ལས་རྣམ་པར་འབྱད་པ intro.6

intro.6

The Karmavibhaṅga is rich in references to sūtras and citations from Buddhist literature. Its longest illustrative story is a version of the popular narrative from the Maitrakanya­kāvadāna (Divyāvadāna no. 38) of the voyage of the sea merchant’s son Maitrakanyaka (called Maitrāyajña in the Karma­vibhaṅga), who undertakes a sea voyage to make his fortune, disregarding his mother’s pleas for him to remain on shore and instead physically mistreating her. Because of his disobedience and abuse, he is shipwrecked on the shores of a foreign country and ends up suffering the torments of his personal hell. Another popular story is that of the sthavira Mahāmaudgalyāyana, who is refused alms by a family and subsequently reveals to a stranger their karmic relationship. Both stories are widely known among Tibetan Buddhists from orally transmitted anecdotes of Tibetan lamas. However, many of the other stories and text titles referenced in the Karmavibhaṅga are either completely unknown to us or differ from their better-known versions and other extant texts that bear identical or similar titles.⁷