Avadāna Literature

This article presents an avadāna excerpt found in Śamathadeva’s Abhidharmakośopāyikā-ṭīkā. The tale reports a monk’s change of sex to female, followed by five hundred successive births as a woman, all of which happened as the karmic result of having addressed his fellow monks as women. The avadāna identifies this monk, who is introduced as a reciter of the Tripiṭaka, with the Bodhisattva in a past life. The story of the past serves to explain why the Buddha’s advice was disregarded by the quarreling monks of Kauśāmbī, who were involved in a dispute over a minor issue of monastic discipline. The present study places this unsourced avadāna in its broader textual context, suggesting the possibility of its placement in a no longer extant Mūlasarvāstivāda Kṣudraka-piṭaka. It then explores the question of a ‘gendered evaluation’ of karmic retribution, as well as the significance of a change of sex to female (and eventually back to male). This change reportedly took place when the Bodhisattva was already on the path to Buddhahood and had generated the bodhicitta, his resolve to reach full awakening.

This paper addresses how Gandharan scribes and artisans refer to and construct sacred geographies through narrative domestication of past and present births of the Buddha and other figures. Similarities and differences between literary and visual cultures are understood in relation to an impetus to appropriate and situate stories in the hybrid milieu of Gandhara.

A wide range of practices emerged for venerating the Buddha’s embodied presence in textual and visual relics.This article considers ways in which hagiographical narratives of previous births preserved in written and visual media may be considered as embodiments in Dharma (Dharmakāya). The study focuses on Gāndhārī Buddhist manuscripts with abbreviated written summaries of narratives labeled as Avadānas and Pūrvayogas. Results of a survey of images identified as Jātakas in Gandhāran art are also integrated for a comprehensive understanding of the iconic function of rebirth narratives, which were emplaced in the sacralized landscape of the Northwest.

This article studies narratives related to the topic of women receiving a prediction or declaration (vyākaraṇa) for Buddhahood. The texts in question—in their received form—have their place in the Indian Buddhist traditions of the Middle Period. The first episode taken up is the story of Princess Munī who receives the prediction of becoming the present Buddha Śākyamuni; this is found in the so-called “Scripture on the Wise and the Fool.” The second episode is the story of Yaśomatī who receives the prediction that she will become the Buddha Ratnamati; this is found in the Avadānaśataka. When evaluating these comparatively rare instances of predictions received by women, two aspects come up for special consideration: (a) the textual significance of variations regarding the presence or absence of a change of sex, and (b) the epistemological and soteriological consequences for female audiences of women’s narratives constructed by the third-person perspective of male monastic text transmitters. The variations document that the transmitters did not always perceive the transformation of sex into a male as a categorical necessity. This transformation may not have been integral to these narratives of the bodhisattva path as articulated by the textual communities in which these texts originated and circulated.

This article does three things. First, it argues that the usage of dharma in the sense of 'customary practice', which is found in compounds such as deśadharma and kuladharma, can be traced back to the Atharvaveda. Second, it argues that in the Dharmaśāstra tradition this usage of the word dharma as 'custom' ought to be distinguished from ācāra, which is also often taken in the sense of 'custom', because ācāra frequently implies a hieratic sense of 'customary behaviour', especially in its association with the cultured practices of particular elites (the sat, sādhu, or śiṣṭa). Therefore, dharma in the usage this article is concerned with is a broader term for 'custom' than ācāra. And, third, it suggests that when the Dharmaśāstra writers restricted the currency of such customary dharmas to cases where existing sacred texts (śruti or smṛti) could not be called upon, they were reaffirming that such dharmas were worldly rather than transcendent, and not to be confused with the transcendent dharma the principled few now identified with these sacred texts—a development attributable to other changes that shifted the word dharma to the very centre of brahmanic ideology.

The study of the Avadānaśataka was placed upon a firm philological foundation in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, but more manuscripts have since become available, prompting questions about the history of this Buddhist narrative collection. The present article mainly considers what new light one such manuscript, Nepal German Manuscript Preservation Project (NGMPP) MS E-1554/24, may shed upon this history and other issues related to the study of this work. It argues that evidence remains inconclusive for establishing the hypothesis that NGMPP E-1554/24 is the direct source for Cambridge University Library (CUL) MS Add 1611, the primary witness for the principal modern edition of the work, but the essay also engages a series of broader questions about how we use manuscripts, what questions those manuscripts can answer, and how scholars interested in Buddhist narrative literature could best spend their time. It calls for scholars to direct efforts toward making works of Buddhist narrative literature like the Avadānaśataka and the Kalpadrumāvadānamālā more widely accessible, and establishing the intertextual relationships between them and other works of Buddhist narrative literature. This will require a compete new translation of the former, an edition and translation of the latter, and indeed a reconceptualization of the task at hand.

Keywords : Critical philology, Buddhist narrative literature, Sanskrit
manuscript studies, Avadānaśataka, Kalpadrumāvadānamālā

In Buddhist Studies Review 33.1-2, Sheffield 2016, p. 101–140.

The article presents a preliminary survey of textual reuse in Nepalese collections of jātakas and avadānas, focusing in particular on three works: the Avadānaśataka, the Divyāvadāna, and the Dvāviṃśatyavadānakathā. The reas-sessment of the manuscript tradition of these three Sanskrit collections, based on Nepalese manuscripts and Tibetan translations, sheds more light on the role of scribes in the creation of these collections and of the Nepalese avadānamālā literature. In particular, the great role played in the 17th century by the Nepalese scribe and scholar Jayamuni in shaping the text of the Avadānaśataka, the Divyāvadāna, and many other Buddhist narrative works is brought to light. The result of this preliminary survey shows that a study of this type of collections based on the available critical editions should be rethought in the light of the specific character of their manuscript and tex-tual transmission in medieval and early modern Nepal.

This is a study of a scripture translated into Old Uyghur from Tocharian A and counted as one of the earliest Uyghur Buddhist texts.
The Buddhist collection of stories entitled Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā (“garland of legends pertaining to the ten courses of action”) is the most important narrative work of Buddhist Central Asia as it is not only attested in Old Uyghur (the best preserved version) but also in Tocharian A and B as well as in Sogdian. Volumes one and two present the reconstructed text in Old Uyghur in transcription (more than 12.500 lines) and facing German translation accompanied by a philological commentary and 250 illustrations of joint fragments. The third volume contains a glossary and the transliterations. The text is a treasure trove of Buddhist jātakas (stories of former lives of the Buddha) and avadānas (heroic deeds) sometimes told in variants unknown from other Buddhist works. In addition, it contains instructions referring to Buddhist ethics. Next to the Maitrisimit, the Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā is the second fundamental text translated from Tocharian A and is thus of major importance for Tocharian studies.

The Vinaya, both a genre of Buddhist canonical texts and a specific text itself, essentially consists of the rules governing Buddhist monastic life. It is often described as a monastic law code. Some vinaya texts include not only monastic rules but also narrative stories. There are stories that outline how and why the Buddha established the rules, as well as ones which, although relating to Buddhist teachings, have little to do with the rules. These narrative stories frequently parallel ones preserved in other genres of Buddhist literature, such as the Āgama and the Avadāna. The vinaya texts are, therefore, often used as an informative resource for understanding not only Buddhist monasticism but also Buddhist narrative literature in early India. The Muktaka of the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya, the principal source for this paper, has received little attention from those who study Buddhist narrative literature, despite it undoubtedly being a canonical vinaya text and preserving several narrative stories. In this paper, I focus on the beginning of the Muktaka, which contains a series of narrative stories about quarrels between a young monk and an old monk, the latter of whom becomes so furious that he is reborn as a poisonous snake. The Tibetan translation of these stories include two clichés, which are known as "the Buddhaʼs salvation" and "the Buddhaʼs smile emitting rays of light," and a partial parallel to "Kṛṣṇasarpa" of the Avadānaśataka. To elucidate the significance of the Muktaka for research on Buddhist narrative literature, I provide full translations of these stories and some annotations.

The Old Uyghur cycle of stories Daśakarmapathāvadānamālā has been described in scholarly literature as an essential part of a public performance during a Uyghur Buddhist festival including the display of pictures. The present paper argues against such an assumption and discusses the relevant passages within the framework of narrative theory instead. The illustrations found in some manuscripts have never been intended for public display and picture recitation.

En esta investigación analizo las leyendas del rey Aśoka en la compilación de relatos conocida como Divyāvadāna, para entender la manera en que la conquista de la autoridad transitoria se justifica como un fin necesario y “natural” de las relaciones entre la comunidad budista y las figuras de autoridad, y la forma en que las estrategias de conversión, explícitamente entendidas como medios de ganar adeptos para la religión budista, son usadas con el objeto de adquirir control sobre las figuras de autoridad y sobre lo que ellas representan, el poder político y el poder sobre los sentidos.

In die meisten buddhistischen Texte sind Erzählungen eingefügt, die inhaltliche Punkte veranschaulichen sollen. In besonderem Maße ist dies in den Avadāna-und Vinaya-Texten aller buddhistischen Schulen der Fall. Während bislang die Vinaya-Sammlungen der Theravādins und der Mūlasarvāstivādins diesbezüglich gut erschlossen sind und Bareau die sich um die Buddha-Vita rankenden Erzählungen zusammengestellt und analysiert hat, fehlt eine Zusammenstellung der Tierfabeln, die sich in den chinesischen Übersetzungen der Avadānas und der verschiedenen Vinayas finden. In der vorliegenden Dissertation soll dies für die in chinesischer Übersetzung erhaltenen Texte geleistet werden. Nach dem Vorbild von Panglung und Schlingloff sind dabei auch die Parallelen aus Sanskrit-und Pāli-Texten nachgewiesen und die Erzählstoffe nach dem System von Aarne-Thompson-Uther (ATU) bzw. Thompson (Mot.) mit Nummern versehen worden. Darüber hinaus ist die relevante Sekundärliteratur verzeichnet worden. Schließlich sind 31 chinesische Texte mit den originalen Sanskrit-Texten verglichen und zusammen mit ihnen ins Deutsche übersetzt worden.

Cerita ke-empat belas dari Divyāvadāna (Cerita-cerita surgawi) Terjemahan Indonesia. Kisah ini menceritakan seorang dewa yang menjelang kematiannya meratap karena akan jatuh ke alam binatang sebagai seekor babi. Sakra, raja para dewa, menganjurkannya untuk berlindung pada Triratna. Hasilnya, ia selamat dari kelahiran alam rendah.

The Upagupta-avadāna is the shortest and only poetical version of the Upagupta story, of the versions available so far, in the Sanskrit Language (also in its Tibetan translation). Historically Upagupta is regarded as a Sarvāstivādin, which fact also accounts for his being absent in the Pāli literature preserved mainly in Theravāda (Sthaviravāda) lands. In the Buddhist Sanskrit legends (also available in Chinese and Tibetan translations), the historical accuracy of which is often questioned, Upagupta appears as the high priest of Emperor Aśoka. In this poetical version however Kṣemendra, an 11th century poet from Kashmir, deals with only the earlier part of Upagupta’s life. It begins with a verse that captures the theme of detachment from sensual pleasure and narrates the story of Upagupta as a young man looking after his father’s perfume shop (verses 2-5), an account of the famous courtesan (gaṇikā) Vāsavadatta (verses 6-22) who failed in an attempt to allure Upagupta for sexual union and was later punished (verses 23-29) for killing a paramour, revealing the enlightening truth of the fault in sensual pleasures to Vāsavadattā (verses 30-39), ordination under bhikkhu Śāṇavāsin (40-49), taming the Māra in a classic dramatic display of psychic powers (50-71), and concluding it in another didactic verse (verse72). It is remarkable that this version of the story has influenced a literary tradition in Bengali language initiated by a wonderful poem by Rabindranath Tagore and later followed by many others. Following is the first complete English translation of the Upagupta-avadāna based on an edition of the text by P.L. Vaidya and alternative readings for certain words and phrases suggested by J.W. de Jong (see references).