ཕག་མའ་རྟགས་པ་བརྗད་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་མད intro.9

intro.9

While these citations of the first verse, all with explicit reference to the title and story of The Exemplary Tale About a Sow, can be attributed to the lasting influence of Śāntideva’s Śikṣāsamuccaya, the verse itself appears to derive its authority from elsewhere. In the Mahāsamāja Sūtra, one of the old Mahāsūtras of the Sarvāstivāda tradition, it is a god of the Brahmā group who exclaims this verse after congregating with deities from all ten directions at the forest in Kapilavastu when the Buddha was giving the monks a teaching on nirvāṇa there.¹¹ In a somewhat different wording, the same verse is voiced by a god from Śuddhāvāsa heaven in the Mahāsamaya Sutta, which is the Pali counterpart to the Mahāsamāja Sūtra and likewise an important text that was recited for protective purposes over the centuries.¹² These attestations of the verse are considerably older than the first citation from The Exemplary Tale About a Sow by Śāntideva in the eighth century ce, and it seems, therefore, that the verse had a life of its own before it was adapted to this specific avadāna.