[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[L.S. Cousins]

I wrote:

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

>
> 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.
>
This seems quite fictional to me. Unless you are referring to much later 
elaborations of the Buddhist cakkavattin literature in the first 
millennium A.D. The whole point of the cakkavattin material in the early 
texts is to repudiate the military ideals of brahmanism.


> 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.
>
And, much more likely, it may have none whatsoever.

> 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).
>
The point of the Devadatta story is to present something unbelievably 
bad. Most such stories appear to date from far away and long after.
>
> 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?
>
Killed by the Chinese Ambans, I think.
>
>
> 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.
>
I agree. That did occur.
>
>
> 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.
>
Well, no. It is elaborated legend and story-telling. Probably based upon 
a tiny morsel of truth and almost no violence, for all we know.

Lance