The Divy Vad Na

Unfortunate Destiny focuses on the roles played by nonhuman animals within the imaginative thought-world of Indian Buddhism, as reflected in pre-modern South Asian Buddhist literature. These roles are multifaceted, diverse, and often contradictory: In Buddhist doctrine and cosmology, the animal rebirth is a most "unfortunate destiny" (durgati), won through negative karma and characterized by a lack of intelligence, moral agency, and spiritual potential. In stories about the Buddha's previous lives, on the other hand, we find highly anthropomorphized animals who are wise, virtuous, endowed with human speech, and often critical of the moral shortcomings of humankind. In the life-story of the Buddha, certain animal characters serve as "doubles" of the Buddha, illuminating his nature through identification, contrast or parallelism with an animal "other." Relations between human beings and animals likewise range all the way from support, friendship, and near-equality to rampant exploitation, cruelty, and abuse. Perhaps the only commonality among these various strands of thought is a persistent impulse to use animals to clarify the nature of humanity itself--whether through similarity, contrast, or counterpoint. Buddhism is a profoundly human-centered religious tradition, yet it relies upon a dexterous use of the animal other to help clarify the human self. This book seeks to make sense of this process through a wide-ranging-exploration of animal imagery, animal discourse, and specific animal characters in South Asian Buddhist texts.

This important text analyzes the moral theory of the seventh century Indian Mahayana master, Santideva, author of the well-known religious poem, the Bodhicaryavatara (Entering the Path of Enlightenment) as well as the significant, but relatively overlooked, Siksasamuccaya (Compendium of Teachings). With particular focus on the Siksasamuccaya, this book uses original translations and critical analysis in order to answer the question: How would Santideva’s ethics be understood in terms of Western moral theory? Santideva’s ethical presuppositions and moral reasoning are illuminated by analyzing his key moral terms and comparing them to other Buddhist principles. By focusing on a neglected Buddhist Sanskrit text by a major Mahayana figure, Barbra R. Clayton helps to redress a significant imbalance in the scholarship on Buddhist ethics, which has - up to now - focused primarily on the ethics of the Pali literature as interpreted in the Theravada tradition.

This book offers a new approach to understanding Buddhist lay and monastic practice by recognizing the crucial role that visual practices played in Indian Buddhism in the early centuries of the Common Era. In the genre of Indian Buddhist narratives known as avadana, most lay religious practice consists not of reading, praying, or meditating, but of visually engaging with certain kinds of objects. The key for understanding the Buddhist conceptualization about the world and the ways it should be navigated is found, in these stories, in ways of seeing and the results of seeing.

The text gives us an outline of Buddha's life and briefly deals with the three Buddist Councils held during the reigns of the three Indian kings, Ajatasattu, Kalasoka and Asoka. After the third Council was over, Buddhist missionaries were sent to different countries by Moggaliputta Tissa for the propagation of the Buddhist faith. Of the nine regions visited by the missionaries as mentioned by the author, five are placed in Indo-China. Moggaliputta Tissa sent two separate missionaries to neighbouring regions in the valley of the Irawaddy, besides three others who visited Laos and Pegu. It seems that he took special care for the religions future of Maramma (Burma proper). During the reign of the Sinhalese king Devanampiyatissa who was a contemporary of king Asoka, the Elder Mahinda was sent to Ceylon for the same purpose. So¸a and Uttara visited Suvannabhumi (Sudhammapura,* i.e., Thaton at the month of the Sittaung River). The author holds that even before the missionaries were sent to Suvannahhumi Buddha came there personally to preach his doctrine. Maharakkhita Thera spread Buddism in the country extending along the valleys of the Me-nam and Me-ping rivers and including the Shan States to the north of them. The country of Vanavasior the region around Prome was visited by the Elder Yonakarakkhita who propagated Buddhism there. Kasmira and Gandhara were visited by Majjhantika, and the whole country became a Buddhist stronghold. Buddhism found its way into Mahimsakama¸·ala through Maharevata thera. Mahadhammarakkhita thera and Majjhima thera spread the Buddhistic faith in Maharattha (Mahanagararattha or Siam) and Cinarattha (the Himavantapadesa of the Ceylon books). Similarly Buddhism was propagated in Aparantarattha which is no other than the Sunaparanta of the Burmese, i.e., the region lying west of the upper Irawaddy. The author's horizon seems to be limited, first by an orthodox desire to claim most of the early teachers for the southern countries and hence to prove the purest possible sources for the southern doctrines and secondly by a certain feeling of national pride. The Sasananavamsa has not yet been translated. An English translation of this important text is a great necessity, and I am glad that I have now removed this long-felt want. I had to experience great difficulty in translating it as the text is so very corrupt. I am confident that this translation will be of some use to students and scholars interested in Pali Buddhism current in Burma

Yoga, tantra and other forms of Asian meditation are practised in modernized forms throughout the world today, but most introductions to Hinduism or Buddhism tell only part of the story of how they developed. This book is an interpretation of the history of Indic religions up to around 1200 CE, with particular focus on the development of yogic and tantric traditions. It assesses how much we really know about this period, and asks what sense we can make of the evolution of yogic and tantric practices, which were to become such central and important features of the Indic religious scene. Its originality lies in seeking to understand these traditions in terms of the total social and religious context of South Asian society during this period, including the religious practices of the general population with their close engagement with family, gender, economic life and other pragmatic concerns.

This is the first attempt at a description of the grammar and lexicon of Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit. Most North Indian Buddhist texts are composed in it. It is based primarily on an old Middle Indic vernacular not otherwise identifiable. But there seems reason to believe that it contains features that were borrowed from other Middle Indic dialects. In other words, even its Middle Indic aspects are dialectically somewhat mixed. Most strikingly, however, BHS was also extensively influenced by Sanskrit from the very beginning of the tradition as it has been transmitted to us, and increasingly as time went on. Many (especially later) products of this tradition have often, though misleadingly, been called simply 'Sanskrit', without qualification. In principle, the author has excluded from the grammar and dictionary all forms which are standard Sanskrit, and all words which are used in standard Sanskrit with the same meanings.