[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[L.S. Cousins]

On 15/07/2010 12:11, Dan Lusthaus wrote:

> In case the Mahayana sutra discussed by Jenkins (and Zimmerman, et 
> al.), the
> _Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyaviṣaya-vikurvaṇa-nirdeśa Sūtra_, sounded 
> like
> something out of left field, incommensurate with "original" Buddhism, 
> or the
> Pali canon, Jenkins points out that it does have some precedent in the 
> Pali
> canon.
>
This Mahāyāna sūtra certainly has earlier sources in Pali and Sanskrit. 
It is still entirely incompatible with them, with early Buddhism and, if 
taken literally, with much later Buddhism too.


What by the way is a 'left field' ? An agricultural plot belonging to a 
Communist peasant ?


> The sutra has a dialogue between a king and someone named Satyavaca
> Nirgranthaputra, i.e., the "Truth-speaker, son of a Jain."
>
The name has been deliberately altered. The usual Sanskrit form of 
Saccaka's name (e.g. in the Dīrghāgama) is Sātyaki. And, incidentally, 
-putra in this kind of context doesn't mean 'son'; it means something 
like 'community member'. So a nigaṇṭhaputta is a 'member of the Jain 
monastic community' - they probably didn't have sons , being celibate !

> "Would a head-anointed noble king -- for example, King Pasenadi of 
> Kosala or
> King Ajātasattu Vedehiputta of Magadha -- exercise the power in his own
> realm to execute those who should be executed, to fine those that 
> should be
> fined, and to banish those that should be banished?" [Nanamoli / Bodhi 
> tr.]
>
Note that the translation by 'should' here inadvertently introduces a 
value judgement. The original simply says 'have the power (vasa) to have 
executed those to be executed' and so on. [Technical detail: the 
translators have misinterpreted the commentaries' explanation with 
araha- of the future passive participle in -tāya.] Similarly later on 
(p.231), we should render: [the king] would exercise <that power> and he 
is able to exercise it. The point of the simile is not whether a Self 
should wield power, but whether it can.
>
>
> This Buddha accepts capital punishment. The passage also gives some 
> sense of
> what the Pali Buddha considers a king's job to include.
>
1. The issue of Buddhist attitudes to capital punishment is an entirely 
different one to the issue of Buddhist attitudes to warfare.

2. Subsuming the two things under the heading of 'violence' (as some are 
doing now) seems to me to be an attempt to confuse people and conceal 
the reality of the very strong rejection of violent warfare in early 
Buddhism.

3. This is a simile. It cannot be used to imply that the Buddha does or 
doesn't approve of royal behaviour. The point is to discuss the nature 
of the various things claimed to be a Self (atta) i.e. do they exercise 
authority in the way that the two great rulers of the Buddha's time did.

4. I doubt that this can be parleyed into 'what the Pali Buddha 
considers a king's job to include'. The Buddha (who is portrayed fairly 
consistently in early Pali, Sanskrit and Gāndhārī texts) is simply 
describing what they do. There is no implication as to what they should do.

> "For the second time Saccaka the son of Nigantha became silent. Then the
> Blessed One said, 'explain it, Aggivessana. It is not the time for you 
> to be
> silent. If someone does not reply to a reasonable question asked by the
> Tathagata up to the third time, his head splits into seven pieces.' "
>
A similar passage is found in the Ambaṭṭhasutta (D I 94f.) and in the 
corresponding Sanskrit of the Dīrghāgama. cp. also AN IV 378 (without 
the yakkha).
>
> Now enters Vajrapāṇi (Pali: Vajirapāṇī), who will become a key deity
> associated with Buddhist violence, defending the Dharma, etc., until the
> present day:
>
He may be such a deity in the Buddhist traditions derived from Ancient 
Pakistan, but he has no such role in Southern Buddhism.
The translators are surely correct to suppose that vajirapāṇi here is an 
epithet. The occurrence of this passage in these two suttas (and no 
doubt in others which are lost) is rather the source from which a deity 
named Vajrapāṇi is eventually hypostatized. This must have occurred in 
the Gandhāra region where Vajrapāṇi rapidly becomes an important and 
separate deity, probably because of the presence of a local 
thunderbolt-wielding deity.

> "At that moment Vajrapāṇi the yakkha (Skt: yakṣa), a thunderbolt-wielding
> spirit holding an iron thunderbolt that burned, blazed, and glowed, 
> appeared
> in the air above Saccaka the Nigantha's son, thinking: 'If this 
> Saccaka the
> Nigantha's son, when asked a reasonable question up to the third time 
> by the
> Blessed One, still does not answer, I shall split his head into seven 
> pieces
> here and now.' The Blessed One saw the thunderbold-wielding spirit and so
> did Saccaka the Nigantha's son. Then Saccaka the Nigantha's son was
> frightened, alarmed, and terrified. Seeking his shelter, asylum, and 
> refuge
> in the Blessed One, he said: 'Ask me, Master Gotama, I will answer.' "
> [Nanamoli / Bodhi, modified]
>
>
> For some reason Nanamoli and Bodhi do not treat Taṃ kho pana vajirapāṇiṃ
> yakkhaṃ bhagavā ceva passati, saccako ca nigaṇṭhaputto. Atha kho saccako
> nigaṇṭhaputto bhīto saṃviggo lomahaṭṭhajāto [PTS Page 232] [\q 232/]
> bhagavantaṃyeva tāṇaṃ gavesī, bhagavantaṃ etadavoca: pucchatu maṃ bhavaṃ
> gotamo, byākarissāmītiname as a name, and instead translate it as
> "thunderbold-wielding"; yakkha they render "spirit." In their annotation,
> they point out that the Pali commentary identifies this yakkha as 
> Sakka --
> perhaps that being the reason they "hide" the name.
>
See above.
>
> In the Skt version,
> Vajrapāṇi is Buddha's bodyguard, and ultimately considered a 
> manifestation
> of Buddha himself.
>
He has no such role in the Sanskrit Aṃvāṣṭhasūtra.

> This is the Pali prototype of a guardian of the Dharma (albeit a gnomish
> sprite) threatening to make good on Buddha's own death threat (heads 
> split
> into seven parts usually result in more permanent injuries than 
> headaches).
> He is not bluffing -- unless Saccaka speaks up on being asked a third 
> time,
> he will smite him. The death threat is real. Saccaka realizes that, 
> and that
> realization results in Saccaka taking refuge, i.e., converting to
> Buddhism -- forced conversion of a sort.
>

I understand this as a folk theme, connected to Indian traditions 
associated with religious debate.
And with behaviour towards a holy man.

> I think Lance might agree that it makes little difference in terms of 
> Pali
> canon formation and Theravada ideology whether this event actually took
> place as recorded. Certainly pacifists will like to think their Buddha
> wouldn't get involved in this sort of nonsense -- I can hear the word
> "interpolation," and the word "later" anxious to be affixed to these
> passages, and perhaps the whole sutta. But there it is, in the 
> Majjhima. For
> the canon and its faithful followers, it makes no difference whether this
> actually happened (most moderns would be eager to explain away Vajrapāṇi
> (whether as name, or type of yakkha) in anything but a literal 
> meaning. It
> makes no difference whether this actually happened especially in terms of
> illustrating some of the early community's views on violence and Dhamma.
> Like the Huineng-having-to-flee story, this sort of stuff has been 
> under our
> noses, ignored or overlooked for a variety of reasons. But there it is.
>
Well, but I don't see it as having anything to do with early Buddhist 
attitudes to warfare or to violence in the usual sense.

If you take it literally, then the Buddha is acting to prevent harm to 
the individuals involved. That harm is due to their behaviour towards a 
holy man. It is not something the Buddha approves of or creates. It is 
just the law of things. And the harm is actually avoided.

If you take it less literally, then the head splitting into seven is 
perhaps some kind of metaphor or representation of the psychological 
self-destruction involved in rejecting the spiritual. Experiencing that 
as a vision of a hostile yakkha is an alternative way of presenting the 
same thing. Compare the consequences of harming a Buddha, killing an 
arahat, patricide, matricide and the like.

So for me this is no example of Buddhist approval even of violence, let 
alone of war.

The kind of idea involved here seems to me to be typical of the 
Marxist-influenced Old Guard writing in the 1970s. See for example: 
Trevor Ling, _Buddhism, Imperialism and War_, George Allen & Unwin, 
London, 1979. The attempt to somehow associate Buddhism with war and 
violence seems now to have spread to other forms of annihilationist 
religious commitment, but I think it still preserves much of its Marxist 
roots.

Lance