Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives (Volume 1). Aryashura

in Central India, thereby laying claim to being some of the earliest extant Buddhist art (approximately first century bce).² Similarly, Arya·shura’s “Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives,” which has enjoyed a celebrated reputation in both India and Tibet, seems to have played an important role at Ajanta in Maharashtra, where verse inscriptions from the text are found alongside mural paintings of the Ksantivadijataka and “The birth-story of Maitri·bala” (Maitribalajataka 8.1, approximately fifth century ce) (Luders 1902). In sum, one could justly assert that, in terms of their pervasiveness and the sheer frequency of their representation, jatakas enjoy a position in Buddhist culture that rivals even the life-story of the Buddha himself.

      The Bodhi·sattva and the Perfections

      When considering the doctrinal background of the jataka genre, it is important to understand that in mainstream Indian Buddhist thought there are three qualitatively different types of enlightenment or, to use a more correct translation, “awakening” (bodhi), a state that brings an end to suffering and rebirth through a direct insight into the impermanent nature of the world. They are: the awakening of an arhat, the awakening of a pratyeka/buddha, and the awakening of a perfectly-awakened Buddha (samyak/sambuddha). An arhat becomes awakened by hear- ing and following a Buddha’s teaching (hence the term sra- ________

      vaka, “hearer”), whereas a pratyeka/buddha becomes awakened by himself without hearing the teaching of a Buddha. A perfectly-awakened Buddha also realizes nirvana by himself. However, his level of wisdom and morality is greater than that of an arhat or pratyeka/buddha. Not only does he cultivate, to a supreme level and over countless eons, a group of virtues called the “perfections” (paramita), he also establishes a teaching (sasana) and a monastic following (samgha) in his determination to save the world from the suffering of continuous rebirth. All Indian Buddhist traditions agree in judging the path to perfect Buddhahood as the highest. Mahayana Buddhism differs only in that it demands an exclusive adherence to this most difficult of spiritual paths.

      A person who vows to become a perfectly awakened Buddha is called a Bodhi·sattva (“Awakening Being”).³ It is therefore a prerequisite of any jataka story to identify one of its characters as the Bodhi·sattva figure, who is usually, but not always, the protagonist. In the “Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives,” the Bodhi·sattva is always born as a male and often in an eminent form of rebirth, with well-developed mental and physical qualities. A cursory survey reveals that in thirteen of the thirty-four stories in the “Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives” the Bodhi·sattva is born as royalty; in five stories he is born as a brahmin; in three stories he is born as a god; in nine stories he is, or becomes, an ascetic; and in eleven stories he is born as an animal.⁴

      According to the exegetical literature, every jataka story is supposed to reflect the Bodhi·sattva’s cultivation of a particular perfection (with the total number of perfections ________

      varying depending on the tradition). In reality, however, such doctrinal niceties are often not reflected in the stories themselves or otherwise form the background of attention. While jataka stories do often assume a didactic tone, to see them merely as decorative illustrations of doctrinal tenets, made palatable for popular consumption, would be a gross simplification. On the contrary, it is often here in the polysemous context of narrative expression, with its complex imagery and potent allusions, that tensions within Buddhist thought are most sensitively probed and Buddhist values most ambiguously negotiated.

      Historical Background to Arya·shura’s

      “Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives”

      The general rule that we know little about the historical context of classical Indian authors is unfortunately no less applicable to Arya·shura.⁵ A small amount of information is provided by a Sanskrit commentary called the Jatakamalatika, which states that Arya·shura was a prince in the Deccan who became a Buddhist monk (Khoroche 1989: xi). But this probably owes more to hagiography than historical fact and, given the late date of the text, conjecturally dated by Peter Khoroche (1989: xi) to the fourteenth century ce, one cannot be certain that it is solidly based.⁶

      Most scholarship agrees in dating Arya·shura to approximately the fourth century ce, a conjecture based largely on stylistic considerations.⁷ More concrete evidence for this date has, however, been provided by Michael Hahn ________

      (1981), who has shown that passages composed by the Indian poet Hari·bhatta (Haribhatta) are quoted in a Chinese text called “The Sutra of the Wise Man and the Fool” (Hsien-yu-ching), which dates to 445 ce, thereby providing a lower limit for the author. Since Hari·bhatta openly refers to Arya·shura as his paradigm (Hahn 2007: 4), we can assume that Arya·shura lived earlier than Hari·bhatta (as is also suggested by their literary styles), although how much earlier is unclear.

      The title Jatakamala can be translated literally as “a garland of birth-stories.”⁸ It is a term that appears to have been treated as a sub-genre within the jataka tradition, since it is also used of later works composed by authors such as Hari·bhatta (fifth century ce) and Gopa·datta (eleventh century ce).⁹ The Jatakamala is not the only work said to have been composed by Arya·shura. The Tibetan Tanjur lists five other texts: the Bodhisattvajatakadharmagandi, the Subhasitaratnakarandakakatha, the Supathadesanaparikatha, the Pratimoksasutrapaddhati, and the Paramitasamasa (Meadows 1986: 3ff.). Of these, only two, the Subhasita- ratnakarandakakatha and the Paramitasamasa, still exist in Sanskrit, while the others are available in Tibetan translation. It is uncertain, however, whether to take these attributions at face-value. Buddhist traditions commonly seek to invest a text with authority by associating it with a famous figure and there seems to have been considerable confusion over the identity of Shura (Sura), who is linked with names such as Matri·cheta (Matrceta) and Ashva·ghosha (Asvaghosa) (Meadows 1986: 6f.). Carol Meadows (1986: 8ff.) also argues that doctrinal divergences between _______________________

      the Jatakamala and the Paramitasamasa suggest different authorship.

      If we limit our investigation to the jatakamala, Arya·shura’s doctrinal affiliations are also unclear. On the whole, the text seems to express mainstream Buddhist values without subscribing to the philosophy of any particular school. One sole verse mentions the term “supreme vehicle” (yana/vara), which may tempt the interpretation of a Mahayana affiliation (1.41 [28]). This, however, is debatable. Not only would one expect a more clear expression of Mahayana partisanship than this single indirect allusion, but also the term “supreme vehicle” seems merely to refer to the Bodhi·sattva path to perfect Buddhahood (sometimes described as buddha/yana), which, as explained above, is a spiritual career accepted by all Buddhist traditions, not only by the Mahayana. That yana/vara need not have Mahayana connotations is further illustrated by the Mahavastu (2.46), a non-Mahayana text, which uses the synonymous term yana/srestha to refer to the path to Buddhahood (Senart 1882–97) Indeed, contrary to common impressions, the use of the word yana to refer to a path to awakening is not restricted to the Mahayana but is found in non-Mahayana texts such as the *Mahavibhasa, which on more than one ocassion refers to the notion of three yanas.¹⁰

      The fact that the first thirty stories of the Jatakamala seem to be structured around the three perfections of giving, virtue, and forbearance also need not imply a Mahayana affiliation. While it is true that these moral qualities correspond to the first three of six perfections listed in some Mahayana texts, the Sarvasti·vadins, an influen- ________

      tial non-Mahayana tradition, also posit the same list of perfections.¹¹

      The Structure and Style of

      the “Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives”

      In his “History of Buddhism in India” (1608 ce), Tara·natha states that Arya·shura intended to compose one hundred stories but died before he could complete the task (Khoroche 1989: xi). Although the figure of one hundred seems arbitrary, Tara·natha’s statement (based on unknown Indian sources) that the “Garland of the Buddha’s Past Lives” is incomplete can be supported by the fact that the text concludes, in an apparently abrupt manner, with the noticeably minor story of the woodpecker, an ending for which there seems no particular doctrinal or thematic significance.¹²

      It