འཕགས་པ་བད་སའ་རྒྱལ་པ་འཆར་བྱད་ཀྱས་ཞས་པ་ཞས་བྱ་བའ་ལའ intro.5

intro.5

The narrative framework of the Buddha’s discourse in this work builds on the old story of Mākandika (Māgaṇḍiya in Pali), who offers his beautiful daughter, Anupamā, to the Buddha. That a version of the Buddha’s dialogue with Māgaṇḍiya is found in the Suttanipāta of the Pali Canon suggests that the story is among the oldest in Buddhist literature,³ and the Pali commentary on that text, which is also part of the Pali Canon, provides one version of the backstory for the dialogue.⁴ Another version of this tale, found in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya⁵ (and also in the closely related Divyāvadāna ⁶), starts earlier than the episode related in the present text and ends later. Earlier, we learn, Mākandika had given his daughter to King Udayana after the Buddha had refused her. And later, whereas King Udayana of Vatsa’s Questions concludes when King Udayana becomes a lay disciple of the Buddha, the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya version goes on to describe how Queen Anupamā, undeterred in her murderous intent, subsequently conspires with her father, Mākandika, who had become King Udayana’s chief minister, to set fire to the queens’ quarters; that ultimately results in the deaths of the morally pure Śyāmāvatī and the rest of King Udayana’s five hundred wives, all of whom willingly cast themselves into the flames.