Buddhist Scriptures

by Donald Lopez

  The venerable Upāli, rising from his seat and putting his upper robe over one shoulder, paid respect to the elder monks. He sat on the preacher’s seat holding a fan with an ivory-inlaid handle. Then the venerable Mahākassapa, seated on the elder’s seat, asked the venerable Upāli about vinaya. Thus, the teachers of old said:

  And the elder Mahākassapa himself agreed to ask about the vinaya and the elder Upāli agreed to answer. Among them, the Pārājika section, next the Pācittiya, the Vibhaṅga for bhikkhunīs, then the Mahāvagga, the Cullavagga, and the Parivāra are considered to be the Vinayapiṭaka. They are called the Vinayapiṭaka.

  Then the venerable elder Upāli laid down the fan with the ivory-inlaid handle and descended from the preacher’s seat. He paid respect to the older monks and sat in the seat assigned to him.

  Then the venerable elder Mahākassapa agreed to ask about dhamma and the elder Ānanda agreed to answer about dhamma. The elder Ānanda sat in the preacher’s seat and took the fan with the ivory-inlaid handle. Ānanda said, ‘Thus have I heard.’ Thus, the teachers of old said:

  The thirty-four suttas which are grouped in three sections are the Dīghanikāya and come first in a natural sequence. The 152 suttas which are taken in fifteen sections, these are the Majjhimanikāya. The 7762, suttas are the Saṃyuttanikāya and the 9557 numbered suttas are the Aṅguttara. The Khuddakanikāya is considered as divided into fifteen books: the Khuddakapaṭho, Dhammapada, Udāna, Itivuttako, Suttanipāta, Vimāna and Petavatthu, and next the Thera and Therī gāthās, the Jātaka, the Niddesa, the Paṭisambhidā, the Apadāna, the Buddhavaṃsa, and the Cariyāpiṭaka. This is the Suttapiṭaka by name, divided into five collections. The Dhammasaṅgaṇī and the Vibhaṅga, and the Dhātukathā come next. Then the Puggalapaññatti and the Kathāvatthuppakaraṇa, the Yamaka and the Mahāpaṭṭhāna, these are the seven divisions of the basket called the Abhidhamma which was taught by the fully enlightened one. This is what is called the Abhidhammapiṭaka.

  Thus, the Council members said:

  I have learned 82,000 from the Buddha and 2,000 from the monks, but all 84,000 units of the dhamma are beneficial.

  Kassapa asked about vinaya and Upāli answered, and Kassapa asked about dhamma and Ānanda answered. Thus the First Council was finished in seven months.

  Translated by Charles Hallisey from the Saṇgītyavaṃsa by Vimaladhamma, from an unpublished edition of the Pali text by Charles Hallisey, pp. 45–59.

  16

  MĀYĀ, MOTHER OF THE BUDDHA

  In Chapter 14, the Buddha recounted how he left his weeping parents and went off in search of a state beyond suffering. In Chapter 6, Nāgasena explained to King Milinda that the universe can sustain only one buddha at a time. Things did not remain that simple. In accounts of the Buddha’s birth, it was reported that the future Buddha’s mother, Māyādevī or Queen Māyā, dreamed that a white elephant had entered her womb. The bodhisattva was not born through the usual route, but emerged from his mother’s right side. Shortly thereafter, his mother died. According to some commentators, the womb of a buddha’s mother must remain unsullied after his birth (with her death apparently providing the only assurance that it would remain so). According to others, she would have died of a broken heart when her son renounced the world and set out in search of liberation from suffering. Because she was therefore unable to benefit from her son’s teachings, it is said that the Buddha travelled magically to the Heaven of the Thirty-Three (where she had been reborn) in order to teach her the dharma.

  The entry of the future Buddha into his mother’s womb and, by extension, into the human realm is a momentous event in the history of the universe, and elaborate descriptions of that descent and of that womb appear in a number of texts. One of the most famous is found in the forty-fourth chapter of the Gaṇḍavyūha, a Mahāyāna sūtra dating perhaps from the second century CE. The story has been described as a Buddhist Pilgtim’s Progress, but such a comparison does little to convey the text’s visionary qualities. It is the story of the young Sudhana, the son of a guild master, who goes in search of enlightenment. Along the way he encounters all manner of exalted beings, each of whom provides him with instruction. After some fifty such meetings, he finally comes into the presence of Maitreya, the next buddha, and of the bodhisattva Samantabhadra.

  In the course of his journey, he meets Māyā, the mother of Śākyamuni Buddha. She describes in elaborate detail how her son entered her womb, revealing that it was able to accommodate much more than a white elephant, without for a moment distorting her form. She reveals that it was not only the bodhisattva Siddhārtha who descended from the Tusita (Joyous) Heaven and entered her womb. Countless identical bodhisattvas accompanied him, to become buddhas simultaneously in millions of similar universes. She reveals as well that she is the mother not only of all the buddhas of the present, but of all the buddhas of the past. And she will be the mother of the next buddha, Maitreya.

  Coming out of various trance states, Sudhana circumambulated Māyādevī and her retinue; he circumambulated Māyādevī and her palace and throne. He stood before her, hands folded in reverence, and said, ‘Under the tutelage of the young Mañjuśrī I had conceived a desire for perfect enlightenment. Mañjuśrī then encouraged me to seek out and serve companions who could aid me in my quest. I have been going from one such companion to the next and in my search have come in turn to you. Tell me, noble lady, how does a bodhisattva, cultivating the practice of the bodhisattva, achieve perfection with respect to omniscience?’

  She replied, ‘O noble son, I have achieved mastery of the visionary state known as mahāpraṇidhānajñānamāyāgatavyūha, the visionary state in which there are magical manifestations that come about through the marvellous workings of the knowledge of the great vows. And having achieved mastery over that visionary state, I am the mother of the innumerable bodhisattvas in their final birth, who are destined to become the buddha Vairocana; indeed in all the Jambudvīpa continents in all of the different world-systems, many are the magical appearances of the births of the blessed Vairocana as a bodhisattva in his last birth. All of those bodhisattvas are born into my womb. They all come out of my right side. In fact, O noble son, in this very world consisting of its four continents, in the city of Kapilavastu, as the wife of King Śuddhodana, I gave birth to the bodhisattva Siddhārtha, with a display of all the inconceivable magical powers that attend upon the birth of bodhisattvas.

  ‘At that time, O noble son, I was in the palace of King Śuddhodana. It came time for the bodhisattva to fall from Tusita Heaven, and light rays came out of each and every hair follicle of the bodhisattva’s body. These rays were as numerous as the grains of sand in countless Buddha fields; they were called sarvatathāgatajananīguṇamaṇḍalaprabhavaprabhāsā, illuminations that are the source of all the wondrous virtues that belong to the mother of all the tathāgatas, and they contained within them the hosts of excellent virtues that belong to the mother of all the bodhisattvas. These rays illuminated the entire world-system and then fell on to my body. They entered into my body from the tip of my head and then penetrated every pore of my body. Thus, O noble son, did those rays of light that had come from the bodhisattva, those rays of light with their many names, rays of light that give rise to the magical appearances associated with the mother of all the bodisattvas, all entered my body. And no sooner did that happen, O noble son, than those in my inner circle could see on my body the many miraculous appearances that are associated with the birth of all the bodhisattvas and that were made visible by that host of excellent light rays that came from the bodhisattva. And as soon as those rays from the bodhisattva entered my body, O noble son, then I could see before my very own eyes an entire host of bodhisattvas and their wondrous deeds; these were the bodhisattvas, the magical appearances of whose births had been announced by the rays that had come forth. That is to say, I saw these bodhisattvas seated on the most excellent seats of enlightenment; I saw them seated on the lion thrones of the buddhas; I saw them su
rrounded by their retinues of bodhisattvas; I saw them being worshipped by the Indras of all the worlds; I saw them turning the wheel of the dharma. And I even saw right before my very own eyes all of the previous tathāgatas that those tathāgatas had worshipped when they were cultivating the bodhisattva path in their previous births. I saw the magical appearances of their first conceiving the desire for enlightenment; I saw the magical appearances of their enlightenment, their turning of the wheel of the dharma, and their final nirvāṇa. I saw the magical appearances of the perfect purity of their buddha-lands. I even saw all of the wondrous manifestations that these tathāgatas, with every momentary changing thought, can produce in all of the universe; these too all appeared right before my very eyes. And, O noble son, when those light rays from the bodhisattva entered into my body, my body came to embrace the entire world. My womb became as expansive as the ether, but at the same time neither my body nor my womb exceeded normal human proportions. And then all of the magical manifestations of palaces in which the bodhisattvas are to dwell while in their mother’s womb, all of these palaces in all the ten directions, could be seen to be within my body; they could all be seen right inside my body.

  ‘Now, O noble son, as soon as there appeared in my body the wondrous assemblage of palaces in which the bodhisattvas are to abide while in the womb, then the bodhisattva Siddhārtha himself entered into my womb, accompanied by bodhisattvas as numerous as the grains of sand in all the buddha-fields in the ten directions; these bodhisattvas shared with him the same vow and the same religious practice; they shared the same roots of merit, the same manifestations and mastery of the same visionary states. They shared the same knowledge and occupied the same level in their training; they were adept at producing the same magical appearances and had cultivated the same vows; they had also mastered the same course of practice. These bodhisattvas all had bodies of the utmost refinement and subtlety and yet at the same time had control over countless gross physical bodies; they were adept at producing magical manifestations due to their cultivation of the bodhisattva practice that was in every way auspicious. They were all positioned inside a pavilion made from jewels that came from the crests of the kings of the snakes. The bodhisattva Siddhārtha was at the same time being worshipped by eighty-thousand snake kings, including the snake king Sāgara; he was also being worshipped by the Indras of all the worlds. Such was the great display of wonders appropriate to a bodhisattva, that as the bodhisattva Siddhārtha displayed his descent from Tusita Heaven, along with his retinue, and entered into my womb, many other wonderful things occurred. There appeared a descent of a bodhisattva from each of the multitude of Tusita Heavens, so that from every one of the multitude of Tusita Heavens a bodhisattva could be seen to descend and take birth in the various worlds consisting of four continents in all of the different universes. Thus did Siddhārtha enter into my womb, with the skill in means necessary to ripen all living beings, impelled by the many deluded beings, stirred on by the existence of so many false beliefs. There appeared a mass of rays of light. There was an end to darkness everywhere in the universe and to the sufferings that were caused by every sort of misfortune; there was an end to rebirth in hellish realms. Thus did Siddhārtha appear in response to the previous deeds that people had done and to save all living beings, and in such a way as to ensure that all living beings would see his body right before them.

  ‘And all of those bodhisattvas and snake kings and the rest of the bodhisattva Siddhārtha’s retinue walked about in my womb, with steps that covered the expanse of the vast three-thousandfold universe, steps as vast in extent as the world-systems, themselves as numerous as the grains of sand in countless buddha-fields. And all of those countless bodhisattvas that formed the retinue of the bodhisattva Siddhārtha scurried about in my womb in all the ten directions, seeking the feet of all the tathāgatas everywhere in the entire universe; they scurried about without a stop, every second, eager to get a glimpse of the marvellous manner in which the bodhisattva was dwelling in my womb. And the four great kings, the kings of the gods, Śakra, Suyāma, Saṃtuṣita, Sunirmitavaśavartin, and the Brahmā kings, all approached the bodhisattva as he was in the womb, in order to behold him and worship him; to pay him reverence and hear him preach the law and listen to him discourse. And my womb, accommodating all of that vast retinue, did not swell up. And my body did not look any different from any other human body. And yet it accommodated all of that vast retinue. And all of the gods and human beings could see the pure wonder of those magical manifestations of that miraculous crowd of so many bodhisattvas. And why was that? It was all a result of the bodhisattva’s vision state known as the vision state that pertains to the marvellous workings of the great vows. This is the vision state I first told you that I had mastered; indeed that vision is like a well-spoken magic charm.

  ‘And when, O noble son, in this continent of Jamudvīpa, in this world-system consisting of four continents, when I accept the bodhisattva into my womb, I also accept him into my womb in all of the Jambudvīpa continents in all of the four-continent world-systems in all of this three-thousand-fold universe. I do so with that very same host of magical manifestations that I have already described to you. And my body does not become manifold; nor does it become non-manifold. It is neither one nor many. This too occurs as a result of the bodhisattva’s vision state known as the vision state that pertains to the marvellous workings of the knowledge of the great vows. Indeed that vision is like a well-spoken magic charm.

  ‘And, O noble son, just as I was the mother of the tathāgata Vairocana, so have I been the mother of countless other previous tathāgatas. When a bodhisattva is about to be born in this world, it sometimes happens that he is born in a lotus. I become the goddess of the lotus pond and take that bodhisattva. And the world calls me the mother of the bodhisattva. Once he appeared in someone’s lap; there too I was his mother. If the bodhisattva is to be born in a buddha-field, then I become the goddess of the seat of enlightenment in that buddha-field. In this way, O noble son, bodhisattvas in their final birth can display various forms of birth as a form of skilful means to teach beings; I display similar skilful means and become their mothers.

  ‘O noble son, just as I was the mother of this blessed one in this world-system, when there were displayed all sorts of marvellous manifestations associated with the births of all the bodhisattvas, so I was the mother of the blessed tathāgata Krakucchanda, Kanakamuni and the tathāgata Kāśyapa. I shall similarly be the mother of all the future tathāgatas of this Bhadrakalpa Age. So, when it is time for the bodhisattva Maitreya to display his descent from Tusita Heaven, a light ray will go forth that is capable of displaying all of the miraculous appearances associated with the sojourn of a bodhisattva in the womb that will lead to his birth. When that ray has illuminated the host of worlds everywhere, then I will see clearly before my eyes those worlds in which the bodhisattva Maitreya is to teach living beings by displaying to them the appearances of his birth among human beings, in families of kings among men. In every one of those worlds I will be his mother.’

  Translated by Phyllis Granoff from the Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra, ed. P. L. Vaidya, Buddhist Sanskrit Texts, No. 5 (Darbhanga: Mithila Institute, 1960), pp. 346–47.

  17

  WHY THE BUDDHA HAD GOOD DIGESTION

  The Buddha was remarkable in mind and body. He was said to be endowed physically, for example, with the thirty-two major marks and eighty secondary marks of a superman, and his voice had sixty-four kinds of euphony. Such qualities of the Buddha were the direct result of his practice of virtue in former lives, and stories were told about what the Buddha had done in the past that caused him to possess a particular remarkable quality in the present. These stories illustrated both the great virtue of the Buddha and the workings of the law of karma. The story here explains why, when the community of monks suffered from a bout of gastric distress, the Buddha remained well.

  The Buddha tells the story of King Padmaka, a virtuous monarch who cares benevole
ntly for his subjects. When an epidemic strikes, he uses all of his resources to procure medicine, but to no avail; he is told that his people can be cured only by eating the flesh of a rare fish. The king concludes that he can provide no further benefit to his subjects in his present form and commits suicide, vowing to be reborn as this rare fish. His wish is granted, and he allows himself to be captured and eaten by his people, explaining to them that he is in fact King Padmaka, come back in the form of a fish to save them.

  The king’s sacrifice is a famous example of the virtue of giving, specifically giving the gift of the body (see the next two chapters). In a sense, the king sacrifices his body twice for the sake of his people: first by committing suicide and then by allowing his new ichthyoid flesh to be consumed. The fish is a bodhisattva and is freeing others from disease with the gift of his flesh so that he might free them from the disease of saṃsāra with the gift of the dharma when he achieves buddhahood in the distant future.

  This story is classed as an avadāna, perhaps best translated as ‘legend’. The term is used for an early genre of Buddhist stories in which a situation in the present is explained by recounting events from the past. In an avadarā, the protagonist may or may not be the Buddha in a former life (in this story he is); thus the genre of the avadāna and the genre of the jātaka intersect. These legends often begin with someone asking the Buddha why something is the way it is. The Buddha will then, using his prodigious memory of the past, tell a story of a former life in which something occurred whose effects are evident in the present. He will often conclude his account by identifying the characters in the story with members of his audience.