  age  of the burden  of administering  the Order.  The Buddha replies  with  abuse, calling  him  ‘corpse, lick-spittle’   (chavassa). This  seems  scarcely  in keeping  with the character  of the Buddha, but it is with that of a cross-cousin.”
 
Of course, Devadatta’s motivation to manage the Order could have been more a desire for power than altruism.  My point is that the Buddha replied with insults too, which, in turn, could have been skillful means for the moment, but the interesting thing here is the form those skillful means took: abusive language.
 
I personally didn’t interpret Hocart as ascribing the joking and abusive language as  *cause* to Devadatta's obsessive-envy competitive-hostility to the Buddha; I interpreted Hocart as saying that Devadatta’s reportedly “bad” behaviors (obsessive-envy, competitive-hostility) were really none of the kind but, instead, common bantering in a joking relationship between cross-cousins or cross-brothers.  In other words, the bantering didn’t *cause* bad behavior; the seemingly bad behavior can be seen in a different light and perhaps didn’t exist at all or at least wasn’t as bad as usually portrayed.
 
Even if Devadatta’s behavior had been as bad as usually portrayed, I don’t see how the Cain/Abel archetype would necessarily contradict the joking and bantering.  As Hocart says, “we must leave it undecided, however, whether there existed between the Buddha and his cousin a friendly feud, which, with the disappearance of the custom, was misinterpreted as a bitter enmity; or whether in those days an originally friendly opposition had degenerated into hate; or whether, finally, there never was such a rivalry between the two, but traditions of cross-cousin rivalry became attached to the pair.”
 
If, as Dr. Tatelman claims, Devadatta did thirst after power and glory so much that he wanted to make Yashodharaa his wife and then kill her to get the kingdom, I don’t think the Buddha would have wanted his (former?) wife killed, of course, but I think it highly unlikely that he would care, at that point in his life, about being in possession of the kingdom he left behind.  So there would be no rivalry there.  If the Buddha wanted to prevent Devadatta from getting his hands on the kingdom because he would be a bad king to the people, that’s a different story.  
 
In any case, I would like to read Dr. Tatelman’s piece.
 
Katherine