Soteriology, Asceticism and the Female Body in Two Indian Buddhist Narratives

Soteriology, Asceticism and the Female Body in Two Indian Buddhist Narratives

Douglas Osto

School of History, Philosophy & Politics,

Massey University,

New Zealand

d.osto@massey.ac.nz

ABSTRACT:

This paper makes a number of observations on soteriology, asceticism and the female body in two Indian Buddhist narratives. The fi rst story examined is about the enlightenment of the Buddhist saint Yaśas from a collection of verses known as the Anavatapta-gāthā, or ‘Songs of Lake Anavatapta’. This narrative graphically describes a rotting female corpse and associates this physical corruption with the female body in general. The second story is about a mythical girl from the ancient past found in the Mahāyāna scripture, the Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra. The female protagonist is described as exceedingly beautiful and her beauty functions as a sign of her spiritual superiority and as a means to aid beings.

After a summary of these two tales, their soteriological presuppositions are discussed. Next, the eff ect of Buddhist soteriology upon the construction of gendered bodies in Indian Buddhism is considered. The author argues that the fi rst story represents an ascetic soteriology that sees the female body as corrupt, while the second story displays an alternative devotional soteriology that extols female beauty as linked to virtue and as effi cacious for religious development. The paper concludes with the suggestion that the narratives employing the image of the corrupt female body were meant for a male monastic audience; while the Gaṇḍavyūha with its devotional soteriology may have been composed with a royal female audience in mind. Thus target audience should be considered when studying Indian Buddhist narratives.

The corpus of Indian Buddhist narratives is truly vast. Unlike scholastic and philosophical texts, these stories may provide insight into popular Buddhist views about salvation (soteriology), gender and the body. I have selected two Buddhist narratives for analysis because they illustrate opposing attitudes toward soteriology and the female body, and thereby highlight the diversity found within the Indian Buddhist tradition. The fi rst story has an overtly negative view of the female body: it is compared to a rotting corpse and this physical corruption carries a negative moral connotation. Thus the female body is both ugly and bad. The second presents a diff erent view: the female protagonist’s body is described as exceedingly beautiful and this beauty is both a sign of her religious/ethical superiority and a tool to enlighten beings. After summarising these two stories, I discuss their soteriological presuppositions. Next, I consider how Buddhist

soteriology eff ects the construction of gendered bodies in Indian Buddhism. Finally, I suggest that the diff erent attitudes toward asceticism, devotion and the female body found in these two stories can be explained by their authors’ assumed target audience.

THE STORY OF YAŚAS IN THE ANAVATAPTA-GĀTHĀ

The following story is a summary of the recitation of the Buddhist saint Yaśas from a collection of verses known as the Anavatapta-gāthā based on my study of the Gāndhārī manuscript fragment.1 After being asked by the Elders to relate his own ‘connecting thread of karma’,2 Yaśas recites verses telling of a time once in a past life when he was a sage who lived in an ancient forest. One day while walking to a village for alms he comes across the corpse of a woman.3 As Indian ascetics are wont to do, he sits down to meditate upon the decaying body. While sitting there, he sees the stomach of the cadaver burst open, unleashing a horrible smell of putrefaction and exposing hundreds of hungry maggots busy eating the rotting intestines, heart, kidneys, lungs, blood and excrement. At this horrifi c sight, the sage loses his appetite and, instead of proceeding to the

village for alms, returns to his hermitage. Eventually he returns to the village for food,4 and upon arrival realizes that all5 the people there are filled with excrement, blood and intestines like the rotting corpse of the woman. (Notice the instrumental nature of the female body for this realisation: Yaśas sees everyone as possessing a foul body because he saw the corpse of a woman). As a result of this insight he attains a state of dispassion and cultivates the four Buddhist ‘immeasurables’ (apramāṇa): loving-kindness (maitrī), compassion (karuṇā), sympathetic joy (muditā) and equanimity (upekṣā). Upon his death, the sage is reborn in a heavenly Brahmā-world. After this existence he returns to this world as the son of a wealthy merchant-banker6 in the city of Vārāṇasī. One night he wakes to see himself surrounded by a group of dancing girls asleep, their limbs in disarray. Due to his past life experience, instead of sleeping women, he sees a charnel ground fi lled with corpses. Crying

1. This text is extant in Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese and Gāndhārī versions. The Gāndhārī version comes from a cache of manuscripts written on birch bark in the Gāndhārī language and Kharoṣṭhī script, which are thought to date from the fi rst century CE (Salomon, 1999:141–55). They were composed in ancient Gandhāra (near present day Afghanistan and Pakistan) possibly by members of the Dharmaguptaka school (ibid: 166–78), and buried inside clay pots almost two thousand years ago. They are the oldest known Buddhist manuscripts in the world.

2. Gāndhārī (G.) karmuviagha; Sanskrit (Skt) karmaploti; Tibetan (Tib.) las kyi rgyu ba.

3. G. istrikunavu; Skt nārīkuṇapam; Tib. bud med kyi ni ro.

4. G. gramu prav[i]kṣe bhuyaṇath[i]; Skt grāmaṃ praviśan bhojanārthika; Tib. grong khyer du zas kyi ched du zhugs pa.

5. The text here uses a grammatically neuter word for ‘all’ (G. sarvo; Skt sarvaṃ; Tib. kun). Presumably, the use of this term implies that the sage sees both men and women this way.

6. G. aghrasreṭhisa; Skt agraśreṣṭhina; Tib. tsong dpon mchog gi.

out, he jumps up from his bed and fl ees the palace with the help of the gods.7 Haunted by this terrible vision, the merchant’s son wanders aimlessly about until he sees an ascetic on the opposite bank of a river and approaches him for help. The world renouncer (who is the Buddha) explains to him the nature of suff ering and the path to its cure. Practising what he is taught, Yaśas spends the night in meditation and at dawn destroys all of his psychological/ethical ‘cankers’8 and is released from suff ering.9 According to mainstream Indian Buddhist schools, this is the highest spiritual attainment and one who achieves it becomes a ‘worthy’ (arhat). Those familiar with the developed biographies of the Buddha will immediately recognise the parallels with the second part of Yaśas’ story.

10 The Buddha, as Prince Siddhārtha, also wakes one night in his chambers, sees his harem girls as cadavers and is inspired to leave the world in search of enlightenment. Thus the story of Yaśas is a clear example of how a mainstream Indian Buddhist saint, like the Buddha in his developed biography, is motivated to renunciation at the sight of female bodies.11 These life narratives indicate the continued appeal of the ascetic ideal popular among the Śramaṇic traditions of ancient India from the time of Buddhism’s origin in the fi fth century BCE (see Flood, 2004).

GOPA’S STORY IN THE GAṆḌAVYŪHA-SŪTRA

The second story is from the Mahāyāna Buddhist scripture, the Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra.12 This sūtra seems to have circulated both as an independent text and as 7. G. vivaris mama rvara devada; Skt vivṛṇvanti mama dvāraṃ devatā; Tib. lhas … bdag gi sgo ni rnam par phye. 8. G. asava; Skt āsrava; Tib. zag pa. 9. For a similar account of Yaśas (Pali Yasa), see the Pali Vinaya (Vin. I.15–16) and the Dhammapada Commentary (DhA. I. 82ff ). See also Wilson (1996: 77–80). 10. For recent studies on the life of the Buddha, see Carrithers (1983) and Ñāṇamoli (1992).

11. Although the historical development of Buddhist narrative literature is far from clear, it seems likely that the life story of the Buddha (orally transmitted or written down) functioned as a paradigm for the early Buddhist hagiographies (see Ray 1994). However [Editor adds], it should be noted that the Vinaya story of Yasa actually predates the developed biographies of the Buddha, and may have infl uenced them. Moreover, when Yasa goes to the Buddha to ordain and says ‘What distress indeed, what affl iction indeed’, as he had on seeing the dishevelled and drooling state of the sleeping dancing girls, the Buddha says, ‘This, Yasa, is not

distress, this, Yasa, is not affl iction’, before giving him a step-by-step teaching culminating in the four Noble Truths (Vin. I.15-16) 12. The Gaṇḍavyūha is readily available in Sanskrit, Tibetan and Chinese. The oldest record of the text is from the Chinese catalogues, which state that the fi rst complete translation of the narrative into Chinese was fi nished in the early fi fth century CE (for details, see Gómez [1967: xxiii–xxix]). We do not know how long the story existed before its fi rst Chinese translation, but it is not unlikely that the text’s formative period lies sometime around the third century CE (Dutt 1931: 639). There is no external evidence for the geographical origin of the Gaṇḍavyūha, but there are two types of internal evidence to suggest the narrative was composed in the south of India: fi rst, the vast majority of the narrative takes place in the south (dakṣiṇāpatha); second, Dhanyākara is the name of Sudhana’s hometown. As the place of origin for the story’s protagonist, and the

the fi nal book in the expansive Avataṃsaka-sūtra, or ‘Flower Ornament Scripture’ (Cleary, 1993). The Gaṇḍavyūha relates the tale of a young layman’s quest for enlightenment in ancient India during the time of the Buddha. Like the Buddha, this youth named Sudhana, the son of a merchant-banker, leaves home in search of spiritual counsel. But Sudhana does not renounce the world and take up ascetic practices; rather, on the advice of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī, he sets out to visit spiritual guides (literally ‘good friends’; Skt. kalyāṇa-mitra) in order to learn how to carry out the course of conduct of a Bodhisattva and obtain omniscience. After travelling far and wide across India visiting fi fty-two of these guides, Sudhana has his fi nal visionary experience of the supreme Bodhisattva Samantabhadra. The following story is from Sudhana’s visit with Gopā, the wife of the

Buddha prior to his renunciation. Gopā is the forty-fi rst spiritual guide whom Sudhana meets, and this encounter constitutes the longest portion of text devoted to a visit to a female teacher. After leaving the goddess of the Lumbīni Grove, Sudhana is led to the Palace of Bodhisattva Communal Recitation (bodhisattva-saṃgīti-prāsāda) in the city of Kapilavastu by the goddess Aśokaśrī. When he arrives at the palace, he sees Gopā seated on a lotus of jewels surrounded by eighty-four thousand women who are all said to be irreversibly on the path toward supreme enlightenment (302.24–26).13 Sudhana approaches Gopā and asks her such questions as how do Bodhisattvas perfect the ‘Dharma Body’ (dharma-kāya), produce infi nite ‘form bodies’ (rūpa-kāyas) and manifest bodies with the appearance of all beings (see below for more on these terms). By way of response, Gopā

describes her own liberation (vimokṣa) which she calls ‘The Sphere Seeing All Principles of the Oceans of the Concentrations of Bodhisattvas’ (305.22).14 Through this liberation, Gopā is able to enter into as many ages in this world as there are atoms in untold Buddha-lands and to know all beings in all conditions of existence therein. She can also enter into all the ages of all other worlds both within and beyond this world, and know all beings within them including the names and attainments of all Bodhisattvas and Buddhas (305.23–308.24). When Sudhana asks how long ago Gopā attained this liberation, she tells him a story about Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī, the daughter of a royal courtesan named Sudarśanā, who lived countless aeons ago. One day Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī meets and falls in love with a prince named Tejodhipati. Physical attractiveness is a primary concern of this narrative. The Prince is ‘handsome, pleasant, attractive, and

place where his journey begins, this city seems a good candidate for the geographical origin of the Gaṇḍavyūha. Both Lamotte (1954: 384–5) and Dutt (1970: 277 n. 2) equate Dhanyākara with Dhānyakaṭaka/Dharaṇīkoṭa, an ancient city on the banks of the Kṛṣṇā River in the southern region of Andhra. However, the early-fi fth-century Chinese translation of the Gaṇḍavyūha does not seem to be translating ‘Dhanyākara’ as the name of Sudhana’s hometown (Walser 2005: 27). Nevertheless, the later translations suggest that this was the toponym of the hero’s home. If Dhanyākara was generally understood to be Sudhana’s city and we equate this name with Dhānyakaṭaka, then we have a possible place for the origin of the Gaṇḍavyūha. 13. These references are to the page and lines numbers in the Sanskrit edition of the Gaṇḍavyūha text by Vaidya (1960). 14. sarva-bodhisattva-samādhi-sāgara-naya-vyavalokana-viṣaya.

his body is adorned with the thirty-two characteristics of a great man’ (309.23– 24).15 The Courtesan’s daughter is said to be: beautiful, pleasant, attractive, not too tall, not too small, not too large, not too thin, not too light, not too dark; with very dark blue eyes, long dark hair, with a pleasing face, a voice like Brahmā’s, her speech sweet and pleasant (312.27–29).16 Much of the remainder of this narrative consists of recitations by the Prince, the Courtesan and her daughter about the young couple’s virtues, beauty and love for each other. Such poetry seems more appropriate for women of a royal court than a gathering of monks (I will return to this idea shortly). For example,

Sudarśanā recites these verses about her daughter: This gem of a woman appeared in the human world, Her purity of virtue supreme. This is the fruition of good conduct in the past; For actions done are not destroyed (318.1–4).17 She has very dark hair, lotus-blue eyes, A voice like Brahmā’s, a colour pure as gold. Well dressed and adorned in garlands, She is pure like the goddess Śrī sprung from the lotus (318.5–8).18 Her limbs are pure and full; Her body, well proportioned and her fi gure shapely. Illuminating all directions, she shines Like a golden orb covered with gems (318.9–12).19 The regal fragrance of sandalwood arisen from her body Pervades the directions and rises up. The sound she utters is divinely sweet; And when she speaks a fragrance wafts From her mouth like the scent of a blue lotus (318.13–16).20

15. abhirūpaḥ prāsādiko darśanīyaḥ dvātriṃśan-mahā-puruṣa-lakṣaṇa-samalaṃkṛta-kāyaḥ. 16. abhirūpā prāsādikā darśanīyā n ātidīrghā n ātihrasvā n ātisthūlā n ātikṛśā n ātigaurā n ātiśyāmā abhinīlanetrā abhinīlakeśī abhirāmavaktrā brahmasvarā madhura-priya-vādinī. 17. strī-ratnam etad dhi manuṣya-loke prādurbabhūvottama-śīla-śuddhyā. na karmaṇo hy asti kṛtasya nāśaḥ p ūrve sucīrṇasya vipāka eṣaḥ. 18. sunīlakeśy-utpala-nīla-netrā brahma-svarā kāñcana-śuddha-varṇā. āmukta-mālā-bharaṇā suveśā padmodbhavā śrīr iva nirmalābhā. 19. viśuddha-gātrī samabhāga-kāyā saṃpūrṇa-gātrā suvibhakta-dehā suvarṇa-bimbaṃ maṇineva mṛṣṭaṃ virocate sarva-diśo ’vabhāsya. 20. gotrodbhavaś candana-rāja-gandhaḥ

But Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī is not just another pretty face. The Courtesan describes her as not jealous, envious, lustful or ill-tempered, and as honest, gentle, intelligent, and free from anger or harshness. She is always mindful, diligent, well behaved, obedient, respectful and compassionate (320.3–14). In fact, Sudarśanā says her daughter is the best woman in the entire world by virtue of her conduct, intellect and other good qualities (325.12–13). In defence of Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī’s social status, the Courtesan states that ‘one who speaks about caste could not disgrace her, because she was produced from a lotus and therefore is stainless’ (325.14–15).21 Not only is she virtuous, but

her extremely soft limbs cure the sick on contact, her pure fragrance makes all men who smell it pure of conduct, and the sight of her golden body converts the angry and cruel to kindliness (325.18–29). Gopā concludes her story by stating that she was Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī in a past life and that Śākyamuni, the Buddha of the present world age, was Prince Tejodhipati (329.24–330.15). Since that lifetime they have been husband and wife in every rebirth, and have worshipped countless Buddhas in innumerable worlds as they progressed along the spiritual path together. Thus Gopā (as Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī) represents both the highest ideal of female beauty and the ideal Buddhist wife. With perfect devotion, she aided the future Buddha on his quest for enlightenment through countless lifetimes until he attained Buddhahood. In order to understand the larger context of these two narratives, I will now describe what are I see as two diff erent soteriologies within Indian Buddhism.

INDIAN BUDDHIST SOTERIOLOGIES

The Theravāda Buddhist tradition provides a useful illustration of the ascetic soteriology that was common in mainstream Indian Buddhism. In the fi fth century CE, the Pāli Canon (Tipiṭaka) was systematically summarised following Abhidhammic methods by the Theravādin Buddhist monk Buddhaghosa. This work, the Visuddhimagga, or ‘Path of Purifi cation’ (Ñāṇamoli, 1991), became the locus classicus of the Buddhist path in the Theravāda tradition. The Visuddhimagga divides Buddhist practice into three parts: virtue

(sīla), concentration (samādhi), and understanding (paññā). Under his section on virtue (Vism. 1–83), Buddhaghosa accepts as given the necessity of the monastic rules of restraint (Pāṭimokkha) for anyone seriously pursuing enlightenment. In addition to these, he outlines thirteen further ascetic practices (Pāli: dhutaṅga; Skt dhutaguṇa) that may be followed (p. 59–83). He states, ‘Thirteen kinds of ascetic practices have been allowed by the Blessed One to clansmen who have given up the things of the fl esh and, regardless of body and life, are desirous of undertaking a practice in conformity [with their pravāti cāsyābhidiśaḥ spharitvā. rutaṃ ca divyaṃ madhuraṃ ruvatyā gandho mukhād vāti yathotpalasya. 21. padmodbhaveyaṃ na hi jātivādaḥ // saṃdūṣaṇāṃarhati nirmalatvāt.

aim]’ (p. 59). Some of these include wearing rag-robes, eating only one meal a day, living in the forest or charnel ground, and refusing ever to lie down. Here we see a rejection of bodily pleasure and the denial of physical comfort as a legitimate pursuit within the Buddhist soteriological project. Although Buddhaghosa considered the dhutaṅga practices optional, he understood celibacy and the denial22 of sense-pleasures as fundamental for anyone seriously pursuing enlightenment. In this regard, Buddhaghosa’s approach falls squarely within the larger framework of ascetic traditions originating within Indian religion (Flood, 2004: 131). Mainstream Indian Buddhist schools, although varying in some details, generally accept this ascetic soteriology as well. The advent of Mahāyāna Buddhism sometime near the beginning of the fi rst millennium CE witnessed the

introduction of a new cosmology and the new religious ideal of the Bodhisattva. The Bodhisattva’s path to becoming a Buddha, systemised in such texts as the Daśabhūmika-sūtra (see Cleary, 1993: 695–811), was believed to take countless ages. Alongside this new ideal developed an expanded cosmology, wherein the universe was thought to be fi lled with countless Buddhas and Bodhisattvas dwelling within limitless numbers of Buddha-lands (buddhakṣetra). Through attaining special concentrations or trance states (samādhi), such as the one described in the Pratyutpanna-buddha-saṃmukhāvasthita-samādhi-sūtra, Bodhisattvas were believed to visit these diff erent worlds and receive teachings from the Buddhas (see Harrison, 1990). Many Mahāyāna sources maintain that in order to attain samādhis and perfect the Bodhisattva’s path, one is required to carry out ascetic practices

and live a celibate lifestyle consistent with mainstream Indian Buddhist soteriology. Jan Nattier (2003: 130) points out that the Ugra-paripṛcchā, an early Mahāyāna sūtra, advocates ascetic practices (dhutaguṇa). The authors of this text indicate that the lay Bodhisattva should emulate the monk, and the monastic Bodhisattva should emulate the strict forest renunciate. Based on his study of the Lokakṣema corpus, Paul Harrison states that in the Kaśyapa-parivarta, the Pratyutpanna-buddha-saṃmukhāvasthita-samādhi-sūtra, and the Aṣṭa-sāhasrikā-prajñapāramitā-sūtra, the lay Bodhisattvas ‘are constantly exhorted to leave lay life behind, to become renunciates, and what is more, to embrace the “ascetic qualities” (dhuta-guṇa), the discipline of the solitary forest dwelling monk or nun’ (Harrison, 1987: 71). In a similar vein, Gregory Schopen (2000: 22) writes: It is … clear that some strands of early Mahāyāna Sūtra literature were attempting to reinvent, revitalise or resurrect these extreme ascetic practices. Such attempts are clearly visible in texts like the Rāṣṭrapāla[[[paripṛcchā]]], the Maitreyasiṃhanāda-sūtra, the Ratnarāśi, and even in a text like the Samādhirāja. Moreover, almost an entire chapter in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā[-prajñapāramitā-sūtra] is taken up with what appears to

22. Editor: ‘limitation’ might be a better word – appreciation of the beauty of wild nature is accepted, as for example in the Theragāthā, vv. 1062–70.

have been a serious debate and dispute concerning the centrality of the dhutaguṇas in the early Mahāyāna, with the Aṣṭa itself apparently trying to soften the current, if not established position. Thus we see an even greater emphasis upon ascetic practices within some Mahāyāna sources than found within mainstream Buddhist soteriology. Counter to this trend, the Gaṇḍavyūha does not recommend ascetic practices at all. Rather, the story presents a soteriology based not on asceticism, but devotion. Three terms are crucial for understanding the Gaṇḍavyūha’s particular vision of the Buddhist path: the ‘Dharma Realm’ (dharma-dhātu),23 the ‘Dharma Body’ (dharma-kāya),24 and the ‘spiritual guide’ (kalyāṇa-mitra).25 According to the Gaṇḍavyūha, because all phenomena are empty of essence and the product of consciousness only, they are like dreams, illusions and refl ections. For example, when Sudhana is witnessing the endless practices of the Bodhisattva Maitreya while in samādhi, Maitreya says to him: Arise, Son of Good Family! This is the nature of phenomena. Son of Good Family, characterised by their non-fi xity, all phenomena are controlled through the knowledge of Bodhisattvas. In this way, lacking thep erfection

23. The term ‘dharma-dhātu’ (Tib: chos kyi dbyings) means ‘the Dharma element’ or the ‘Dharma realm’. Both senses of the compound appear in Mahāyāna sūtra literature. For instance, the Pañcaviṃśatiprajñāpāramitā-sūtra (see Conze, 1964: 250) uses the word in the fi rst sense to mean a Buddhist sūtra placed in a stūpa and ritually worshipped in contrast to a śarīra-dhātu, or ‘body-element’ (a bodily relic of the Buddha or Buddhist saint). The Gaṇḍavyūha employs the second meaning of ‘Dharma realm’ to identify a special locus of enlightened activity that both simultaneously encompasses all the infi nite loka-dhātus (world-realms) and transcends them (see below). 24. Dharma-kāya possesses a number of meanings within both mainstream and Mahāyāna Buddhism. For an examination of the term in Mahāyāna sources, see Harrison (1992). As I demonstrate below,

the Gaṇḍavyūha’s conception of the dharma-kāya is decidedly more metaphysical than the term’s meanings in the sources discussed by Harrison. 25. The concept of kalyāṇa-mitra (Pāli: kalyāṇa-mitta) within the Buddhist tradition is both ancient and widespread. In an article titled, ‘Kalyāṇamitta and Kalyāṇamittatā’, Steve Collins (1987) d iscusses the various meanings of these terms found in Pāli literature. For kalyāṇa-mitta Collins distinguishes three overlapping levels of meaning in the Pāli sources: (1) a general sense ‘in which trustworthiness, reciprocity and perhaps a consequent mutual regard are extolled’; (2) a ‘Buddhicised’ level where such sentiments are set within the framework of Buddhist morality; and (3) a specifi cally Buddhist sense when it is applied ‘to someone who helps another on the Buddhist Path’. Collins points out that in the Pāli sources the

Buddha functions as the ideal kalyāṇa-mitta, while other famous monks during the lifetime of the Buddha were also considered exemplars of good friends. This title is especially common for monks acting in the role of meditation t eachers. The concept of the good friend as spiritual guide continues to be important in Mahāyāna Buddhism. The Mahāyāna-sūtrālaṅkāra, the Bodhisattva-bhūmi and the Aṣṭa-sāhasrikā-prajñapāramitāsūtra each mention the ‘blessing of having taken hold of a good friend’ (as quoted in Dayal, 1932: 63). Finding a good friend is a necessary fi rst step on the Bodhisattva’s path, and that friend remains a valuable aid at all times (ibid.: 63). According to the Samādhi-rāja-sūtra, only someone who has been very charitable to the poor in a past life is able to fi nd such a friend (ibid.). Śāntideva states that the entire acceptance of the Buddha’s teaching is implied in the injunctions not to leave the good friend and to study the scriptures (Bendall and Rouse, 1971: 43).

(a-pariniṣpannā) of an essence (svabhāva), they are like illusions, dreams and refl ections (415.27–29).26 Containing and transcending all illusory phenomena is an infi nite, pure, indestructible Dharma Realm.27 Unlike the illusory beings and objects of the fi nite world realms (loka-dhātu), the Dharma Realm possesses a pure essence (svabhāva) beyond the limitations of time and space. The ultimate religious goal is to enter the Dharma Realm through obtaining a Dharma Body (dharma-kāya) that shares its indestructible essence (for example, see 426.30–427.2). The Buddhas and advanced Bodhisattvas who possess a Dharma Body, being one with the Dharma Realm, are able to generate infi nite form bodies (rūpa-kāyas) that act as spiritual guides (kalyāṇa-mitra) for unenlightened beings inhabiting the limitless variety of world realms. The acquisition of a completely perfected

Dharma Body is synonymous with attainment of supreme enlightenment and omniscient Buddhahood. In the beginning of the Gaṇḍavyūha, the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī tells Sudhana how this is done: ‘Indeed, Son of Good Family, for the perfection of omniscience this is the beginning and natural course—namely the visiting, serving and worshipping of the spiritual guides’ (46.13–15).28 This theme of devotion to the spiritual guides is repeated practically ad infi nitum throughout the remainder of the narrative. The most emphatic declaration of the soteriological power of devotion occurs just prior to Sudhana’s visit with Maitreya when he meets the boy and girl, Śrīsaṃbhava and Śrīmatī (360–67). After stating that one should never tire of seeking kalyāṇa-mitras, resist their advice or doubt their instructions, the two list over fi fty reasons for this attitude. The most unambiguous of these is: ‘the enlightenment of all Buddhas is obtained through propitiating the spiritual guides (364.10–11).29 Throughout the Gaṇḍavyūha, Sudhana attains

numerous samādhis, not through ascetic practices, but by merely seeing or being touched by the kalyāṇa-mitras.30 The idea that devotion to a plurality of spiritual guides is needed for attaining Buddhahood and that one should practise unquestioned obedience to the kalyāṇa-mitras (see for example, 94.19–22 and 122.3–5) are distinctive features of the Gaṇḍavyūha. In this way, devotional activity directed toward the spiritual guides is a central aspect of the path to enlightenment. This emphasis, I would argue, amounts to a devotional soteriology at odds with other Buddhist systems (both mainstream and Mahāyāna) that focus on individual eff ort and ascetic practices. Let us now look at how these diff erent soteriologies impact on Indian Buddhist views of the body.

26. uttiṣṭha kulaputra. eṣā dharmāṇāṃ dharmatā. aviṣṭhapana-pratyupasthāna-lakṣaṇāḥ kulaputra sarvadharmā bodhisattva-jñānādhiṣṭhitāḥ. evaṃ svabhāvāpariniṣpannā m āyā-svapnapratibhāsopamāḥ. 27. See 234.10–18, for a particularly illuminating passage. 28. eṣa hi kulaputra ādiḥ eṣa niṣyandaḥ sarva-jñatā-pariniṣpattaye yad uta kalyāṇā-mitrāṇāṃ sevanaṃ bhajanaṃ paryupāsanam. 29. kalyāṇa-mitrārādhana-pratilabdhā sarva-buddha-bodhiḥ. 30. For example, see pp. 88, 94, 132, 407, and 425.

Attitudes toward the body vary within the Indian Buddhist literary tradition. Many of the Pāli sources present a decidedly negative view. For instance, the Sutta-nipāta states that a monk should view his body as a corpse: He compares his body to a corpse and thinking that this body is the same as a corpse and the corpse the same as the body, he removes desire for his own body. In the world, such a wise monk who is freed from desire and attachment attains the immortal, tranquil and deathless state of Nibbāna. (v. 203–204; see Saddhatissa, 1985: 21) The Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta contains passages on the contemplation of the body’s repulsiveness31 and the various stages of a corpse’s decay (Dīgha Nikāya, II.293–96); while the Aṅguttara Nikāya (IV.386–87) refers to the body as a ‘sore with nine openings’. In the Visuddhimagga, Buddhaghosa states, This is the

body’s nature: it is a collection of over three hundred bones, jointed by one hundred and eighty joints, bound together by nine h undred sinews, plastered over with nine hundred pieces of fl esh, enveloped in the moist inner skin, enclosed in the outer cuticle, with o rifi ces here and there, constantly dribbling and trickling like a grease pot, inhabited by a community of worms, home of disease, the basis of painful states, perpetually oozing from the nine orifi ces like a chronic open carbuncle… (Vism. 195, Ñāṇamoli translation) Alongside this negative assessment of the body, Indian Buddhism generally considered the youthful, healthy male body as the ideal for achieving enlightenment. We fi nd art-historical, textual and ethnographic evidence for this view. Gandhāran Buddha and Bodhisattva statues provide graphic evidence for this aesthetic of youthful, male beauty.32 Biographical accounts of the Buddha such as found in the Mahāvastu (Jones, 1949, 1952, 1956), the Buddhacarita (Johnston, 1972) and the Lalitavistara (Vaidya, 1958) describe in detail the physical perfection of the young prince Siddhārtha before he renounced the world and became enlightened. This ideal is systematised in the doctrine of

the thirty-two marks (lakṣaṇa) of the great man (mahā-puruṣa). According to both mainstream and Mahāyāna Buddhist thought, only men destined to rule the world as ‘wheel-turning monarchs’ (cakravartin), or to become Buddhas have these characteristics.33 Since at least one of these marks can only appear on men (possessing a penis enclosed in a special sheath), being male clearly allows a more spiritually advanced state

31. Editor’s note: a list of body parts and fl uids is given, all being ‘enclosed by the skin and full of manifold impurities (asucino)’, though contemplation of these is then likened to identifying diff erent kinds of dried grain and pulses. 32. See Errington and Cribb (1992) and Errington and Bopearachchi (2000). 33. See Edgerton (1953: 458–60), for a list with textual sources, e.g. DN III 142–79.

than being female.34 This positive religious assessment of male beauty continues to this day in such countries as Sri Lanka (see Kemper, 1990: 166–9). In contrast to this affi rmation of the male body as a vehicle for Buddhahood, many mainstream Buddhist hagiographies display a decidedly hostile attitude toward the female body. In her study of what she calls ‘post-Aśokan’ Buddhist hagiography, Liz Wilson (1996) interprets mainstream Indian Buddhist biographies like the story of Yaśas as establishing a ‘gendered system of point of view’, whereby the male ‘I’ views the corrupt female body as object of contemplation in order to attain freedom from lust and attachment to the body. She states: The observing eye that becomes the enlightened ‘I’ through the contemplation of others is not readily gendered as female, since the female eye is so frequently depicted as an

unseeing eye. It is typically a dead or unconscious eye, an eye that cannot observe its surroundings. Those female eyes that do see and gain the insight associated with enlightened subjects tend to operate refl exively, turning their gaze back upon the female body as object. (1996: 183) These biographies often imply a moral dimension to the ‘foulness’ of the female body. In a number of stories the female characters actively attempt to distract males from the spiritual life with their physical beauty (see for example Wilson, 1996: 95–96, 131ff .). This distraction can be nothing but ‘false advertising’ for the true nature of the female body is corruption (Wilson, 1996: 73). Thus, in these ‘Post-Aśokan’ hagiographies, the foulness of the female body is often associated with women’s spiritual and moral defi ciency.35 The feminine body, as the object of desire for the male gaze, symbolises everything that leads to suff ering and entrapment within the endless cycle of existence (saṃsāra). Such a view is well suited to male ascetics

committed to celibacy and the denial of bodily pleasures. A negative assessment of the female body and women’s spiritual potential in general is also found in Indian Mahāyāna literature. In his eighth century Śikṣāsamuccaya, Śāntideva quotes with approval from the Saddharmasmṛtyupasthāna, which states that ‘a woman is the destruction of destructions in this world and the next; hence one must avoid women if he desires happiness for himself’ (Bendall & Rouse, 1971: 77), and from the Udayana-vatsa-rājaparipṛcchā, which proclaims, ‘Unsavoury as ordure are women; so the Buddhas declare’ (Bendall & Rouse, 1971: 83).36 The Ugraparipṛccha contains an extended 34. Editor’s note: cf. Majjhima-nikāya III.65–6 says that it is impossible for a female Arhat to also be a Completely Awakened One, i.e. a full Buddha, or for a female to be a

cakravartin. 35. Not all mainstream Buddhist sources associate foulness (asubha, editor: also translatable as ‘unloveliness’) with the female body and then generalise this to a negative assessment of women. For instance the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta does not gender the human body when it describes its parts and its decay after death. Also, Buddhaghosa (Vism. 180 and 184) recommends that one not choose a member of the opposite sex for the contemplation of the foulness of a human corpse. This may have been to prevent necrophilia (see Wilson, 1996: 86–9). 36. Not all Mahāyāna sūtras portray the same negative view. Some notable exceptions may be found in the Śrīmālā-siṃha-nāda-sūtra in which the Queen Śrīmālā teaches the Dharma (Wayman & Way

passage about how a Bodhisattva should cultivate aversion for his wife and view her as (among others things) a hag, demon, orge, infectious disease, Māra, crocodile, thorn and poison (Nattier, 2003: 247–55). According to the earliest known version of the Sukhāvatī-vyūha-sūtra, women are reborn in Amitābha’s pure-land as men (Harrison, 1998; Paul, 1985: 169–70; Gómez, 1996). The Aṣṭa-sahasahāsrikāprajñāpāramita, Saddharma-puṇḍarīka and Candrottarā-dārikā-vyākaraṇa sūtras each contain passages where a female character,

due to an advance in spiritual status, miraculously changes gender (Paul, 1985: 166–211). Paul Harrison (1987: 77) states that in the Lokakṣema corpus, ‘This theme of the undesirability of birth as a woman and the necessity of sex change is a common one’. Contrary to this negative assessment of women’s bodies and spiritual potential, the Gaṇḍavyūha possesses a gender inclusive view. Of the fi fty-three spiritual guides Sudhana encounters, twenty-one are female. Among these are ten goddesses, the daughter of a god, a queen, a princess, a nun, a courtesan, a girl, Māyā (the mother of the Buddha) and Gopā (the wife of the Buddha). Approximately fi fty percent of the total text is devoted to these female teachers, and nowhere in the story is there a single negative statement concerning the female body or the religious status of women. As Francis Wilson (1985: 145) points out, the Gaṇḍavyūha describes many of Sudhana’s female teachers as beautiful ‘with lustrous black locks and skin the colour of gold’. For example, the narrative declares the laywoman Acalā to be more beautiful than any other being and her complexion, proportions and aura are said to be unmatched by any except for Buddhas and the most advanced Bodhisattvas (132.10–19). Also, the courtesan Vasumitrā displays a beauty surpassing all the gods and humans within the realm of desire (155.4–14). Her

spiritual power is such that she may transform herself into the female form of any creature in order to teach beings through embraces and kisses (155.20–156.6). Gopā’s story is a good illustration of the narrative’s positive view of female beauty. Instead of female beauty being ‘false advertising’ disguising the horrifi c and repulsive37 nature of the human body, the beauty of Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī is not only the karmic result (phala) of her past good actions,38 but also a means (upāya) of helping others. This attitude follows logically from the Gaṇḍavyūha’s devotional soteriology.

man, 1974), and in the Vimalakīrti-nirdeśa wherein a goddess criticises the disciple Śāriputra for his reifi ed view of gender (Thurman, 1976: 56–63). However, because a vast majority of Mahāyāna sūtras remain unstudied, we are still a long way from assessing an overall picture of the Indian Mahāyāna Buddhist view of gender. 37. Editor: this somewhat exaggerates the case. In the Visuddhimagga, for example, the meditator should not stand so close to a contemplated corpse as to be frightened (p. 183), and the aim is to attain the joyful and happy fi rst jhāna through intent concentration on the object (p. 181). 38. This, of course, is not a solely Mahāyāna idea, but a general Buddhist notion about the workings of karma. Editor: for example Aṅguttara-nikāya IV.57 says that the karmic results of alms-giving include having a good appearance. Overall, Buddhism sees (a) physical beauty as generally a karmic product of virtue, but (b) as covering over an unlovely set of internal parts, and decaying with age.

The female kalyāṇa-mitras found in the story are form body (rūpa-kāya) manifestations of the enlightened activity of the Dharma Body. Because their physical beauty functions as a tool to aid sentient beings, rather than overcoming the lure of their good looks, one should worship these beautiful women as a means to enlightenment. Five of the female spiritual guides are even said to possess the Dharma Body,39 which suggests the possibility of female participation at an advanced level of religious attainment.40

TARGET AUDIENCES

I hope to have demonstrated that we cannot attribute the diff erent viewpoints found in the narratives of Yaśas and Gopā to a simple dichotomy between mainstream Indian Buddhism and Mahāyāna Buddhism. Clearly the Indian Buddhist tradition encompassed soteriologies that varied from school to school and text to text. I would like to suggest that these diff erences may be attributed to three factors: time, place and target audience. That religious beliefs and practices change according to historical situation and geographic location is axiomatic. Unfortunately for us, very little is known about the time and place of origin for the vast majority of Indian Buddhist texts. What I would like to highlight here is that some variations may be due to diff erent target audiences within the Indian Buddhist tradition. Evidence of an ascetic soteriology functioning within

Indian Buddhism is both widespread and ancient. The story of Yaśas in the Gāndhārī Anavatapta-gāthā is from a collection of the oldest dated manuscript evidence we possess of Indian Buddhism. The Sutta-nipāta from the Pāli tradition most likely represents a very ancient tradition based on earlier oral tradition. The Theravāda Visuddhimagga from the fi fth century embraces this ascetic soteriology, as do many (possibly early) Mahāyāna sūtras, and the eighth century Mahāyāna Buddhist monk, Śāntideva. Therefore this ascetic soteriology cannot be restricted to any particular time or place within India. Closely connected to this soteriology is a negative assessment of the body, and in a number of post-Aśokan hagiographies and Mahāyāna sources, specifi cally the female body. Along with this aversion to the feminine form, there appears to be a more general belief in the religious inferiority of females. As Wilson (1996) demonstrates, this stance is part of an overall soteriological project undertaken largely by celibate, male monastics attempting

39. The fi ve female kalyāṇa-mitras are Vāsantī, Pramuditanayanajagadvirocanā, Sarvanagararakṣ āsaṃbhavatejaḥśrī, Sarvajagadrakṣāpraṇidhānavīryaprabhā, and Māyādevī (see 177.7, 195.16, 242.24, 265.15 and 343.30). 40. However, the Gaṇḍavyūha always refers to Buddhas and Bodhisattvas as male. McMahan’s reference (2002: 125) to Ananyagāmin as a female Bodhisattva is actually his mistaken reading of a masculine, nominative singular ending ‘-ī’ of the –in stem as a feminine (see the Sanskrit text, 165–66). Also, the Gaṇḍavyūha never declares that a female has attained omniscience or supreme, perfect enlightenment.

to achieve nirvāṇa through rigorous world-denying discipline. Likewise, many Mahāyāna sūtras portray the Bodhisattva’s path in similar ascetical terms. What I would like to suggest is that Indian Buddhist stories that dwell on the foulness of the female body and denigrate women as religiously inferior dramatically illustrate this ascetic ideal and were written by monks for the edifi cation of their fellow male monastics. The production of this type of literature by and for monks seems highly plausible when we consider that monastic institutions have always formed the backbone of Buddhist culture and that Indian Buddhism was a predominately celibate, male dominated institution. When we look at the role of women in Indian Buddhism, a diff erent picture emerges. Based on his study of the epigraphical sources, Schopen (1997: 250) argues that before the fourth century

CE ‘nuns, indeed, women as a whole, appear to have been numerous, very active, and, as a consequence, very infl uential in the actual Buddhist communities of early India’. This infl uence did not last. According to Ronald Davidson: The decline of women’s participation was part of this process [of conformity to Indian social codes], and from the seventh century forward we see an erosion of women’s involvement, most particularly in the virtual total eclipse of the offi ce of nun (bhikṣuṇī) in North India. More broadly, though, the early medieval period saw the dramatic deterioration of support for and involvement of women in Buddhist activities at any and every level … (2002: 91) There is some

evidence to suggest that this decline of the role of women and particularly the disappearance of the Buddhist order of nuns was due to systematic discrimination by monks (see Schopen, 2004). The Gaṇḍavyūha may have been composed during the third century in south India, possibly in Dhānyakaṭaka (see note 12 above). This century also falls squarely within the period when women were ‘very infl uential’ in the Buddhist communities of India. At this time, Dhānyakaṭaka was a thriving city in the Ikṣvāku Dynasty near to the great Buddhist stūpa at Amarāvatī and the monastic site of Nāgārjunikoṇḍa. Nowhere is the infl uence of Buddhist women more evident in India than during the rule of the Ikṣvākus. Historically, the Ikṣvākus are best known for their close affi liation with the archaeological site of Nāgārjunikoṇḍa. According to Lamotte (1988: 348), Nāgārjunikoṇḍa owes practically everything to this dynasty. Inscriptions from this site share two distinctive features: they rarely record monastic donors (Schopen, 1997: 64), and frequently mention donations from female Ikṣvākus royalty and wealthy laywomen. About the Ikṣvākus Dynasty, Nilakanta Sastri writes: Almost all the royal ladies were Buddhist: an aunt of Vīrapurisadāta built a big stupa at Nāgārjunikoṇḍa for the relics of the great teacher, besides apsidal temples, vihāras, and maṇḍapas. Her example was followed by

other women of the royal family and by women generally as we know from a reference to a Bodhisiri, a woman citizen. (1963: 96)41 Both Lamotte’s and Sastri’s statements are based on a set of inscriptions from Nāgārjunikoṇḍa that have been studied, transcribed and translated by Vogel (Epigraphia Indica, XX: 1–45). Whereas the kings and princes of the Ikṣvākus were sponsors of Brahmanical religion, the queens and princesses patronised Buddhism. Of the nineteen inscriptions studied by Vogel, several royal women are mentioned, such as Cāṃtisiri, the sister of king Siri-Cāṃtamūla and paternal aunt of king Siri-Vīrapurisadata; Aḍavi-Cāṃtisiri, the daughter of king SiriCāṃtamūla; Haṃnasiriṇikā, another sister of Siri-Cāṃtamūla; and her two daughters Bapisiriṇikā and Chaṭhisiri who both married the reigning monarch (their cousin) and became queens (pp.

4–5). These and other prominent women donated pillars, shrines, caitya-halls, stūpas and monasteries to Buddhist monks in the area. In this manner, Buddhism thrived under Ikṣvāku rule largely through the generosity of its royal and wealthy female patrons. We have no substantial evidence that the Gaṇḍavyūha was composed during the reign of the Ikṣvākus. But given that third century south India constitutes a highly probable context for the text, then it is reasonable to assume that royal and wealthy women such as the Ikṣvākus were important patrons of Buddhism and that the sūtra may have been composed with them in mind as a target audience. This would explain several distinctive features of the narrative, such as its emphasis on devotion rather than asceticism, its positive portrayal of female beauty, and the prominent role given to its female teachers. The strong

association of these female characters to royalty is particularly striking. The fi rst female spiritual guide Sudhana meets is a queen (79–86), the second is a princess (96–98), and the fourth tells a story of a past life when she was a princess (131–136). Of the ten goddesses Sudhana visits (169–299), fi ve relate past lives as royalty. Finally, Gopā as the wife of the Buddha (300–338) and Māyā as his mother (339–349) are not only temporal royalty, but metaphorically represent the Queen and Queen Mother of the Dharma Realm ruled by the Buddha. As mentioned above, Sudhana’s visit with Gopā constitutes the second longest section in the entire Gaṇḍavyūha. Gopā’s tale about Sucalitaratiprabhāsaśrī, the daughter of a royal courtesan, with its lengthy verses devoted to romantic love and physical beauty, seems much better suited for a royal, female audience than a gathering of male monastics.

CONCLUSION

The stories of Yaśas and Gopā may be seen as two diff erent points of entry into Indian Buddhism. The fi rst functions as a graphic illustration of the pervasive and widespread ascetic soteriology that emphasises the recognition of the repulsiveness of the human body as a crucial stage in one’s religious develop 41. As cited in Wayman & Wayman (1974: 2).

ment. In a number of mainstream Indian Buddhist narratives, the foul (or at least ‘unlovely’) human bodies contemplated are often living or dead women. I believe it unlikely that the appearances of these grotesque female-gendered bodies are incidental or accidental narrative elements. Most likely written by monks for monks, the story of Yaśas and those like it extol the virtues of renunciation, asceticism and celibacy. Thus we witness in this literature a male ascetic suspicion of the female form, which at times spills

over into a denigration of females as spiritually inferior. The same misogynistic inclinations occur in Mahāyāna sources that stress ascetic practices. Gopā’s story, on the other hand, exalts female beauty as a means of aiding sentient beings. The Gaṇḍavyūha-sūtra as a whole presents us with a devotionally based soteriology wherein beautiful women play a central role as spiritual guides. There is evidence to suggest that this narrative was composed for an audience that included wealthy, royal female patrons of Buddhism. The geographical spread of this alternative soteriology, its accompanying attitude toward women and its connection to Mahāyāna Buddhism remain to be assessed. I would like to thank Brian Black, Ulrich Pagel, Chris van der Krogt, and Peter Harvey for their c omments on earlier drafts of this paper.

ABBREVIATIONS

Dh.A Dhammapada commentary Tib. Tibetan DN Digha-nikāya Vin. Vinaya of the Theravāda G. Gadhārī Vism. Visuddhimagga Skt. Sanskrit

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