[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[JKirkpatrick]

......I don't believe that what we have here is really accurately represented in most discussions. In particular, the author is not really interested in vilifying Tamils and clearly doesn't intend to uniformly present them as subhuman. That is obvious from the account of Eḷāra in chapter XXII. 
He is so virtuous that the god Sakka organizes the rains for him !

That said, it is clearly subject to misrepresentation and has been in modern times. As far as I know, the story occurs only once in ancient Pali literature, in the Thūpavaṃsa. Even there the passage about one and a half persons, etc. is entirely missing. I suppose this must represent some discomfort with it.

Lance Cousins
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"Even there the passage about one and a half persons, etc. is entirely missing. I suppose this must represent some discomfort with it."

I'm comfortable with the assumption that this text was 'subject to misrepresentation and has been in modern times.'  Thus was it not ever so?
However, it also could be averred that the passage about 'one and a half persons' was commentarial spin (reflecting your sense that there was discomfort with the idea), since the big text was concerned with glorifying kingly power as well as their upholding of the dharma. The text seems to me to be trying to deal with viewing  King Duṭṭhagāmaṇi as a human being with a moral psyche, but also in his social role as dharma upholder.

JK