Ven. Chongdok Park
Department of Buddhist Scripture Translation, Joong-ang Sangha University, Korea
The Gupta period (300-500 CE) is the golden age of Sanskrit literature. While most Buddhist schools did not respond effectively to this trend, the Sarvāstivādins translated their version of the Tripiṭaka into Sanskrit, standardizing the language and terminology of their system in the interests of precision in exegesis. The Mūlasarvāstivādins went much further than simple translation with (possibly) a minimum of revision, and produced an elaborate rewriting of their Tripiṭaka, probably with the idea of assimilating it to current trends in literature (without, however, changing the doctrine) and so making it more popular. The Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya is the result of this effort.
In comparison with other Vinayas, Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya shows impressively the upgraded feature in terms of narrative. While the stories of other Vinayas pay attention only at their messages, those of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya show the developed narrative with various devices and plots which label the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya as the elaborate literary work. These devices and plots provide not only literary interest but also various informations on religious environment at that period.
This is the episode about the Buddha’s human shortcomings in a previous life which have produced bad karma. This avadāna is devoted to the story of how as a result of his bad karma the Buddha had to eat horse fodder barley. Among the Buddha’s so-called ten bad karma stories, which are often presented as a set, the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya provides a separate version of this story in the Bhaiṣajyavastu section. Besides the main theme of the Buddha’s bad karma, I show how this text presents the following topics as its literary devices: the seven treasures of a cakravartin, equal opportunity without sexual discrimination for attaining Buddhahood, offerings (dāna), aspiration (praṇidhāna), prediction (vyākaraṇa) and Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana’s exemption from bad karma.
This paper aims to show the literary development and competitiveness of the narratives of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya through the study of this episode.
(Presented in the International Conference – Buddhist Narrative in Asia and Beyond, 9-11 August 2010, Imperial Queen's Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Chulalongkorn University with support from The Thailand Research Fund (TRF), in co-operation with Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Fine and Applied Arts, Institute of Asian Studies, The Confucius Institute, Chulalongkorn University and l’École française d'Extrême-Orient (EFEO))