The Prism of the Lotus Sutra (6)

by Atsushi Kanazawa

The Bimba Fruit

The bimba is an annual or biennial climber belonging to the gourd family, and it is known for its small fruit, which turns red when it ripens and can be eaten. In Indian works of literature, the full, red lips of a beautiful woman have often since ancient times been described as being "like the bimba fruit." In this connection one is reminded of the following passage in "The Story of King Resplendent" chapter in the Lotus Sutra, a somewhat unusual chapter, similar in structure to a jataka, or a story of one of Shakyamuni's previous incarnations.

"King Resplendent thereupon descended from the sky and said to the [Buddha Thunder Voice Constellation King of Wisdom]: 'World-honored One! Rare indeed is [the sight of] the tathagata; by his merits and wisdom the protuberance on his head shines brilliantly; his eyes are wide [open] and deep blue; the tuft between his eyebrows is white as the pearly moon; his teeth are white, even, close, and ever shining; his lips are red and beautiful as bimba fruit.'" (All excerpts from the Lotus Sutra are from The Threefold Lotus Sutra [Kosei Publishing Company, 1975], with slight revisions.)

"World-honored" and "tathagata" are among the ten epithets of a buddha. But at some point it became customary in the world of Buddhism to enumerate the (in a certain sense outstanding) physical characteristics of the Buddha as preacher of the Dharma in the form of thirty-two major and eighty minor marks, which are also found in the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings. The list in the latter includes "lips like the bimba fruit." Does this mean, then, that someone without these characteristics can never attain buddhahood? No, there is no need for such pessimism. We should make it our practice, wherever we are, to think of the Buddha, the source of the true Dharma; to listen to his sermons with an open mind; and to digest them properly.

The "Virtues" chapter of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings says the Buddha's "lips and tongue appear pleasantly red, like a scarlet flower." Here, his "pleasantly red" lips and tongue are likened not to the bimba fruit but to a scarlet flower. In this connection I would like to point out only that, in scholarly terms, this passage provides an important clue for inferring the origins of the Sutra of Innumerable Meanings.

The Turtle

Readers may recall that in an earlier installment of this series I took up the udumbara flower, said to bloom only once every three thousand years. The topic this time is the turtle, which appears in a figurative expression of similar import, that of a blind turtle and a floating log. The turtle is a reptile with which all people are fairly familiar, easily coming across them along a river or in a reasonably large park or garden. The turtle possesses the special ability to retract its head and legs into its hard shell when threatened, and it also appears frequently in folktales.

In a Buddhist context, the analogy of a blind turtle in midocean putting its head through a hole in a floating log is particularly famous. One might suppose that any living being could become a Buddhist and follow the path to buddhahood. But before he became the Buddha, Shakyamuni, the founder of Buddhism, was a human being with a human body. In the Therigatha, an early Buddhist text, we read: "Remember the parable of a blind turtle in the eastern seas thrusting its head through the hole of a yoke drifting from the west: so rare as this is the chance of human birth." This tells us that we must first of all be grateful to be born human. In the Lotus Sutra, this analogy has been adapted as follows in "The Story of King Resplendent": "A buddha is as hard to meet as an udumbara flower, or as the one-eyed turtle meeting the hole in the floating log." This hints at the complex history of the spread of Buddhism over a very long period of time, but it should also be noted that the "blind" turtle has become a "one-eyed" turtle. Ever since the time of Prince Shotoku in the early seventh century, the Japanese have set great value on the Lotus Sutra. I think it is interesting that the following love poem by Fujiwara no Teika (1162-1241), who is renowned as the compiler of anthologies such as Shin kokin waka-shu (New collection of poems ancient and modern), is based on this same analogy of the turtle and the floating log in the Lotus Sutra: "Am I the floating log for the turtle out on the ocean, as in that simile? Unlikely to meet, still you have come on how many nights, wet with tears."

Bamboo

A thicket of lush green bamboo rustling in the breeze has a special charm all of its own. Today this has become a scene that is very rarely encountered in Japan, but in India at the time when Shakyamuni was alive it would have been more common. Consequently, bamboo and bamboo groves figure in many scenes described in Buddhist scriptures, and among the general populace, who at the time wished above all for the continuation of the family line, the word for bamboo was even used to signify "lineage" or "family line," perhaps because the way in which bamboo grows straight up with regularly spaced nodes was thought to symbolize a family's unchanging and continuous prosperity. All of this was inspired by bamboo's vigorous rate of growth.

It is impossible to envisage a single bamboo stem growing in isolation. Since early times people have spoken of clumps or thickets of bamboo, and for better or worse, the various species of bamboo shoot up in next to no time. In a Buddhist context, the Bamboo Grove Monastery, which was offered to Shakyamuni by King Bimbisara, is especially well-known. Nor should we forget the following passage near the start of the "Skillful Means" chapter in the Lotus Sutra. Here bamboo, together with rice, hemp, and reeds, is used as an example of something that grows rampantly and abounds in great numbers.

"Indeed though the universe were full of beings like Sariputra, and the rest of [my] disciples filled the world in every quarter, [who] with utmost thought combined to measure it, they also could not understand. Though pratyekabuddhas of keen intelligence, in their last faultless bodily stage, also filled every region of the universe, numerous as bamboo in the woods, [if] these with united mind through infinite ko?is of kalpas wished to ponder the Buddha's real wisdom, [they] could not know the least part. Though newly vowed bodhisattvas who have worshipped countless buddhas, have penetrated all meanings, and can ably preach the Law, [abounding] as rice and hemp, bamboo and reeds, filled the world in every quarter, [if] with one mind by mystic wisdom, through kalpas like the sands of the Ganges, all of these were to ponder together, they could not know the Buddha-wisdom."

This passage explains that even if intelligent and able followers of the Buddha's teachings such as Sariputra, said to have been foremost in wisdom, were to spend interminable aeons exercising their wisdom all together, they would still have trouble understanding the Buddha-wisdom of Shakyamuni. We should also give thought to the role played by this statement in the Lotus Sutra as a whole.

Atsushi Kanazawa is a Professor in the Faculty of Buddhism at Komazawa University, Tokyo. He specializes in the Indian philosophy of language and the history of Indian philosophy and culture.

This article was originally published in the October-December 2014 issue of Dharma World.

Source

https://rk-world.org/dharmaworld/dw_2014octdec_prism-of-the-lotus-sutra-6.aspx