[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

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

Is that an Americanism not used on the other side of the pond? Something 
"out of left field" is something unexpected, incongruous. It's origin is 
uncertain (one attempt is at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_fielder --  
scroll down; another attempt 
http://www.answers.com/topic/out-in-left-field -- neither is very 
convincing, and their definitions are questionable as well).

I enjoyed your reading of the text.

> 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 !

Nanamoli and Bodhi annote thus (pp. 1225-6, n 369, Middle Length 
Discourses):

"According to MA, Saccaka was the son of Nigantha (Jain) parents who were 
both skilled in philosophical debate. He had learned a thousand doctrines 
from his parents and many more philosophical systems from others. In the 
discussion below he is referred to by his clan name, Aggivessana."

Right or wrong, the MA redactors -- prone to hyperbole in this profile --  
saw an opportunity to read -putta here as "son."

> 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.

Jenkins devotes two paragraphs to the Pali sutta, his main subject being the 
chapter on Royal Ethics on the Mahayana sutra that has some relation to it 
through Satyavaca and Vajrapani. He states:

"The _Ārya-Bodhisattva-gocara-upāyaviṣaya-vikurvaṇa-nirdeśa Sūtra_ … 
engages a variety of questions in relation to the violence of warfare and 
punishment." (p. 60)

So this is not a new-fangled conflation designed to confuse moderns, but 
topics already treated in tandem as related to each other by Buddhists. A 
human deliberately inflicting mortal harm on another -- whatever the 
context, whether warfare, capital punishment, bar fight, regicide, suicide 
bombing, etc. -- is a singularly significant and irreversible act. It would 
be disturbing if Buddhists did NOT recognize and discuss that.


>> "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).

Yes. Thanks for the references. In the Ambaṭṭhasutta (which has other 
off-putting elements re: implications of being "well born" or not, and the 
entitlements that come with it), Walshe translates (pp. 115f):

"Again Ambaṭṭha remained silent, and the Lord said: 'Answer me now, 
Ambaṭṭha, this is not a time for silence. Whoever, Ambaṭṭha, does not answer 
a fundamental question put to him by a Tathāgata by the third asking has his 
head split into seven pieces.'
"And at that moment Vajirapāṇī the yakkha, holding a huge iron club, 
flaming, ablaze and glowing, up in the sky just above Ambaṭṭha, was 
thinking: 'If this young man Ambaṭṭha does not answer a proper question put 
to him by the Blessed Lord by the third time of asking, I'll split his head 
into seven pieces!' The Lord saw Vajirapāṇī, and so did Ambaṭṭha. And at the 
sight, Ambaṭṭha was terrified and unnerved, his hairs stood on end, and he 
sought protection, shelter and safety from the Lord...."

Walshe -- rightly or wrongly -- takes Vajirapāṇī as the name of the yakkha. 
Walshe notes (p. 549 n 151; Long Discourses) that "This yakkha, equated by 
DA with Indra, is ready, as in MN 35.14, to take the threat literally. Thus 
one of the old gods is seen as supporting the new religion. In later 
Mahayana texts we find a Bodhisattva of the same name..." How charming!

The sutta from the Anguttara is another weird text. An unnamed monk claims 
he was offended (āsajja) by Sariputta (son of Sari, or a Sari clansman?) who 
departed without apologizing or seeking the pardon of the offended monk. The 
actual offense is not given, though the commentary trumps up a triviality 
(Sariputta's robe brushed against the monk as he walked by, it says). Buddha 
stages what is supposed to be a hearing about the grievance, but it is a 
kangaroo court. It is convened by Mogglana and Ananda rounding up the other 
monks to see the fireworks, saying "Haste ye, reverend sirs, and come, for 
the Venerable Sariputta will now roar his lion's roar in the presence of the 
Exalted One." (E.M. Hare's tr., Gradual Sayings, IV, p. 248). Talk about 
knowing the outcome before the trial! Prejudgement, indeed.

Sariputta comes forward and offers his eloquent "defense," which is a sort 
of twisted version of Mark Antony's speech in Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. 
He pleads the "I am mindful so how could I possibly do anything nasty?" 
defense:

"Lord, just as in water they wash things, clean and foul, dung, urine, 
spittle, pus and blood, yet for all that the water is not filled with 
horror, loathing or disgust; even so, lord, like water, I abide with heart, 
large, abundant, measureless, felling no hatred, nor ill-will. True it is, 
lord, he, in whom mindfulness is not present, might set out on a journey 
without asking pardon of a fellow wayfarer in the godly life, whom he has 
offended." (Hare, p. 249)

In this way he compares himself to earth, water (quoted above), fire, wind, 
a cloth (rajoharaṇaṃ, comm. glosses as coḷaka), a tamed bull, scruffy 
lowlifes (caṇḍāla, Hare renders as "scavengers"), someone who having just 
gussied themselves up would have the carcass of an animal flung onto them;

"Lord, just as a man might carry around a bowl of fat, full of holes and 
slits, oozing, dripping; even so, lord, I carry around this body of mine, 
full of holes and slits, oozing, dripping. True it is, lord, that he, in 
whom mindfulness of the body's actions are not present, might set out on a 
journey...."

Bravo!!! It is impossible, he says, for him to do anything inadvertent. Wow!

The monk with the grievance now comes forward, falls before the Buddha's 
feet, now saying that he is the transgressor, begging the Buddha's 
forgiveness. That admission, Buddha says, shows "growth in the discipline of 
the Ariyan", and he then instructs Sariputta: "Pardon this foolish man, 
Sariputta, before his head splits into seven pieces even where he stands," 
which S promptly does.

It is important that the pardon for the monk's "transgression" must come 
from the aggrieved, the victim, in this case Sariputta, for which Buddha 
will not act as a proxy. It would be more poignant if Buddha had instructed 
the monk to directly seek the pardon of Sariputta, rather than using the 
Buddha as an intermediary.

For "head splits into seven pieces" Hare provides additional references: D. 
i.95 [discussed above], S. i.50; Sn 983, J i.54, and Mil. 157.

In the same footnote he also directs us to A iv.173 (same v. of Gradual 
Sayings, p. 118), in which a Brahman asks: "I have heard that the recluse 
Gotama neither salutes, nor rises up for, nor offers a seat to venerable and 
aged brahmans who are ripe in years, old and have attained to seniority...."

To which Buddha, obviously not a good Confucian, ominously replies (perhaps 
knowing that Vajrapāṇi has his back):

"Brahman, I see no one in the world of gods, with its Maras and Brahmas, or 
in the world of mankind, with its recluses and godly men, devas and men, 
whom I should salute, rise up for or to whom I should offer a seat. 
Moreover, brahman, whom the tathagata should salute, rise up for or to whom 
he should offer a seat, verily, his head would split in two."

I guess the motto is: Walk softly and carry a big yakkha.

I see nothing here that contradicts what Jenkins writes, referring to the 
Pali Cūḷasaccaka sutta and the development of Vajrapāṇi (p. 62) : "The 
threat to split someone's head was typical ... The fact that the threat is 
taken very seriously is shown here by Satyavaca's terror and the presence of 
Vajrapāṇi, who often works violence on the Buddha's behalf from the early 
mainstream Buddhist literature to late Tantric literature."

And this is the point. While one may explain away such things in this and 
other texts, it is clear that Buddhists themselves, drawing on these 
stories, understood them in such a way that Buddha's protective yakkha 
becomes one of the emblematic figures standing for the commission of 
violence for the protection of the Dharma.

Even accepting all of Lance's suggestions on how to read the passages -- and 
for the most part I do -- one might still be troubled that when Vajrapāṇi 
appears, and is ready to smash apart people's heads, Buddha sees him, knows 
what he intends to do, knows it is being done in his name to buttress his 
right-ness (there is apparently no "right to remain silent" in this world --  
doing so is punishable by death), Buddha neglects to turn to Vajrapāṇi and 
forbid him from carrying out that intention. At the very least he is tacitly 
condoning intimidation by violence, n'est-ce pas?

> 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.

I am not comfortable with this.

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

Ambaṭṭha and Saccaka are converted by the threat of violence. Buddha does 
not personally hold the iron club, but it is being waved about, terrorizing 
them, in his name, and he does nothing to prevent it, nor even register 
disapproval of any sort. It is the capitulation of those intimidated, not 
the Buddha's actions or words, that prevents bloodshed. As several essays in 
the book illustrate, Buddhists at various places and times understood it in 
that way, even to the point of actual killing.

> The kind of idea involved here seems to me to be typical of the
> Marxist-influenced Old Guard writing in the 1970s.

Ah, a different sort of "left field". Let's remember that Demieville's essay 
translated in the book was published in 1959, and I see nothing of a Marxist 
agenda in it. This left field is a "red" herring. :-)

Dan