Comparison of Mahindian and post- Mahindian eras of Sri Lankan Buddhism July 11, 2014, 8:52 pm By Professor M. M. J. Marasinghe (Continued from last Saturday) The Mahindian tradition of Buddhism seems to have continued its productivity until about the fifth century of the Christian era when for some mysterious reasons the Mahavihara fraternity decided to use the expertise of a South Indian bhikkhu by the name of Buddhaghosa to translate the Sinhala commentaries of the Pali texts into Pali. It may also be noted here that nothing is said of Buddhaghosa’s knowledge of Sinhala. A close study of some of Buddhaghosa’s Pali commentaries seem to point to the possibility that he may not have much needed the help of the Sinhala commentaries for what he wrote into his Pali commentaries. As commentarial assistance is needed to understand the original texts, from the point of assisting those who desired to study and understand the teachings of the Buddha, their task was made doubly forbidding, if they were not scared off from the task. What really happened in actual practice was that the canonical texts were retired into the protective safety of the temple and Pirivena libraries, of course made accessible for worshippers to pay their respects to and earn merit for their nibbana. The new Pali commentaries to the canonical texts and the post canonical texts, full of stories and anecdotes which were, more often than not, anti or non canonical in substance, became very popular, especially as sermon material. Those who used these apparently were not aware of the contents of the original Pali canonical texts and believed all the non-Buddhist stories they read. According to a story appended to the commentary on the Kalingabodhi Jataka, a sapling from the Sri Mahabodhi at Buddhagaya was planted at the entrance to the monastery at Savatthi upon a request to the Buddha by Venerable Ananda. He made this request on behalf of the residents of Savatthi who came to see the Buddha with flowers and incense in their hands, when he was away to the provinces on his visits and were compelled to leave the offerings at the entrance to his room in the monastery. In his enthusiasm to tell the Sri Lankans that the Bodhi was worshipped with flowers and incense from the time of the Buddha, he seems to have disregarded the many discrepancies in his invented story. His insistence that residents of Savatthi came with flowers and incense in their hands to see the Buddha is unacceptable as the Buddha was the living human teacher who was visited by people to talk to and listen to him. He was not an object of worship. It is interesting to find that Savatthi where the Anandabodhi is claimed to have been planted had two monasteries Jetavana and Pubbarama at one of which the Buddha stayed when he was in Savatthi although Buddhaghosa does not say at which of the two it was planted. Also, the type of request if true should have come from many other cities and towns of Kosala and also of the neighbouring kingdom of Magadha as well. This type of request, it must be noted, is not found in any text of the Pali canon. According to the commentary on the Ratans Sutta, it was preached by the Buddha at Vesali, the capital city of the Vajjis to rid the city of the devastating epidemic which had afflicted it and the harassments from non-human beings (amanussa’). The Buddha is said to have taught the sutta to Venerable Ananda who went round the city chanting the sutta, sprinkling water from the Buddha’s bowl. Here too, if Buddhaghosa did not want to mis-interpret the canonical texts, he should have known that there are no beings called amanussa according to the Buddha. Further, there are no gods or other non-humans capable of inflicting harm, injury or ill-health upon human beings. The Atana’tiya and the Maha’samaya suttas of the Digha Nikaya stand out and do not fall in line with the overall philosophy of the Buddha on the amanussa and therefore cannot be regarded as part of the Buddha’s teaching at all. It may be noted here that blessing or healing rites such as paritta are classed as animal sciences tiraccha’na vijja) in the Samannaphala Sutta of the Digha Nikaya (D.1.67f). It is interesting to find that there are no literary or other evidence of a famine affecting Vesali, the capital city of the Vajjis. They were one of the most powerful and well organized tribal oligarchies of the Buddha’s day. They were too powerful for the neighbouring Magadhan Emperor to wage war on because of which he sent his Prime Minister Vassakara to consult the Buddha on the subject (D.11.72f). Thus, it is clear that the famine at Vesali which necessitated the chanting of the paritta blessing, like the worship of Anandabodhi just another of Buddhaghosa’s fairy tales written to install the rite into Buddhist acceptance, claiming approval from the Buddha himself. An important clarification has to be made here between veneration and worship. Veneration of a religious object like the bodhi, cetiya or a statue of the Buddha is the respectful recollection of the teacher with whom the object is associated. Such recollection is an incentive to follow the path of the great teacher, but unlike in worship there is no power transfer from the object to the client. Worship as such is different as it has been taken from theistic (god) religions. Each god has to be worshipped with the things he approves of and presented in the language and the manner prescribed. It is the process of the worship with its language and symbolism which claims the transfer of power from the deity to the client worshipper and of course guided through by the authorized mediator priest. It is clear that one objective which Buddhaghosa wanted to achieve through his network of commentaries — perhaps more relevant to those of the post-canonical Khuddaka Nikaya texts, was to install a system of theistic ritual covering all objects of veneration. What this meant in practice was the empowerment of all objects associated with the Buddha, with the ability or power to generate merit which is transferred to the client worshipper each time an object of veneration is so worshipped. Also, this merit so earned is accumulated to the credit of the worshipper’s nibbanic account. Another power which the objects of veneration did not possess and therefore was taken from the god religions is the power or ability to respond to the requests of the worshipper made of course with the pu’ja. offering. Thus, in the Buddhaghosa religion merit (punya) becomes a very important, in fact, the most important acquisition. According to Buddhaghosa’s Buddhism one has to keep on accumulating merit in saisara until he has earned sufficient merit to attain nibbana. In his introduction to the Jataka commentary Buddhaghosa shows that the Bodhisattva had to spend many eons of life in sa’sara until he had gathered sufficient merit to attain Buddhahood. Quite contrary what Buddhaghosa has said, the Buddha has never referred to the need of merit either for his Buddhahood or for any one’s attainment of nibbana. It is quite clearly stated that nibbana is attainable any day anywhere and is not subject to any pre-requisites. Merit is found in the Pali canonical texts. It is the opposite of demerit or papa. It is not the final or the ultimate goal of religious endeavor or an important stage in an individual’s maturity to nibbanic perfection, either. In the Dhananjani Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya the decision to opt for a lay householder’s life as against the life of training to attain nibbana, is described as undertaking the path of merit (punnai ca patipadai) ( M.11.189) According to an Anguttara sutta, it is the intensity of liberality (dana), and morality (sila)which determine rebirth as well as the conditions of life as a human being or a god in one of the six lower heavenly realms (A.1V.241; Marasinghe, GB.434). In his commentary on the Dhammasangani Buddhaghosa discusses ten meritorious actions which he explains as, (i)liberality (da’na), (2) morality (Sila)3) meditation bhavana’), (4) respect for elders (apaciti),(5) service to superiors (Veyya’vacca), (6) donation of merit pattanuppada’na), (7) thanksgiving for acceptance4 of merit (abbhanumodana), (8) instruction in the Dhamma (desana), (9)listening (savana), (10) rectification of view (dtthijjukamma) (Merit in Buddhism,94).It must be pointed out here that only the first three of these ten are found mentioned as meritorious actions in the canonical texts. Donation of merit was rejected by the Third Buddhist Council at Pataliputra when it was raised by two Indian sects. It is not clear on what authority Buddhaghosa included it in his list. It is not clear from what language Buddhaghosa found the word patti for merit (patti anumodana’). Patti, in Pali (pa+1 to go) means arrival and is not used for merit in the Nikayas. Although the results of kammic deeds are not alienable according to the teachings of the Buddha, because they go only with the doers of the deeds, Buddhaghosa seems to have found donation of merit very useful because he was able to bring in the gods into the ritual system with this maneuver. According to the Pali canonical texts gods have no role to play either in the worldly or in the spiritual life of man. In the new ritual system of Buddhaghosa they accepted merit given by the people and in turn gave them their protection, as requested. Thus, merit was transformed into a very powerful acquisition, the accumulation of which only guaranteed the attainment of nibbana. Accumulation of merit is not a teaching found in the Pali canonical texts. According to these, a person who does not go beyond the commission of meritorious deeds or deeds which are called punya kammas by proceeding to the cultivation of kusala qualities, will continue in saisa’ra (cycle of births and deaths) endlessly. Merit prepares the individual for entry into the process of training in the path to the attainment of nibbana which opportunity must not be wasted being fooled by Buddhagbosa’s non-Buddhism. It must be noted here that the idea of merit has been totally misinterpreted and the gods too have been dragged into the new ritual system. This is piling up wrongs upon wrongs. No one can revise or add up to the Buddha’s teaching. The Mahaparinibbana Sutta of the Digha Nikaya is very clear and definite on this point. The Buddha is recorded to have said, Yo vo Ananda mays dhammo ca vinaqyo ca desito pannatto. So vo mam’accayena sattha(Ananda whatever Dhamma I have preached or vinaya I have promulgated shall be your teacher after my parinibbana, D.11.154). Therefore, it is quite clear that the bhikkhusangha however constituted is not vested with power to accept new interpretations or adopt new practices which are not in keeping with the Dhamma and the Vinaya. The entire ritual system including the empowerment of the objects of veneration with power to grant the wishes of the worshipper and to generate merit go against the canonical teachings and are hence unacceptable in their theistic dressings. During the days of Venerable Mahinda Sri Lanka could boast of many arahants and also of experts in the Dhamma and the Vinaya texts of the tradition. From the third century B.C. until about the fifth century of the Christian era there seems to have been no major change in spite of the social and political problems which came upon the country during the period. Both lines of productivity of the Buddhist tradition, the textual and the meditative, seems to have been edged out of activity by the two inter-connected events which took place during the fifth century A.D. The first was the translation of the Sinhala commentaries of the Pali canonical texts into Pali and destroying the Sinhala commentaries after completion of the translation. It is not known and is unprovable whether the new Pali commentaries were translations or were newly written. However; a close examination seems to point to the clear possibility that they could not have been pure translations as they were designed to promote the new ritual system. The new merit theory has made the pursuit of the meditative path un-fulfilling because success has invariably to await the required accumulation of merit, of course going quite against the teaching of the Buddha. This resulted in making it of marginal appeal to aspirants. The study of the original canonical Pali texts has eventually become a rarely attempted exercise. As a result, the meditative as well as the systematic study of the canonical Pali texts seem to have shrunk almost to non existence while the ritual Buddhism has won popular acceptance largely through its showinistic features. While religious functions with mass participation are commendable, they must always be only preparatory for entry into the path of the spiritual development of the individual. While the long line of those who opt to attain nibbana on the accumulation of merit has grown immeasurably long, productivity of the tradition has gone down to zero level. A careful analysis of what is taught and is practiced today shows that most of it is non-Buddhist or anti Buddhist when compared with canonical Buddhism It is, to say the least, totally un acceptable and needs immediate corrective counter measures. Concluded
Posted on: Fri, 11 Jul 2014 22:57:04 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015