[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance

> But the very limited canonical materials on the cakkavattin king are
> precisely non-violent and emphasize that fact.

I am not an expert on Cakravartin / cakkavattin literature. The material I 
have seen, and the aspects discussed in a number of essays in the book would 
suggest that numerous texts speak out of both sides of their mouth, or one 
can find opposing positions taken in different texts, i.e., that one can 
indeed find strongly pacifistic material, but one can also find various 
degrees of acceptance and even encouragement for violent activity, going 
from condoning to recommending a variety of nasty and even lethal practices. 
That non-pacifistic literature is available, in other words, to those who 
wish to employ it, and apparently rulers, etc. availed themselves of this 
sanction frequently, with the blessing of the sangha.

> It is very important that this story is legendary and almost certainly
> has no historical basis at all.

In some sense -- though we do NOT know for sure that this is all made up. It 
MAY have some truth. In some sense it does make a difference whether these 
events took place, but only in a very trivial way. (Thanks, Franz, for 
mediating.) Why I say it makes no difference whether the events transpired 
exactly this way or not in terms of the issue of attitude of certain 
monastic Buddhists toward violence is that the story has been embraced by 
the Chan community, meaning they found it fully plausible and in concert 
with their self-understanding of what the Chan community attitudes are. It 
is plausible because such lethal rivalries were not unknown in the monastic 
communities. We have other cases, including in India, of such things 
(starting with Devadatta, but it didn't end with him). Since the potential 
target of the violence would be the hero of the piece, the Platform Sutra 
would not be condoning the violence, but it is placing the option of violent 
activity within the monastic community.

Do we need to mention well known actual cases, such as the Dalai Lamas who 
never reach maturity, dying mysteriously, giving their regents and cohorts a 
couple additional decades of rule?

Something that DID occur historically speaking is that not that long after 
the Huineng died, his mummy, sitting in an upright position, was put on 
display and used in various rituals (condensation, i.e., mummy sweat, was 
gathered during certain festivals, bottled, and sold for its "healing" and 
miraculous properties). His mummy is still there (though "patched up" 
post-Cultural Revolution -- I've visited it at Nanhuasi, his temple, which 
also houses the mummy of Hanshan Deqing, the great Ming monk):

http://tinyurl.com/2bx5oz6

scroll down and click on the brown-faced image.

There are various versions of a story that his relics, usually his head, 
were stolen, and, according to most, recovered. One prominent account holds 
that nine years after his death, some Korean Buddhists (or, according to 
another account, a Korean monk who contracted someone else to do the deed) 
cut off the mummy's head, wishing to bring it and its glorious 
miraculousness back to Korea. When their theft was discovered, a posse was 
sent after them. They were caught, executed, and the head returned to the 
body. (there are alternate versions of this story, eg.
http://tinyurl.com/25felub )

In another account, a swordsman is the thief and he was NOT caught!
http://dissertations.ub.rug.nl/FILES/faculties/theology/2002/c.j.kuiken/pt5.pdf
go to p. 17.

An appended colophon to the popular version of the Platform Sutra (differs 
somewhat from the one recovered at Dunhuang which is what most people in the 
West read) includes this statement:

"the relics were stolen several times, but on each occasion they were 
recovered before the thief could run away far."

So there may some basis to all the different versions, i.e., there were 
multiple attempts (one of which may have been successful). This is 
posthumous violence, but nonetheless it indicates a wild-west-type of 
atmosphere that helps show why the Platform Sutra account had credence for 
its contemporaries.

IN any case, this is a minor example, used for illustrative purposes only, 
to show what has been under our very noses all along. The essays in the book 
deal with more important and fully documented examples.

Dan