The story of Dharmaruci In the Divyāvadāna and Kemendra's Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā

2008 ◽  
Vol 51 (2) ◽  
pp. 137-185
Author(s):  
Jonathan A. Silk
Keyword(s):  
Present Contribution ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
Initial Rupture ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Textual Basis ◽  
The Buddha

AbstractOf the myriad tales found in Indian Buddhist literature, the story of Dharmaruci is, from many points of view, among the more interesting, engaging as it does iconic themes of incest and patricide. A great deal may be said about this story, particularly in comparison with the tale of Mahādeva, the schismatic monk blamed by some for the initial rupture in the Buddhist monastic community roughly a century after the death of the Buddha. Any detailed study of this story, as of any such story, however, naturally requires the best possible textual sources. The present contribution, therefore, is dedicated in the first place to an effort to establish the textual basis for the Dharmaruci story in Indian sources in Sanskrit, as found in the Divyāvadāna collection, and upon that basis in Kemendra's Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā.

1. Buddhist morality

2020 ◽  
pp. 1-16
Author(s):  
Damien Keown
Keyword(s):  
Common Core ◽  
Moral Beliefs ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
The Law ◽  
Moral Teachings ◽  
Lay Buddhists ◽  
Moral Choices ◽  
The Buddha

This chapter summarizes the main moral teachings, precepts, and virtues common to the major schools of Buddhism. While these schools often exhibit divergent practices and customs, it seems legitimate to speak of them sharing a common moral core grounded in the teachings of the Buddha originating in the 5th century bce and then handed down largely unaltered through the centuries. A central part of this common core are the Five Precepts observed by lay Buddhists everywhere. The monastic community has its own set of rules and regulations in the Vinaya. Buddhist moral beliefs are underpinned by the cosmic principle of Dharma, of which the law of karma is an aspect. Like science, karma is objective, but unlike science it is not value-free. Karma is concerned with voluntary actions and the good and bad consequences flowing from moral choices.

Unfortunate Destiny

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Reiko Ohnuma
Keyword(s):  
Moral Agency ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
Buddhist Doctrine ◽  
Physical Presence ◽  
Spiritual Potential ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Identity And Difference

This book focuses on the imagery and roles of nonhuman animals in premodern South Asian Buddhist literature. Part I examines the animal realm of rebirth in Buddhist doctrine and cosmology and shows that early Buddhist literature depicts the animal rebirth as a most “unfortunate destiny” (Skt. durgati), won through negative karma and characterized by violence, fear, suffering, and a lack of wisdom, moral agency, or spiritual potential. It also shows that although animals are capable of being reborn in heaven, the means by which this occurs are passive in nature, highly dependent upon the physical presence of a buddha, and categorically inferior to the spiritual cultivation unique to human beings alone. In contrast, Part II looks at the thinking, speaking, and highly anthropomorphized animals that populate many previous-life stories of the Buddha (jātakas). Not only do these animals exhibit wisdom and moral agency, they also use their powers of speech to condemn humanity for its moral shortcomings and expose humanity’s rampant abuse and exploitation of the animal world. Part III examines the roles played by major animal characters within the life-story of the Buddha, arguing that certain animal characters can be seen as “doubles” of the Buddha, illuminating the Buddha’s character through comparison with an animal “other.” Throughout the book, the author shows that humanity’s relationship to the animal is forever characterized by a simultaneous kinship and otherness, identity and difference, attraction and repulsion—and that discourse surrounding animals is primarily aimed at illuminating the nature of the human.

scholarly journals Literary Elements of the Sāstrā Lbaeng

MANUSYA ◽  
2008 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 84-92
Author(s):  
Santi Pakdeekam
Keyword(s):  
Life Time ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
The Buddha

This article studies and analyzes the literary elements of the Sāstrā Lbaeng. The “Sāstrā Lbaeng” or “Lbaeng Story” is a genre of medieval Khmer literature, which was composed to provide pleasure and entertainment for its readers. The literary elements of the Sāstrā Lbaeng include nine elements: 1) The eulogies of the Sāstrā Lbaeng classified into three types based on the language used, namely, Pāli, Khmer and Pāli-Khmer eulogies; 2) The date of composition, written after the eulogy; 3) The poet’s critical remarks about his work giving information about the author’s name, identity and career; 4) The purpose of the Sāstrā Lbaeng as being mostly to maintain Buddhism; 5) The source in Buddhist literature which inspired the composition; 6) The opening and setting, which are influenced by the “Story of the present” of the Jātaka literature; 7) The content which reflects the influence of Buddhist concepts; 8) Prachum Jātaka or Samodhāna explains the identity of the characters during the life time of the Buddha; 9) Some of the Sāstrā Lbaeng includes the aspiration of the poet or the audience to attain Nirvana. More than one topic may be included in the postscript.

scholarly journals Rola starszych w wybranych starożytnych regułach monastycznych

Vox Patrum ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 56 ◽  
pp. 437-445
Author(s):  
Krzysztof Ościłowski
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Legal Rules ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
Points Of View ◽  
Important Position ◽  
Special Respect

In the ancient Monastic Rules we can find various principles concerning the Community, persons and Monasteries. Among them we can also find some norms that ap­ply to the so called „Elders” or „seniors”. They distinguish themselves from other monks, by being more advanced in the spiritual and ascetic life and because of this they are set as an example to follow for other Monks. For this reason they have rights to special respect from their fellow brothers. That is the first group of „Elders”. The other group of „Elders” contains Monks of venerable age. They occupy an important position in the monastic community and for this reason their advices, instructions, and admonishes are significant and are often treated as the legal rules. In some cases, „the Elders” are treated as substi­tutes of Superiors, for example: in preaching, in giving permissions, and in rebuking their fellow brothers, as well as superiors. They are also responsible for the formation of nov­ices. The „Elders” were to be respected and those of venerable age were dispensed from certain duties and norms of the Monastic Rule. Summarizing we can say that the role of the „Elders” in the Community was very important from all points of view.

Becoming Chinese Buddhas: Claims to Authority and the Making of Chan Buddhist Identity

T oung Pao ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 105 (3-4) ◽  
pp. 357-400
Author(s):  
Kevin Buckelew
Keyword(s):  
Song Dynasty ◽  
Critical Period ◽  
Literal Meaning ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
The Song Dynasty ◽  
Personal Status ◽  
Elite Status ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Buddhist Monasticism

AbstractAccording to many recent scholars, by the Song dynasty Chan Buddhists had come to identify not primarily as meditation experts—following the literal meaning of chan—but rather as full-fledged buddhas. This article pursues a deeper understanding of how, exactly, Chan Buddhists claimed to be buddhas during the eighth through eleventh centuries, a critical period in the formation of Chan identity. It also addresses the relationship between Chan Buddhists’ claims to the personal status of buddhahood, their claims to membership in lineages extending back to the Buddha, and their appeals to doctrines of universal buddhahood. Closely examining Chan Buddhists’ claims to be buddhas helps explain the tradition’s rise to virtually unrivaled elite status in Song-era Buddhist monasticism, and illuminates the emergence of new genres of Chan Buddhist literature—such as “discourse records” (yulu)—that came to be treated with the respect previously reserved for canonical Buddhist scriptures.

World of the Buddha: An Introduction to Buddhist Literature

1983 ◽  
Vol 103 (4) ◽  
pp. 812
Author(s):  
James P. McDermott ◽  
Lucien Stryk
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
The Buddha

scholarly journals Apropos Aesthetic Autonomy

2013 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Friedemann Sallis
Keyword(s):  
Present Contribution ◽  
The Past ◽  
Aesthetic Autonomy ◽  
Points Of View

The present contribution to the Colloquy takes issue with problematic positions on aesthetic autonomy in music, which have appeared over the past couple of years in the pages of this journal. The tone is frank, the intention is constructive and the point is to engage in an exchange of ideas with colleagues who may have different points of view on these matters.

Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Buswell Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Korean Buddhism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Annotated Translation

Numinous Awareness is Never Dark examines the issue of whether enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is sudden or gradual: that is, something achieved in a sudden flash of insight, or through the gradual development of a sequential series of practices. In Excerpts, the Korean Zen master Chinul (1158-1210) offers one of the most thorough treatments of this “sudden/gradual issue” in all of premodern East Asian Buddhist literature, including extensive quotations from a wide range of his predecessors in Chinese and Korean Buddhism on the sudden/gradual issue. In Chinul’s analysis, enlightenment is actually both sudden and gradual: an initial sudden awakening to the numinous awareness, the buddha-nature, that is inherent in all sentient beings, followed by gradual cultivation that removes the deep-seated habitual proclivities of thought and conduct that continue to appear even after awakening. Chinul’s preferred approach of “sudden awakening/gradual cultivation” becomes emblematic of the subsequent Korean Buddhist tradition. In addition to an extensive study of the contours of the sudden/gradual debate in Buddhist thought and practice, the book also includes a complete, copiously annotated translation of Chinul’s magnum opus. In Buswell’s treatment, Chinul’s Excerpts emerges as the single most influential work ever written by a Korean Buddhist author.

scholarly journals Texts and Ritual: Buddhist Scriptural Tradition of the Stūpa Cult and the Transformation of Stūpa Burial in the Chinese Buddhist Canon

Religions ◽  
2019 ◽  
Vol 10 (12) ◽  
pp. 658
Author(s):  
Wen Sun
Keyword(s):  
Tang Dynasty ◽  
Funeral Ritual ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
Medieval China ◽  
The Tang Dynasty ◽  
Canonical Texts ◽  
The Buddha

Chinese translations of Buddhist sūtras and Chinese Buddhist literature demonstrate how stūpas became acknowledged in medieval China and how clerics and laypeople perceived and worshiped them. Early Buddhist sūtras mentioned stūpas, which symbolize the presence of the Buddha and the truth of the dharma. Buddhist canonical texts attach great significance to the stūpa cult, providing instructions regarding who was entitled to have them, what they should look like in connection with the occupants’ Buddhist identities, and how people should worship them. However, the canonical limitations on stūpa burial for ordinary monks and prohibitions of non-Buddhist stūpas changed progressively in medieval China. Stūpas appeared to be erected for ordinary monks and the laity in the Tang dynasty. This paper aims to outline the Buddhist scriptural tradition of the stūpa cult and its changes in the Chinese Buddhist Canon, which serves as the doctrinal basis for understanding the significance of funerary stūpas and the primordial archetype for the formation of a widely accepted Buddhist funeral ritual in Tang China.

The Buddha’s Teachings to Lay People

2011 ◽  
Vol 28 (1) ◽  
pp. 3-77 ◽  
Author(s):  
John L Kelly
Keyword(s):  
Middle Class ◽  
Demographic Characteristics ◽  
Class Differences ◽  
Strong Emphasis ◽  
Lay People ◽  
Monastic Community ◽  
The Buddha

In this work, all the discourses addressed to lay people in the four main nik?yas of the P?li Canon, and most of those in the fifth (Khuddaka), have been surveyed, categorised, and analysed. The different ways in which the Buddha customised his style of teaching and the Dhamma being taught according to the various demographic characteristics of his audience (i.e., age, gender, class, and spiritual attainment) are explored, highlighted and discussed. Some of the findings are to be expected, whereas others are less so. There are several clear gender and class differences in the type of discourse used, the topics of the teaching, and in whether the sutta is oriented to lead the listener to the more worldly goals of happiness in this life or a good rebirth, as opposed to being directed towards complete liberation from rebirth. There are differences too based on the age of the addressees, but less pronounced. This survey has also brought forth some distinct characteristics of the different nik?yas of the P?li Canon in terms of their suttas to the lay community. The A?guttara Nik?ya contains more suttas targeted directly to lay people, plus many others of the ‘indirect’ variety, more suttas addressed to women and to the middle-class, and a higher emphasis on the goals of happiness in this life and a good rebirth. Overall the suttas addressed to lay people show a very strong emphasis on good conduct by body, speech, and mind. But this paper hasn’t addressed whether there would be a different emphasis shown in an examination of the suttas addressed exclusively to the monastic community, and this is an area that warrants further exploration. A comprehensive catalogue of suttas in the P?li Canon that are addressed to householders is included in an appendix.

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