by Sarah Shaw
As some modern philosophers have observed, the Buddhist teaching of ‘not-self’ does not so much teach the absence of any kind of self, but an absence of what could be called a permanent, isolated self. 59The Bodhisatta, by his very movement within different types of existence, enacts this teaching through a new identity that is defined and ‘perfected’ by the conditions of each new testing ground in which he is born. Each new story presents a new set of governing conditions under which he needs to work and a way of finding what could be called an authentic self, created in the moment of his ancient vow to become a Bodhisatta. This is the teaching that as modern readers we can divine from the stories, whatever we might feel about the doctrine of rebirth from life to life. The tales, popular in peasant cultures where loss of various kinds would be endemic, could well have been told at all times of great grief and deprivation. 60 Abstract consideration of the three marks of existence, change (anicca), suffering (dukkha) and not-self (anatta), would not always help someone who had lost a family member or suffered a great setback. The Buddhist position is not that we do not have a self: most of us feel that we do. It is that self is created and governed by the choices that face us in our present, moving and unsatisfactory conditions. Selfhood, impermanent as it is, is defined by what we are, what we do and free will. If we choose to be ‘unskilful’ and think only for advantage or gain, our choices are limited. The skilful volition (kusala cetana) creates new possibilities that can bring happiness and benefit to ourselves and others. At a time of death, sorrow or indeed of great personal joy, reminders of selflessness, enacted through stories such as the monkey who saves his tribe (407) or the young man who cares for his parents (540), embody Buddhist doctrine for those who listen to them. They show what it is like not to have a constricted view of what we are and can be, and to extend that awareness to include other beings too.
Early Buddhists perceived the universe in their own image. Gods, men and animals speak with human voice in the stories and act with motives explained in human terms. The characters in Jatakas inhabit an intricately meshed network of almost familial relationships. They are constantly interacting with each other, discussing their problems and giving advice on how to live. Each has a solitary destiny of endless cycles of birth and death: but by sharing this they form patterns within a community, repeatedly meeting and finding earlier companions as they take rebirth in different places and various kinds of forms. Links between characters extend far back into the past; events tend to recur as old habits are repeated in later lifetimes. Underneath it all is the assumption of the Jatakas that each being lives as an independent locus of consciousness, capable of choice and of finding enlightenment for him- or herself. It was an unusual and even revolutionary idea at the time. After reading a few Jatakas the universe seems very large: full of birds, cats, fish and deer, unseen presences and humans in all kinds of conditions, each with their own consciousness and destiny to fulfil. The great compassion of the Buddha in the stories is that he does not teach as an outsider, separated from this living network. By describing himself ‘in the past’, as Bodhisatta, he demonstrates his own participation in these conditions and gives hundreds of instances of how to be free within them. At the end of each story he brings this understanding to the present and reveals his own identity. It is like walking into a Buddhist temple, past the stories of Jatakas shown on the walls. Different selves lead in the end to a human form, the embodiment of stillness in the presence of many. This is the heart of each story too: the place of the Buddha, the knower of all worlds, freed at last from any grasping after false ego, or ‘I’-making (ahamkara), at all.
Notes
1 Translated by N.A. Jayawickrama as The Story of Gotama Buddha (Oxford: PTS, 1990). An extract from the Jatakanidana has been translated as a preface to this collection.
2 Traditions vary as to how many Buddhas there have been before the present one. The Mahapadana sutta describes six with Gotama as a seventh (D II 1–41); Sri Lankan tradition holds that there have been twenty-four, with Gotama as a twenty-fifth. The Bodhisatta is often painted in temples paying respects to them all, in the various forms he was at each time, ranging from human prince to a naga. A South-East Asian chant pays homage to twenty-eight Buddhas, including the present one. The Buddha-to-be, Maiteyya, is common to all traditions, and is said to be waiting for his final birth in the Tusita heaven.
3 This culminates in the final and most famous rebirth as Vessantara. This story is translated in Margaret Cone and R. F. Gombrich, The Perfect Generosity of Prince Vessantara: A Buddhist Epic translated from the Pali and illustrated by unpublished paintings from Sinhalese temples (Oxford: OUP, 1977). The introductory essay (pp. xv–xlvii) by Gombrich gives the best modern account of the place of Jatakas in the Buddhist tradition.
4 J. Legge, trans., Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms being an account of the Chinese monk Fa-hien in his travels of India and Ceylon (Oxford, 1886), p. 106.
5 Some are enacted in continuous registers that depict incidents as a linear narrative, with four or five ‘layers’ of frieze occupying an entire wall. At Degaldoruwa in Kandy, for instance, Jatakas 313 and 402 are shown in this way, though the surface is a little damaged. For frieze style, see C.H. Holt, The Religious World of Kirti Sri, Buddhism, Art and Politics in Late Medieval Sri Lanka (Oxford: OUP, 1996), plate 45.
6 See Anant Pai, Jataka Stories, Amar Chitra Katha, 1003 in series, India Book House. The stories are remarkably true to the originals. One exception to this is in Jataka 20, where the monkeys make a long tube out of all the canes and there is no Bodhisatta resolve: perhaps it is too obviously ‘Buddhist’.
7 See Cone and Gombrich, Perfect Generosity, pp. xxxix–xliv. I am grateful to discussion with Ven. Pa nn avamsa and Ven. Dhammasami about the importance of the tales in Myanmar (Burma).
8 See Than Tun, ed., The Royal Orders of Burma, AD 1598–1885, vol. V: 1788–1806 (Kyoto, 1986), pp. 60–1. Stories particularly popular at this time are the last ten (which include in this collection 538, 539 and 540) and, also in this collection, 20, 75 and 316.
9 P. Wongthet, ‘The Jataka stories and Laopuan world view’, Thai Folklore: Insights into Thai Culture, Siraporn Nathalang ed. (Bangkok, 2000), pp. 47–61; originally published in Asian Folklore Studies, 48 (1989), pp. 21–30.
10 The whole area of Aesopic tales in relationship to the Jatakas and the folk literature of other parts of the world is discussed in J. Jacobs, History of the Aesopic Fable, 2 vols. (London, 1889).
11 For characteristic features of oral tradition see L.S. Cousins, ‘Pali Oral Literature’, in P. Denwood and A. Piatigorski eds., Buddhist Studies: Ancient and Modern (1983), pp. 1–11. For the place of memorization and chanting in texts see R. Gethin, ‘The Matikas: Memorization, Mindfulness and the List’, in J. Ggyatso ed., Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism (Albany, New York, 1992), pp. 149–72.
12 I am grateful to Richard Gombrich for his suggestions about these words: that the word Mahasatta, ‘Great Being’, was originally a bahuvrihi compound meaning ‘of great courage’. The Bodhisatta is the awakening being, the ‘bodhi-being’; the word seems to have meant originally ‘attached to enlightenment’ (bodhisakta).
13 The word derives from bujjhati, to be awake.
14 Locative of neuter noun derived from acceti, for the passing of time: lit ‘in the past’, DP I 26; PED 21 gives ‘once upon a time’. Jataka 20 uses ‘formerly’ (pubbe). Jataka 94 is set 91 aeons ago.
15 Vin I 10–11.
16 See Garrett Jones, Tales and Teachings of the Buddha, pp. 166–70. Stories in which they feature, not translated in this collection, include: 420, 421, 424, 442, 459, 490, 491, 495, 496, 514, 529, 531 and 536 and in this collection, 539. The Pali suttas place less emphasis on these figures than the later tradition. They are not named in Jataka verses. On subject in general, see K.R. Norman, ‘The Pratyeka-Buddha in Buddhism and Jainism’, Selected Papers, vol. II (Oxford: PTS, 1991), pp. 233–49 and R. Kloppenborg, The Paccekabuddha: a Buddhist Ascetic
. A study of the concept of paccekabuddhas in Pali canonical and commentarial literature (Lieden: Brill, 1974).
17 J I 25.
18 Each of these images is discussed in a story in which that perfection features. These are starred in the list at the beginning.
19 See E. Wray, C. Rosenfield and D. Bailey, with photographs by J.D. Wray, Ten Lives of the Buddha (New York: Weatherill, 1972, revised paperback edn, 1996), p. 16; S. Leksukhum, with photos by G. Mermet, ‘The Ten Great Jatakas’, Temples of Gold: Seven Centuries of Thai Buddhist Paintings (London: Thames and Hudson, 2001), pp. 136–57.
20 I am grateful to Peter Skilling for this information.
21 Story of Gotama Buddha, p. 96 (J I 72).
22 Story of Gotama Buddha, p. 98 (J I 74).
23 ‘The Treatise on the Paramis’ works throughout on the assumption that each perfection is better than the one before, but also puts considerable emphasis on generosity. See Cariyapitaka Atthakatha, in The Discourse on the All-Embracing Net of Views: the Brahmajala sutta and its commentaries (Kandy: BPS, 1978), pp. 242–317.
24 See A III 48–50. For a discussion of the place of dana in the Buddhist tradition see Bhikkhu Bodhi ed., Dana: the Practice of Giving; Selected Essays, Wheel Publication no. 367/369 (Kandy 1990).
25 See L.S. Cousins, ‘Good or Skilful? Kusala in Canon and Commentary’, Journal of Buddhist Ethics, Vol. 3, 1966, pp. 136–64, for a discussion of the development of this word.
26 Poetics, 1453 a 16. See M. Bowra, Sophoclean Tragedy (Oxford: OUP, 1944), pp. 166ff.
27 A III 415. See discussion in P. Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism, Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge: CUP, 1990), pp. 32–46.
28 See S. Thompson and J. Balys, ‘The Wise and the Foolish’, The Oral Tales of India (Bloomington, Indiana: IUP, 1958), Motif J.
29 Robert Graves, New Larousse Encyclopedia of Mythology (London: Hamlyn, 1983), p. 355. See also D.V.J. Harischandra, Psychiatric Aspects of Jataka Stories (Galle, Sri Lanka, 1998), p. 8.
30 The Dhammasanga1i, the first book of the abhidhamma, opens with a list of the attributes of the skilful mind, present at any moment of appropriate generosity or active virtue. Skilful consciousness always includes mindfulness. This first citta also forms the basis of the mind that experiences the meditation (jhana). The presence of abhidhamma terminology in the Jatakas is striking, as we see in stories 55 and 476.
31 Animals that converse are a feature of Indian literature from the Vedas onwards. See K. Chaitanya, ‘The Beast Fable’, A New History of Sanskrit Literature (London: Asia Publishing House, 1962), pp. 360ff.
32 No Jataka is set in a Brahma realm for beings there do not speak: when the Bodhisatta descends from one in Jataka 99 he has to assume a different form.
33 Rebirth in an animal realm is not based on an underlying continuum (bhavanga) of skilful consciousness (kusala citta), which has its roots of non-greed, non-hatred and, usually in the case of humans, wisdom. Skilful consciousness is possible for animals, however. It is just that it is not innate, as it is with humans.
34 S. Collins writes, ‘It is easy to overlook the Buddhist heavens’. As he points out in his admirable discussion opened by this statement, they are not just some sort of holiday destination for those stuck in samsara but a means of exploring and describing the mind and existence itself. See Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali Imaginaire (Cambridge: CUP, 1998), pp. 297–309.
35 See ibid. and Gethin, Foudnations of Buddhism, (Oxford: OUP, 1998), pp. 112–32.
36 The vow for Buddhahood made in a human existence is said to be fulfilled. See Story of Gotama Buddha, p. 18 (J I 14).
37 See A I 10.
38 Beings in this realm do not die, but just ‘fall away’ (cavati)—as the Bodhisatta does at the opening of the Mugapakkha Jataka (538). Gods do not necesssarily want to chat about dhamma. In the depiction of the Nimi Jataka (541) on the north wall at Wat Suwannaram in Thonburi, Thailand, some gods in the Heaven of the Thirty-Three are shown deep in discussion while others ignore them and delight in the pleasures of their heavenly existence.
39 M I 76.
40 Sn 143–52.
41 See his highly entertaining introduction, The Pancatantra: The Book of India’s Folk Wisdom, (Oxford: OUP, 1997), pp. xxii–xxv, for animal types in Indian literature.
42 Oddly enough, she is barely mentioned in recent works on the Buddha’s disciples or his female followers, perhaps because she features so little after the enlightenment in suttas or the Buddha’s life story.
43 In the Jatakanidana she is described as being born on the same day as Gotama (see The Story of Gotama Buddha , p. 71; J I 54). For the most extensive account of her life see Sally Mellick Cutler, ‘A Critical Edition, with translation, of selected portions of the Pali Apadana’, D Phil Oxford, 1993, vol. I, pp. 232ff. It would have been assumed by an ancient audience that she too would have made her own undertaking to accompany the Bodhisatta through many lives to be the spouse of a future Buddha. The story taken as an account of the earliest incidents associated with their union is the Candaki 11 ara Jataka, 485, where, as a mythical half-bird being, she refuses to marry the king who has apparently killed the Bodhisatta (J IV 282–8). Through the power of her love for the Bodhisatta, the poison is dispelled and he is restored to life.
44 Related in ‘story from the present’ in Jataka 281 (J III 392–4).
45 See K.R. Blackstone, Women in the Footsteps of the Buddha: Struggle for Liberation in the Therigatha (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 1998), pp. 113–7, and Susan Murcott, The First Buddhist Women: Translation and Commentary of the Therigatha (Berkeley: Parallax, 1991).
46 C.A.F. Rhys Davids and K.R. Norman, Poems of Early Buddhist Nuns (Therigatha), revised joint reprint with section of Elders’ Verses (Oxford: PTS, 1989).
47 W. Geiger, B. Ghosh trans., Pali Language and Literature (New Delhi: Oriental Books Reprint Corporation, 3rd reprint, 1978), pp. 9–11.
48 See M. Winternitz, A History of Indian Literature, (Srinivasa Sarma revised), 2 vols. (Delhi, Varanasi, Patna: Motilal, 1983), II, pp. 115ff.
49 See Geiger, ibid., pp. 19–22, and Oskar von Hinüber, lecture at Oxford, 1997.
50 See for instance the detail in ‘The story of the monkey king’ (Jataka 407), and accompanying discussion, where the verse says that the monkey ties the creeper round his legs, while the prose narrative says he ties it round his waist. The Sanskrit version of the tale follows the verse version.
51 I.B. Horner, Ten Jataka Stories (A Pali Reader), (London: Luzac, 1957).
52 See Geiger, ibid., pp. 13–14.
53 See Bhikkhu Bodhi’s introduction to The Connected Discourses of the Buddha , 2 vols. (Oxford and Boston: PTS/Wisdom, 2000), I, pp. 31–5.
54 Published in one volume, I.B. Horner trans., The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, (London: PTS, 1975), III.
55 P. Khoroche trans., with foreword by W. Doniger, Once the Buddha was a Monkey: Arya Sura’s Jatakamala (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989). There is not the space to discuss all of these collections further. See Cone and Gombrich, Perfect Generosity, pp. 109–11 for the widespread dissemination of the last story (547). P.S. Jaini has made a translation of the very popular non-canonical Jatakas in Apocryphal Birth Stories: Pannasa Jataka, 2 vols. (London: PTS, 1985–8).
56 This is a large subject which cannot be fully addressed here. The best introduction to this dissemination in the West is still the preface in T.W. Rhys Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories (London, 1880). For Kalilag and Damnag, see p. xxix.
57 See ibid., pp. xxxiii–xxxix.
58 Sutta 36, Bhikkhu Ñanamoli and Bhikkhu Bodhi trans., The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha , (Oxford and Boston: Wisdom/ PTS, 2001), p. 341 (M I 247–8).
59 See Sue Hamilton, ‘Setting the Scene: We have no self but we are comprised of five aggregates’, Early Buddhism: A New Approach, The I of the Beholder (Richmond, Surrey: Curzon, 2000), pp. 18–32. And for the brahminical context in which the doct
rine of ‘not-self’ is argued, see R.F. Gombrich, How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings (London: Athlone, 1996), pp. 14–21.
60 The Vessantara Jataka is traditionally recited at wakes. See Cone and Gombrich, Perfect Generosity , p. xlii.
The Far Past
The Bodhisatta Vow and the Ten Perfections
According to the tradition, four countless aeons (asankheyyanam) and one hundred thousand kalpas (kappasatasahassadhikanam) ago, the hero of the Jatakas, the Bodhisatta, made the resolve to become a Fully Awakened Buddha. These extracts are from the Jatakanidana, a separate work from the Jatakas, usually regarded as their introduction, that describe this. 1 Catching sight of the last Buddha, Dipankara, the Bodhisatta is so inspired that he prostrates himself at his feet. Although the possibility of enlightenment occurs at that moment, he chooses instead to make a vow to attain Buddhahood himself, thus showing a path for other beings to follow to find an end to suffering. ‘. . . I would rather, like Ten-Powered Dipankara, seek for the highest, complete awakening. I will embark on the ship of dhamma and take the great mass of people across the ocean of existence: afterwards I will attain to complete nibbana. This would become me.’ In order to prepare himself he must develop, over countless lifetimes, the ten perfections, the attributes needed which will enable him to do this. His determination is interspersed with injunctions from Dipankara that address the listener as ‘you’.