[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

> No-one who has studied as much Yogācāra as you can be unaware of the
> sophistication of traditional Buddhist understandings of these things.
> So why this black-and-white dichotomy ?

No black-and-white dichotomy except in the eyes of some beholders. That the 
psychological, demythologized readings spring out first to us moderns, as 
unavoidable and decisive, is the reason that this modern impulse sometimes 
needs to be counterbalanced with reminders that other levels of meaning were 
accepted as much on face value as we today embrace the psychologized mode.

While suddenly everyone is disavowing that they would deny Buddha and the 
early Buddhists (as well as some current Buddhists) their beliefs in devas, 
yaksas, etc., this is a recurrent issue. As someone also considered 
something of an expert on the Chinese pilgrim and translator Xuanzang 
(Hsuan-tsang) I cannot recount how many times I have been asked -- by 
knowledgeable and sincere people -- how could he believe in that silly 
"superstitious" stuff (Avalokitesvara, devas, dream portents, etc.), since 
he was obviously so sophisticated and philosophically astute. Because they 
hold an underlying assumption that "sophisticated and philosophically 
astute" somehow is isomorphic with a post-Enlightenment Rationality as it 
has developed in the West in recent centuries, they stymie themselves with 
this sort of black and white dichotomy.

We think the more quickly we move past surface level meaning, the more 
"sophisticated" our reading, a byproduct of anagogic hermeneutics. My post 
was a simple reminder that the supposedly "deeper" levels do not erase the 
surface level, and certainly not merely for the convenience of a modern 
sensibility that finds some elements in the narrative uncomfortable or 
alien.

>> Do you
>> think that
>> Buddha believed such things as Brahmas, devas, yaksas, etc. exist,
>
> I am sure he did.

Me, too.

> But the interaction between the accounts of meditative states and
> accounts of heavens, etc. is built in. So it is not as simple as you are
> trying to make it.

I'm not trying to make it simple at all. Just trying to make sure an 
important dimension doesn't get neglected.

>>Do Sri Lankan Buddhists today
>> believe in
>> them? (answer: many do).
>
> Many certainly do. But not all. And many describe their experiences of
> interactions with such entities. So they are certainly real as 
> experiences.

That's exactly right.


> Your analysis basically trivializes the early Buddhist scriptures. I am
> reminded of the missionary attack on the Buddhist scriptures in 19th
> century Ceylon which led eventually to the Panadura debate where the
> Buddhists tuned the tables by applying the same kind of analysis to the
> Bible.

You are basically attempting to trivialize my analysis by conflating it 
missionaries and their motives. I am not a Christian missionary. I am not 
even a Christian. And I am not trying to undermine Buddhism, which is 
obviously what you think you feel called upon to defend from my imagined 
attack.

On the contrary, I am intrigued by these episodes which, despite being 
isolated instances, did spawn further development in later Buddhist 
communities -- and precisely offered some of the canonical basis for 
large-scale Buddhist-sanctioned violence, such as putting the Gelugpas into 
power. What intrigues is NOT that fact (though suppressing it or trying to 
pretend it's all a mistake, or just "farting" as Erik suggests, is simply 
putting hands over one's ears and humming to oneself in order not to hear 
what is going on), but rather a fact that I consider much more important, 
namely that despite having a textual basis for forced conversions, violence 
done in the name of religious authority (and Vajrapani plays EXACTLY that 
role later on), in most times and places Buddhists opted NOT to avail 
themselves of this. Why and how that is the case is what is important, but 
one cannot even begin to analyze that without first acknowledging that this 
is a legitimate issue.

Similarly, one can try to minimize the violence done by Duṭṭhagāmaṇi, or 
quibble over whether the relic is in or on a lance or spear or staff. 
However the quibbling resolves, in the end, the story itself remains one of 
Buddhism establishing itself by military means -- one of the cornerstones of 
Duṭṭhagāmaṇi's redemptive remorse is that he feels everything he did (viz. 
the killing, etc.) was done for Buddhism and the Dhamma, not for self-gain 
or personal conquest.

The relic, like bringing the monks along on the march, serves a protective 
talismanic function. One may also wish to minimize this story -- with its 
redemptive conclusion for someone with a lot of blood on his hands in the 
name of protecting and promoting Buddhism -- by questioning its historicity, 
canonicity, etc., but the basic fact is that, as ven. Vimaladhajja explains 
in the Kent essay it is a preferred topic for sermons given by monks to 
soldiers.

Living Buddhism is not in the philological debates a handful of scholars 
have with each other, but much more in the sermons that disseminate the 
"message" and keep Buddhism alive and relevant to actual Buddhists. And the 
indications are that it has always been so -- the number of sermons and 
their edifying topics among the Gandharan mss. attests to that as well. 
Quibbling of this word or that keeps us scholars amused and alert, but that 
is not the substance of sermons where the oral creativity of the sermon 
giver and malleability of the story play a key role. I remember many years 
ago a Theravadin monk giving his account of Buddha denying omiscience from 
the Tevijjavacchagotta sutta of the Majjhima. In his recounting, Buddha 
responds to Vacchagotta's query as to whether it is true that the Buddha 
knows all things, what is in everyone's mind at all times, etc., by saying: 
"I have no such sickness!" Now, of course, the original text does not have 
exactly this line -- which is a shame, since it is brilliant, and an 
improvement on what the text actually says.

The point is that once "stories" move into the oral dissemination mode, they 
modify, become more relevant, take on novel aspects, etc. Once these 
modified versions become entrenched, and thus repeated and ingrained in the 
cultural imagination, it makes little to no difference whether the events 
(Huineng, Vajrapani, Duṭṭhagāmaṇi, etc.) actually took place, or happened 
exactly as recorded in this or that text, or this or that version of the 
story in this or the other text. The version -- undergoing endless 
modifications -- in the cultural imagination is the one that counts, that is 
"real" for its community. That, for better or worse, is the nature of 
Scripture and how Scripture -- as imagined -- can provide the authoritative 
basis for a story that may not only veer from it but may directly contradict 
it.

In my World Religion courses I have made students read the first three 
chapters of Genesis very carefully. To their surprise, they learn, among 
things, that no apple is mentioned, that Eve already knew the difference 
between good and bad (food) before ever eating from the Tree of Knowledge of 
Good and Evil, that the serpent is treated throughout as a clever animal, 
not the devil, that there is no mention of Original Sin anywhere, and --  
probably most shocking -- the only character who never lies or exaggerates 
in the story is the serpent (God threatens Adam that they will drop dead the 
day they eat the fruit; that doesn't happen, the explanation for why left to 
exegetes to imagine). These and more discrepancies between the actual 
Biblical text and the Sunday school version they all learned are made clear. 
Finally, after several classes discussing these discrepencies, I ask for a 
show of hands: Now that you know what the actual text says, henceforth which 
version of the story will you believe -- the one in the Bible itself or the 
one you learned in Sunday school. They vote virtually unanimously for the 
Sunday School version, even when reminded that it actually contradicts the 
Biblical account on numerous points.

> This unique and very unusual pericope is found on only the two occasions
> in a very large literature. So you are blowing it up out of all
> proportion.

No. These are not forgotten pericopes lost among countless other obscure and 
little remembered passages and episodes from the scriptures. These were 
remembered and developed by the Buddhist communities themselves. Just as Sri 
Lankan monks using the story of Duṭṭhagāmaṇi as a preferred sermon topic 
raises that above being just another obscure, better left forgotten story in 
the dusty Buddhist literature, to something currently vital, Buddhists 
expanding on these pericopes and eventually using their byproducts as 
justifications for the slaughter of 'heretics' makes these pericopes 
important subjects for study. Arguing that they were misreading the text may 
provide some satisfaction on some level, but doesn't undo the history, nor 
finally negate the fact that many Buddhists decided to read the texts 
otherwise, just as the later commentators decided to treat Vajrapani as a 
proper name (assuming it wasn't initially). Such "misreadings" can have 
enduring and substantial effects: Arguing that the notion of Original Sin is 
an Augustinian misreading (as his contemporary Churchmen argued at the time) 
will neither eliminate nearly 2000 years of Christian theology nor influence 
the spiritual lives of Christians today. That misreading has become 
indelible.

Jerryson's essay on the contemporary Thai soldier-monks proposes a simple 
notion that is worth considering in this regard. While we all agree that 
there has been a strong pacifist line to Buddhism, there nonetheless have 
been periods -- among all forms of Buddhism -- where violence and ways of 
sanctioning it have occurred. There is what Jerryson calls a "latent" 
militarism that only emerges in certain types of circumstances and 
occasions. It would be important to study and analyze what those 
circumstances are -- again, something impossible to do if one pretends they 
don't exist or are not worth examining carefully.

>This fits the common
> pattern of pairing a psychological description (dhammādhiṭṭhāna) with a
> description in terms of a deity (puggalādhiṭṭhāna). So it is a fairly
> natural development.

I have no disagreement with this. Just trying to make sure the latter isn't 
neglected.

> We might want to give this a psychological interpretation: guilt and
> internal conflict generates the vision of a hostile entity. Whether
> mental states correspond to something out there is a whole other issue.

And we might want to propose other psychological interpretations, or propose 
interpretations that are not merely psychological. (I will illustrate why 
that may be important from an ethical standpoint in a different post, when I 
get a chance)

> [Interestingly Dhammapāla's subcommentary asks: "Why is Vajirapāṇi
> standing there ? Feeling compassion like the Lord, he has fashioned a
> large and fearful body and stands in the air in front of Saccaka holding
> a vajira, thinking that he will scare Saccaka and dispel this wrong
> view. He has no desire to split Saccaka's head; for no-one can be harmed
> in  front of the Lord."]

Since this directly contradicts what the text has Vajirapani think -- the 
original makes clear that he is not bluffing but ready to carry it through 
should the silent one fail to speak up -- this is no more than the common 
gesture of a commentator sanitizing the text, hoping to convince readers 
that it doesn't say what it says. That is interesting, since it shows his 
discomfort, and his attempt to assuage the discomfort of other readers. That 
he is sufficiently discomforted to feel obliged to contradict the text 
indicates that he sees something unacceptable there, something he is trying 
to make go away.

> The terrified Saccaka seeks protection from the Lord and declares that
> he will answer the question. Although the word saraṇa is found, it is
> used in its general sense with two synonyms for a locus of protection.
> There is no conversion and no taking of refuges or becoming a disciple.
>
> The debate continues and Saccaka is further humbled. Eventually he asks
> the Buddha for further teachings. Finally he acknowledges that he had
> been bold and impudent in challenging the Buddha to debate.
>
> The discourse does not conclude with Saccaka becoming a disciple or
> taking refuge. However, he does invite the Buddha and his monks to a
> public meal and invites the nobles to participate. So Saccaka respects
> the Buddha after the debate but remains a Jain.

I am not convinced. This is the "Lesser" Saccaka sutta. It is followed by 
the "Greater" Saccaka sutta. The discussion there feels very much like a 
disciple asking questions. The commentaries say he had four sisters, all 
skilled debaters as well (acquired from their Nigantha parents). They 
debated Sariputta, were defeated and became Arhats. If they converted, why 
didn't he?

Otherwise your summary of the sutta is fine. The one thing I would add is 
that the 500 "nobles" are Licchavis -- a Warrior caste depicted in other 
Buddhist texts as spartan, rough warrior types, skilled in archery and 
martial arts, and that this violent, gruff atmosphere permeates the whole 
sutta. When Buddha is defeating Saccaka, one of the Licchavis compares it 
someone plucking off the legs of a crab when they pop out, which he 
describes in vivid, cruel detail. Since the subject of "violence" itself is 
never taken up, this remains a subtopic, though infusing the entire sutta --  
leaving it to readers and commentators to sort out.

Dan