by Donald Lopez
Obeying the command of that vessel of compassion,
He sent to the unfortunate woman
An overflowing vessel of delectable food.
And when the people saw
The miraculous deed Rūpyāvatī had done,
They were so amazed,
They suddenly shook their hands [in the air]
Like twigs [shaking on a tree].
And people said to her:
‘By means of this deed you have done,
Even the hearts of the wicked
Are now incited towards generosity!
‘Surely, you, as a favour to the world,
Stand firm as the very embodiment
Of that which is known as “the perfection of generosity”
Among those who strive for enlightenment.
‘How your sharp intellect
Contrasts with your female sex!
How this gift [of yours]
Stands in contrast with your delicate form!
By this virtuous woman’s gift,
Which surpasses all gifts,
Other givers have been put to shame!’
Then Rūpyāvatī’s husband performed an act of truth:
‘As no one else – not even a man –
Has given such a gift before,
By means of this truth,
Let my wife’s breasts immediately be restored!’
As soon as the householder had performed his act of truth,
Her chest was restored, heavy with the weight of her bosoms.
And then Rūpyāvatī once again adorned the city,
Like a lotus pond that relieves the thirst of the world
Through the water of generosity.
Her heavy breasts were like two Cakravākā birds,
Her beautiful face was like a lotus,
And her teeth were like lotus filaments.
Then Śakra, king of the gods, began to wonder: ‘By means of this gift, which surpasses all gifts in the world, does Rūpyāvatī wish to expel me from the City of the Immortals and herself assume sovereignty over the gods?’ With an apprehensive mind, and eager to know how she felt, he plunged through the sky, dark with masses of diffuse rain clouds, and descended into the capital city of Utpalāvatī. He magically turned himself into a very beautiful brahmin. His chest was adorned with a white sacred thread woven from lotus-fibres; his neck was beautified by a string of beads; one shoulder was hidden from the eyes of women by a spotted black antelope skin; and he carried a bag made out of leaves in his right hand. Pretending to beg for food, he came to Rūpyāvatī’s house.
Then Rūpyāvatī brought hard and soft foods of various types and offered them to Śakra, disguised in the excellent form of a brahmin. The lord of gods greeted her and said:
‘The whole world is adorned by the fame
Resulting from the sacrifice of your breasts.
It spreads [in all directions]
And is as dazzlingly bright as a piece of conch shell.
‘By means of this austerity,
Do you desire to conquer the station belonging to Indra?
Good woman,
I ask you this only out of curiosity.’
Then she declared to the lord of gods:
‘As I wish only for the state of a victor [a buddha]
In order to bring peace to the three worlds,
O brahmin, by means of this truth of mine,
Let my sex become male immediately,
For manhood is an abode of virtue in this world.’
As soon as she had spoken these words,
She attained the state of a man,
And Śakra went back to his own city
With a satisfied mind.
And when they heard that this miraculous deed
Had been accomplished in the world,
The people’s resolve became even stronger.
And when her two breasts –
Swollen like the frontal lobes of an elephant in rut –
Saw just a few beard hairs as dark as collyrium powder
Appearing on that moon-like face,
They immediately disappeared into a broad chest,
As if out of shame.
And the bodhisattva came to be known in the world by the name of Rūpyāvata.
Then, some time later, in the capital city of Utpalāvatī, the king died without an heir. And after the king died, the city was no longer resplendent, like a night when the moon is in eclipse.
Then, when several days had passed, and the ministers had comforted the women of the palace (though their own grief was great over the loss of the king), they spoke as follows to the assembled citizens.
‘Because we have no leader, our country could, at some point, be taken over by our enemies and deprived of its own leadership. And then all our effort would be too late and nothing but a cause for our weariness, like the digging of a well to put out the fire of a burning house. So this is our opportunity. This youth Rūpyāvata is endowed with all the marks of royalty and all desirable virtues. Thus, it is he whom we should consecrate into sovereignty.’
So the joyful citizens performed the consecration of him
Whose mind was totally devoted to helping others.
Together with his entourage,
They raised [over him] a beautiful white parasol
With a pair of chowrie-fans.
They festooned the market places and arched doorways with garlands,
Perfumed the streets and highways by sprinkling fragrant water,
And filled the streets with charming dancers.
They made their city like the palace of Kubera.
Then the rain clouds gave them water,
Seasonably and to their heart’s content,
And no natural disasters ever gave them trouble.
With that lord of the earth
Ruling the earth through good government,
People no longer heard even the word ‘suffering’.
The rice grew abundantly without being cultivated,
And the trees were always laden with flowers and fruit,
As if kingship itself were ruling over the well-ruled earth.
The water-buffalo gushed forth such abundant milk,
They virtually milked themselves.
He had fulfilled his desire for uncurtailed giving.
His senses were restrained, and he possessed good fortune
And the three constituents of regal power – [sovereignty, good counsel and energy].
His body was adorned with the ornaments of various good qualities.
With that earth-protector,
The world was [truly] blessed with a king.
That lion among kings,
Whose lotus-feet were worshipped by the other kings
And whose face was like a lotus,
Mounted a lion-throne.
Though solitary by nature,
He taught the dhartna leading to the ultimate fruit
On behalf of his people.
‘Look at the magnitude of the fruit resulting from generosity!
By means of it, I have got rid of my female state
Right here, in this world,
And as the fruit of a celebrated birth,
I have produced the state of a man –
Made delightful by its sovereignty over the world
And its three regal constituents.
‘Moreover, this is nothing more than a single flower
Blooming on the tree of generosity –
For another, greater fruit will be produced
In the world to come.
Repeatedly keeping this in mind,
You should all deposit endless treasure-stores of gifts,
Spotless in virtue, among the world of supplicants.
‘If the soil of the field of supplicants
Were not sprinkled with the waters of virtue,
Where would the giver who desires the fruit of generosity
Plant the seeds of his gifts?
<
br /> ‘Those who exceed their fellow man
In giving away their famous merit –
What man, if he has any wisdom,
Would wish to scare such people away from their supplicants,
Contracting his brows like a snake?
‘One person constantly speaks words full of praise,
While another person speaks words that are cruel.
One person looks [on others] respectfully,
While another, through snobbery, looks [on them] with disdain.
One person gives away many things,
While another gives only one thing.
I am a giver,
And the girl rich in virtue whom I ask to marry
Will conquer me
By the former qualities.
‘If all directions are to be made fragrant with flower-garlands of virtue,
Or if your heart desires to experience a great fruit,
Then flourishing trees of wealth
With shades of great fame
Must be planted in the ground of supplicants
Every single day.’
Then, having lived in the world for sixty years,
Having constantly gratified virtuous supplicants,
Having made all directions shine as brightly as a white water-lily
By means of his fame,
That king, rich in virtue,
Went to another rebirth.
Thus, in such a way, did the Lord give away his own flesh, even when he was a woman. So who, indeed, as a man, would show concern for material things?
This story should be told to encourage people to give.
Translated by Reiko Ohnuma from Rūpyāvatījatakam in the Haribhaṭṭa-Jātakamālā, in Michael Hahn, Haribhaṭṭa and Gopadatta: Two Authors in the Succession of Āryaśūra. On the Rediscovery of Parts of Their Jātakamālās, 2nd edn., Studia Philologica Buddhica Occasional Paper Series No. 1 (Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1992; orig. pub. 1977), pp. 51–7.
20
HOW THE BUDDHA BECAME A BODHISATTVA
The Buddha brought the dharma to our world, for our age. But, as is clear from preceding chapters, he was not the first buddha, and he was not (at least according to some) the only buddha present in the universe at the time. Yet, he is our buddha and thus is regarded with especial respect and devotion. He could not have become a buddha and taught the dharma if he had not first become a bodhisattva, and he could not have become a bodhisattva had he not been inspired to set out on the long path to buddhahood for the sake of liberating all beings in the universe from suffering. Thus, the occasion, in the far distant past, when the person who would eventually become our buddha made the vow to achieve buddhahood, is an event of momentous importance, and hence the subject of considerable attention.
The story of the yogin Sumedha, who vowed to become a buddha in the presence of the past buddha Dīpaṃkara, is well known (see Chapter 15). But there are many other stories, one of which is told here. It occurs in a Mahāyāna sūtra called The Dispelling of Ajātaśatru’s Remorse (Ajātaśatru, king of Magadha, had murdered his father, Bimbisāra, a patron of the Buddha, but later repented). The Mahāyāna character of the text is clear from the opening paragraphs in which some gods decide that the path of the bodhisattva is too long and difficult and thus decide to follow the shorter path to the nirvāṇa of the śrāvaka or pratyekabuddha. Reading their thoughts, the Buddha devises a stratagem to inspire them to seek buddhahood.
When a layman presents a bowl of food to the Buddha, the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī demands some of it, causing the monk Śāriputra to wonder what event in the past could be the cause of this apparently rude request. The Buddha takes the bowl and throws it to the ground. The bowl does not stop there, however, but passes through myriad worlds until it stops in the buddha-field of a buddha named Raśmirāja. The Buddha then asks various of his disciples, first his chief monks and then the future buddha Maitreya, to locate the bowl, but none is able to do so. The task falls to the bodhisattva of wisdom, Mañjuśrī, who, with a gesture reminiscent of the comic book superhero Plastic Man, stretches his right arm down into the ground and through the various world-systems below until it grasps the bowl. The bodhisattvas in the retinue of the buddha Raśmirāja inquire about the presence of the elongated but resplendent arm that has suddenly appeared in their midst. Raśmirāja explains its source, and, using his miraculous powers, allows his disciples to see our world, causing one bodhisattva to observe, with a certain repugnance, ‘Lord, just like priceless beryl gemstones thrown in the mud, Lord, so are those bodhisattvas and mahās-attvas who are reborn in the world-system Sahā to be regarded.’ This is not an untypical response from those in other universes, who find our world less opulent than theirs. The bodhisattva is admonished for his remark.
Mañjuśrī retrieves the bowl, his arm emitting blessings as it moves back up through the universe. The Buddha then tells a story set in a time long ago in a universe far away. A small child saw a monk returning from his begging round and asked for something to eat, which the monk gladly provided. The child followed the monk back to where the buddha of that time was staying. The monk then gave the child some more food and instructed him to place it in the buddha’s bowl. The child did so, and the food became magically inexhaustible, feeding thousands of monks and bodhisattvas for seven days. The monk then convinced the child to take refuge in the three jewels and to vow to achieve enlightenment for the sake of all beings. The child’s parents arrived shortly thereafter and gave their approval for their son to become a monk. The Buddha, as in a jātaka story, then returns to the present to identify the characters in the story in their present form. One might imagine that the Buddha had been the monk and that the bodhisattva Mañjuśrī had been the young child. But the opposite was true. The monk was Mañjuśrī, and it was he who had inspired our buddha to embark on the path to buddhahood. The Buddha then reveals that Mañjuśrī had done this not only for him, but for countless other buddhas of the past, that Mañjuśrī, who appears in the form of a youthful prince, is, in fact, the father of all buddhas. It is fitting then, that Mañjuśrī receive some food from the Buddha’s bowl, for he had caused the Buddha, long ago, to place food in the bowl of a previous buddha, and it was that meritorious deed that had set him on the path to enlightenment.
Scholars sometimes make reference to the ‘cult of the bodhisattva’, of tendencies in certain Mahāyāna sūtras to exalt a particular bodhisattva above all others, and even above the Buddha himself. This text would seem to be an example of this tendency.
[The Buddha is on Mount Gṛdhrakūṭa (‘Vulture Peak’) near Rājagrha with a massive assembly of monks, bodhisattvas and other mythical beings of various types. The manifold subtleties of the dharma and the arduous requirements of the bodhisattva path are being expounded.]
This thought occurred to 200 deities from that assembly who had previously practised but had lost the aspiration to awakening, ‘If the dharmas [teachings or qualities] of a buddha are so limitless, if the course of training of a bodhisattva is so very hard to follow, and if supreme and perfect awakening is that difficult to realize, then we cannot follow this training, so let us achieve parinirvāna [final liberation] by means of the way of the śrāvakas or the way of the pratyekabuddhas!’
Thereupon the Lord, reading the minds of those gods, and thinking, ‘Oh! These gods are destined to awaken to supreme and perfect awakening’, for the purpose of guiding those gods conjured up a householder outside that assembly, a householder who was holding in his right hand a bowl filled with food which had a hundred different flavours. Then that householder came to the Lord, prostrated himself at the Lord’s feet, and presented the bowl of food to the Lord, saying, ‘May the Lord deign to receive this food out of compassion for me’, at which the Lord accepted the bowl full of food.
Thereupon Prince Mañjuśrī rose from his seat, arranged his outer robe on one shoulder, placed his palms together and said to the Lord, ‘If the Lord does not
deign to give me some of this food, the Lord will be guilty of ingratitude.’ Then the venerable Śāriputra thought to himself, ‘Oh! In what way was Prince Mañjuśrī formerly of service to the Lord that he should now accuse the Lord of ingratitude?’ Then the Lord, reading the venerable Śāriputra’s mind, said to the venerable Śāriputra, ‘Śāriputra, as a tathāgata I know the right time, so wait and I shall tell you.’
Thereupon the Lord threw the bowl to the ground, and as soon as he had done so that bowl passed before the eyes of those perfectly awakened ones in all the buddha-fields down below in which buddhas and lords lived, dwelt and resided. Then, after passing through as many buddha-fields down below as there are grains of sand in the River Ganges, that bowl came to rest, hovering unsupported in mid-air, in the world-system called Avabhāsa, in the buddha-field occupied by the realized, worthy and perfectly awakened one named Raśmirāja. Those who were in personal attendance on those buddhas and lords asked, ‘Lord, where has this bowl come from?’ to which those buddhas and lords replied, ‘It has come from a world-system up above known as Sahā, from the presence of the Lord, the realized, worthy and perfectly awakened one Śākyamuni, and it has been thrown in order to guide other bodhisattvas.’
Thereupon the Lord said to the venerable Śāriputra, ‘Śāriputra, fetch that bowl and find out where and in what place it is.’ Then the venerable Śāriputra entered 10,000 samādhis [meditative trances] and passed through 10,000 buddha-fields by means of the power of his own wisdom and the power of the Buddha, but still failed to see the whereabouts or location of that bowl, after which he sat down once again in the presence of the Lord. Having sat down he said to the Lord, ‘Lord, I did not see the whereabouts or location of that bowl.’ Then the Lord said to the venerable Mahāmaudgalyāyana, ‘Maudgalyāyana, you look for that bowl.’ Then the venerable Mahāmaudgalyāyana, after entering 10,000 samādhis, passed through 10,000 buddha-fields down below by means of the power of the Buddha and the power of his own magic, but still failed to see the whereabouts or location of that bowl, after which he sat down once again in the presence of the Lord. Having sat down he said to the Lord, ‘Lord, I did not see the whereabouts or location of that bowl.’ Thereupon the Lord said to the venerable Subhūti, ‘Subhūti, you look for that bowl.’ Then the venerable Subhūti, after entering 12,000 samādhis, went through 12,000 buddha-fields down below by means of the power of the Buddha and the power of his own magic, but still failed to see that bowl, after which he sat down once again in the presence of the Lord. Having sat down he said to the Lord, ‘Lord, I did not see the whereabouts or location of that bowl.’ In that way 500 great ārāvakas failed to find that bowl, even though they looked for it using their particular magical powers and their divine vision.