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A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t2: The Mahāvastu

A History of Indian Literature v2.c19.s6.t2

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The Mahāvastu

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One of the most important works which still belongs to the old school of the Hīnayāna is the Mahāvastu² or Mahāvastu-Avadāna.³ The work calls itself a book "of the Vinayapiṭaka according to the text of the Lokottaravādins of the Mahāsāṅghikas." The Mahāsāṅghikas, *i.e.*, the adherents of the Mahāsāṅgha, "the great community," are according to unanimous tradition, the earliest schismatics. Among the sections into which they are subdivided, we find the Lokottaravādins, *i.e.*, those according to whose doctrine the Buddhas are "exalted above the world" (lokottara) and adapt themselves to worldly life only externally.¹ The biography of the Buddha, which is the chief content of the Mahāvastu, quite agrees with this doctrine, for it is profusely adorned with miracles. In this respect, to be sure, it differs little from those texts of the Pāli Canon which deal with the life of the Buddha. In both cases we hear of miracles accompanying the conception, birth and enlightenment, and the first conversions of the Buddha. The Mahāvastu agrees with the Nidāna-Kathā in that it treats the life of the Buddha in three sections.² The first of these begins with the life of the Bodhisattva at the time of Buddha Dīpaṅkara (I, 193 ff.) and tells of his existences at the times of the other former Buddhas. The second section (II, 1 ff.) introduces us to the heaven of the Tuṣita gods, where the Bodhisattva, there reborn, determines to attain rebirth in the womb of Queen Māyā, and tells of the miracles of the conception and birth of the prince, his departure from his home, his conflicts with Māra and the enlightenment which he finally attains under the Bodhi tree. Lastly, the third section (in Vol. III), agreeing in its main features with the Mahāvagga of the Vinayapiṭaka,¹ relates the history of the first conversions and the rise of the monastic community. This, too, is the reason why the Mahāvastu claims to belong to the Vinayapiṭaka, though apart from a few remarks on admission into the order, it contains next to nothing about the Vinaya, the rules of the Order. It corresponds to that part of the Vinayapiṭaka which tells the history of the rise of the Order.²

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² The text has been edited by E'. *Senart* in 3 vols., Paris 1882-1897, with detailed surveys of the contents in the Introductions and a valuable commentary. A survey of the contents has also been given by *Rājendralāla Mitra*, Sanskrit Buddhist Lit. of Nepal, pp. 115-161. See also A. *Barth* in RHR 11, 1885, 160 ff.; 42 1900, 51 f. (=Oeuvres I, 376 ff,; II, 384) and Journal des savants 1899, 459 ff., 517 ff., 623 ff., E. *Windisch*, Die Komposition des Mahāvastu, in ASGW XXVII, 1909, 467-511; *Oldenberg* in NGGW 1912, 123 ff.; L. de *La Vallée Poussin* in ERE VIII, 328 ff.; Haraprasad *Sāstrī* in Ind. Hist. Qu. 1, 1925, 202 ff.

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³ This is the title of the work in most of the colophons. In the text itself and also in some of the colophons, it is called Mahāvastu. Mahāvastu means "The great subjects," *i.e.*, the main subjects of the Vinaya, that is to say the admission to the order, etc., and corresponds to the Mahā-Vagga of the Pāli Vinayapiṭaka and the Vinayavastu (beside Kṣudrakavastu, corresponding to the Culla-Vagga) of the Vinayapiṭaka of the Sarvāstivādins. *Cf. La Vallée Poussin, l.c.*, Mahāvastu-Avadāna means "The legends pertaining to the main subjects of the Vinaya." H. *Zimmer* (in ZII 3, 1925, 201 ff.) seeks to prove that avadāna means the same as nidāna, "origin," "original cause," and he explains mahāvastu as "the great fact of salvation." I consider this erroneous. The fact that the Chinese translators occasionally confused *nidāna* and *avadāna* (cf. S. Lévi in JA 1912, s. 10, t. XX, p. 219) is no proof that these two expressions are identical. Moreover, in the Vinaya literature, vastu has the definite meaning of "subject of the Vinaya" and the "event" related in connection with this subject.

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¹ "The perfectly enlightened ones have nothing in common with the world, but with the great Ṛṣis everything is exalted above the world," Mahāvastu I, 159, 2. "They wash their feet, though no dust clings to them, they sit in the shade, though the heat of the sun never oppresses them, they take nourishment, though hunger never troubles them, they use medicine, though they have no illness, etc.;" *Windisch*, l.c., p. 470. According to Mahāv. I, 2, the Lokottaravādins belong to the "middle land" (madhyadeśa), *i.e.*, to the "sixteen countries" of Northern India. Cf. Mahāvastu I, 198.

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² See above, p. 186. However, the expressions *dūrenidāna*, *avidūrenidāna* and *santikenidāna* are not to be found in the Mahāvastu.

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¹ *Cf.* Windisch, l.c., 476 ff.

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² See above, p. 26 ff., and Windisch, l.c., pp. 473, 476 ff. Probably it is only this portion of the Vinayapiṭaka which has come down to us in the Mahāvastu. *Cf.* Oldenberg in NGGW 1912, 152. T. W. *Rhys Davids* (SBB III, 256 f.) advances the less likely theory that the Lokottaravādins revised only the introduction, because they took over the rules of the Vinaya themselves in their Pāli form, or in some form resembling the Pāli, just as they were, without any change. H. *Zimmer*, l.c., 209 ff., thinks that the presentation of Buddha's life with the preliminary conditions in previous existences, constitutes a "Vinaya" for those who wish to attain Buddha-hood (in the sense of the Mahāyāna, which, he says, is already foreshadowed in the Mahāvastu). There is no evidence anywhere for this use of the word *vinaya*.

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When we say that the main purpose of the Mahāvastu is to relate the life-story of the Buddha for the Lokottaravādins, this by no means exhausts the contents of the work, nor has any idea of its composition been given. Far from its being a specimen of artistic literature, the Mahāvastu should rather be described as a labyrinth, in which the thread of a connected narrative of the Buddha's life can only be discovered with some difficulty. This narrative is continually interrupted by other matters, especially numerous Jātakas and Avadānas, but also by dogmatic Sūtras. There is no apparent principle of systematic arrangement. Frequently there is not even an attempt made to establish any connection, however loose, between the various parts. Moreover, one and the same story, be it an episode of Buddha's life or a Jātaka, is very often told twice consecutively, first in prose and then again in verse, this latter form diverging sometimes more and sometimes less. Not only this, but in various places the same episodes recur several times with slight variations. Thus the legend of Buddha's birth is told no less than four times.¹ The language, too, is not unified. Though the entire work, the prose as well as the verse, is written in "mixed Sanskrit," this dialect is sometimes more and sometimes less akin to Sanskrit. In the verse it is more archaic.² As regards style, too, earlier and later portions of the work can be clearly distinguished.³

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¹ Windisch, Buddha's Geburt, pp. 106, 124 f.

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² Oldenberg, ZDMG 52, 663. Haraprasad *Śāstrī* (Ind. Hist. Qu. I, 1925, 204 f.) rejects the term "vernacularized Sanskrit" or "Sanskritized vernacular" as applied to the language of the Mahāvastu. He regards it as a dialect which was actually spoken in Northern India in the 2nd century B.C.

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³ Cf. Oldenberg in NGGW 1912, 123 ff.

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In spite of all this, and in spite of the fact that this work tells us scarcely anything new about the doctrine of the Buddha, nor even about special doctrines of the Lokottaravādins, this work is nevertheless of the utmost importance, because it has preserved many old traditions and old versions of texts which appear in the Pāli Canon too. Thus the departure of Prince Siddhārtha from his home (abhiniṣkramaṇa) is related in very archaic fashion, resembling the Majjhimanikāya (26 and 36).⁴ Similarly we find there old versions of the "sermon of Benares," the Mahā-Govinda-Sutta (Dīghanikāya 19), the Dīgha-Nakha-Sutta (Majjhimanikāya 74), the Māra-Saṃyutta from the Saṃyuttanikāya, the Sahassa-Vagga from the Dhammapada, the Khuddaka-Pāṭha, the Pabbajjā, Padhāna and Khaggavisāṇa-Suttas from the Suttanipāta, and isolated portions of the Vimāna-Vatthu and of the Buddha-Vaṃsa.⁵ The poems on the birth of the Buddha also maintain the old ballad style. They are remnants of that old Buddhist ballad poetry which we have already met with so often.

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⁴ II, 117. Immediately after it there is a second, later setting of the same Abhiniṣkramaṇa-Sūtra.

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⁵ Cf. Oldenberg, ZDMG 52, 659 ff., 665 ff. Windisch, Māra und Buddha, 316 ff., 322 ff.; J. Dutoit, Die duṣkaracaryā des Bodhisattva, Strassburg 1905; J. Charpentier in WZKM 23, 1909, 33 ff. (Māra-Saṃyutta und Mahāvastu); *Rhys Davids*, SBB III, p. 256 ff. (on the Mahā-Govinda-Sutta).

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The Mahāvastu is more especially valuable as a treasure-trove of Jātakas¹ and other narratives. A good half of the work consists of Jātakas, which are related partly in pure prose, partly in mixed prose and verse, sometimes first in prose and then again in verse. Here again we meet with the Bodhisattva now as a world-ruling king, now as a merchant's son, a Brāhmaṇa, or a Nāga prince, as a lion, an elephant, and so on. Many of the Jātakas are versions of those which we find in the Pāli Jātaka book, sometimes almost literally identical, sometimes with greater or lesser deviations. Thus the Śyāmaka-Jātaka (II, 209 ff.), the touching story of the Brāhman's son whom King Peliyakṣa kills with an arrow, is only a version of the Sāma-Jātaka with which we are familiar. The Kinnarī-Jātaka (II, 94 ff.) corresponds in character, though not in contents, to the Kinnara fairy tales of the Jātaka book. The Kusa-Jātaka appears once (II, 420 ff.) in a recension deviating considerably from the Pāli, a second time (III, 1 ff.) in a metrical version, which shows points of agreement with the Pāli Gāthās.² The story of Nalinī, who seduces Ekaśṛṅga (*i.e.* "Unicorn") has, in the Mahāvastu (III, 143 ff.) been watered down to a very pious legend, though it has still preserved old features which have vanished in the prose of the Pāli Jātaka of Isisiṅga.¹ As in the Pāli Tesakuṇa-Jātaka (No. 521) there is in the Mahāvastu also (I, 271 ff.) the childless King Brahmadatta, who instead of a son, gets three eggs, from which three very wise birds come forth, which instruct him in the duties of a king (rājadharma).²

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¹ *Cf.* S. d'Oldenburg in JRAS 1893, 335 ff., A. Barth in Journal des savants 1899, 625 ff. ; J. Charpentier; Paccekabuddhageschichten, pp. 2 ff., 12 ff., 25 ff. and in Le monde oriental, III, 1909, p. 34 ff. Charpentier shows how the text of the Mahāvastu can often be corrected with the help of the Pāli text.

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² See avove, pp. 147 f., 133, 136 f. The story of Amarā, the smith's daughter (II, 83 ff.) corresponds to the Pāli Jātaka No. 387. The Markaṭa Jātaka (II, 246 ff.) is the fable of the monkey and the crocodile (Jāt. No. 208), see above, pp. 126, 163. The Śyāmaka-Jātaka translated from the Chinese Tripiṭaka by Ed. Chavannes, Cinq cents contes, t. I, p. 156 ff. On the Kusa-Jātaka in the Mahāvastu see Charpentier in WZKM 27, 1913, 94 f.

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¹ *Lüders*, NGGW 1901, p. 20 ff., and above, p. 147.

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² In Mahābhārata I, 229 ff., we meet with four wise birds, the sons of a ṛṣi, who know the Veda, and sing hymns to the god Agni. In the Mārkaṇḍeya-Purāṇa (see Vol. I, p. 560), four wise birds, sons of a ṛṣi, propound not only Yoga doctrines and all manner of other wisdom, but teachings of rājadharma too (Chapters 27-35).

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However, there are many Jātakas and Avadānas in the Mahāvastu, which have no parallels in the Pāli. A very favourite theme in these is the glorification of the exceeding self-denial and generosity of the Bodhisattva. As King Arka, for instance, he presents to the Buddha of that time, 80,000 grottos (cave-temples) constructed of the seven kinds of precious stones (I, 54). On another occasion he gives away his wife and child merely in order to learn a wise saying (I, 91 f.). As a potter he is more pious than King Kṛkin, as he kills no living being, and sets up his pots at cross-roads, in order to fill them with rice and beans for hungry people; and when he hears that, during his absence, his parents have given to the Buddha the straw with which he had but lately re-thatched his hut, he rejoices for a whole month (I, 317 ff.). Some of the narratives remind us rather of the Brahmanical Purāṇas. Thus the description of hell at the beginning of the Mahāvastu shows various points of resemblance to that in the Mārkaṇḍeya-Purāṇa.³ The Rāja-Vaṃśa, the "history of the kings" (to whose race Śākyamuni belongs), begins in the true manner of the Purāṇas with an account of the creation (I, 338 ff.). The spirit of the Purāṇas is also breathed in the Jātaka (I, 283 ff.), in which a Ṛṣi Rakṣita, the Bodhisattva, attains to such miraculous powers, as a hermit, that he can touch the sun and the moon with his hands. The spirit of the Mahāyāna is very similar to that of the Purāṇas, and some narratives of the Mahāvastu exhibit that preference for phantasmagorias which is so characteristic of the Mahāyāna texts; we find splendid magical pictures, which show the miraculous power of the saints, and are, at the same time, to serve for the glorification of the Buddhas. The "sunshade stories" (chattravastu I, 253 ff.) are of this kind. After the Buddha has delivered the city of Śrāvastī from a dreadful plague caused by Yakṣas, gods and spirits hold sunshades over the Exalted One in order to honour him. The Buddha, however, with his usual kindness, uses his magic power to cause a Buddha to appear under each sunshade, so that each god thinks that the Buddha is sitting under his sunshade.

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³ See Vol. I, p. 562, and L. *Scherman*, Materialien zur Geschichte der indischen Visionslitteratur, p. 36. The visit of Maudgalyāyana (Pāli Moggallāna) to the eight hells, as well as his wanderings through the animal world, the world of the Pretas, the Asuras and the various classes of gods, may also be based on Pāli tradition, in which likewise Moggallāna is a saint who wanders through heaven and hell and all the worlds.

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Now, although the Mahāvastu belongs to the Hīnayāna and contains much which could just as well, or actually does, appear in the Pāli texts of the Theravādins, it also contains much which savours of the Mahāyāna. The reason for many such traits is probably that the conception of Buddha prevalent among the Mahāsāṅghikas and the Lokottaravādins does actually represent a transition to the Mahāyāna. In other cases, however, we are most likely right in assuming that interpolation took place.¹ Thus we find in the first volume (I, 63-193) a large section on the ten Bhūmis or steps, which a Bodhisattva must pass through, and a description of the virtues which he must possess in each of the ten steps.¹ Inserted into this section is a Buddhānusmṛti (I, 163 ff.), *i.e.*, a hymn to Buddha, which differs in no wise from the Stotras to Viṣṇu or Śiva in the Purāṇas. It is also in the spirit of the Mahāyāna when (II, 362 ff.) it is said that the purity of the Buddha is so great that the worship of the Exalted One is sufficient for the attainment of Nirvāṇa, and that one already acquires endless merit by merely walking round a stūpa and worshipping it by means of floral offerings, and so on. It reminds us of countless passages in Mahāyāna texts, when we read (III, 137 ff.) that, from the Buddha's smile, there radiate beams which illuminate the entire Buddha regions (Buddhakṣetra). The mention of a great number of Buddhas, and the saying that the Bodhisattvas are not begotten by father and mother, but originate immediately through their qualities,² also remind us of the Mahāyāna.

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¹ Thus, for instance, the Avalokita-Sūtra (in two versions, II, 293 ff., 297 ff.), is cited as an independent Sūtra, in Śāntideva's Śikṣā-Samuccaya (ed. *Bendall*, pp. 89 f., 297 ff., with the title Avalokana-Sūtra), and in the Tibetan, too, it appears as an independent work. Hence it is probably interpolated in the Mahāvastu, the more so because, in the colophon at the end of the second version it is called parivāra ("accessory," see above, p. 33, the Parivāra of the Vinayapiṭaka). (See *Senart*, II, p. xxvi, note 3.) Though the text in the Śikṣā-Samuccaya agrees in the main with that of the Mahāvastu, there are nevertheless such striking divergences of particular passages, that it cannot possibly be an extract from the Mahāvastu.

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¹ The presentation of the Bhūmis in the Mahāvastu diverges from that in the texts of the Mahāyāna; hence this is probably a transition from the Hīnayāna to the Mahāyāna. A Tibetan Mahāyāna author, whose object is to prove that the doctrine of the Bhūmis was not a Mahāyānistic innovation, alludes to the fact that they already occur in the Mahāvastu. *Cf.* La Vallée Poussin in ERE II, 743 ff.; VIII, 330 note; J. Rahder, Daśabhūmika-Sūtra, Leuven 1926, p. iii ff.

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² *Cf.* Windisch, Buddha's Geburt, p. 97 note, 100 f. and p. 193 f.

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From the way in which the Mahāvastu is composed it follows that the date of the origin of the work is hard to determine. Many circumstances indicate great antiquity, notably the language itself, and the fact that the work belongs to the Lokottaravāda school. The fact that the work is written entirely in "mixed Sanskrit," whilst in the Mahāyāna texts this dialect alternates with pure Sanskrit, is a sign of higher antiquity: for, as Barth³ says, Sanskrit is only an intruder as far as the Buddhist texts are concerned. Those numerous pieces which the Mahāvastu has in common with the Pāli Canon, and which hark back to a common earlier source, are undoubtedly old. Thus the Gāthās of the Khaḍgaviṣāṇa-Sūtra (I, 357 ff.) are probably earlier than those of the corresponding Khaggavisāṇa-Sutta in the Pāli Suttanipāta. But when in the Mahāvastu these verses are sung by 500 dying Pratyeka-Buddhas, the refrain "May he wander lonely like a rhinoceros" sounds strange enough coming from their lips, and it is not likely that the prose setting is as old as the Gāthās. The Mahāyānistic features mentioned above, as well as some passages which seem to be influenced by sculptures of the Gandhāra art, indicate the period belonging to the early centuries after Christ.[^1) We are brought down to the fourth century A.D. by the references to the Huns, to the Chinese language and script, and the designation of the astrologer as "Horā-pāṭhaka" (III, 178).[^2) The nucleus of the work is old, however, and probably originated as far back as the 2nd century B.C., even though it was enlarged in the 4th century A.D. and perhaps still later, by additions and interpolations. It is only the embellishment which is borrowed from the Mahāyāna, while only a weak admixture of actual Mahāyāna doctrines and none of the Mahāyāna mythology is to be found in the Mahāvastu.

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³ Journal des savants, 1899, p. 459.

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[^1): For instance, in a flower miracle, the lotus blossoms fall in the shape of a circle around the halo of the Buddha. The halo was only introduced into India by Greek artists. Cf. A. *Foucher*, JA. 1903, s. 10, t. II, p. 208 f. and L'art grécobouddhique du Gandhāra, t. I, Paris 1905, p. 622. Also the numerous Buddhas under sunshades (see above, p. 245) are reminiscent of monuments of art. [^2): According to Senart (1, p. 469 f.) we should regard Mahāvastu I, 120 as an allusion to the Mahāyāna school of the Yogācāras, which would indicate the 4th century. It is possible, however, that Yogācāra is used here merely with its general meaning of "practising Yoga." Cf. *La Vallée Poussin* in ERE VIII, 329 note 4; Haraprasad *Śāstrī* in Ind. Hist. Qu. I, 1925, 205.

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