Venerable Chongdok C. H. Park
Department of Buddhist Scripture Translation, Joong-Ang Sangha University
This story is the beginning part of the Śākyas’ massacre by Virūḍhaka in the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya Kṣudrakavastu (MSVKv). From the viewpoint of social history, this story reflects women’s position in Indian society. The position of women in this story is not wholly Buddhist, but rather the addition of Buddhist values in a pan-Indian context. The view of women in this story is not wholly positive. The ancient Indian attitude toward women was in fact ambivalent. Woman was at once a goddess and a slave, a saint and a strumpet. The same ambiguous image of women runs through this Buddhist story. From the viewpoint of literary theory, the Mallikā story is an example of the Indo-European Cinderella. This story shows that perhaps the oldest extant version of the Indo-European Cinderella is in India and is faithful to its original structure.
(Presented in the 2013 Chulalongkorn Asian Heritage Forum: The Emergence and Heritage of Asian Women Intellectuals, 10-11 September 2013, Imperial Queen’s Park Hotel, Bangkok, organized by Institute of Thai Studies, Institute of Asian Studies, Faculty of Arts and Indian Studies Center, Chulalongkorn University)