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The History of Buddhist Thought c28.s3: The Sarvāstivāda Avadānas

The History of Buddhist Thought c28.s3

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English

The Sarvāstivāda Avadānas

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It was natural in a literature preserved so long by memory,

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and one in which original composition continually went on, that there should be spurious and apocryphal works claiming a place in the Canon. It would not be easy to insert an additional sutta in the four Nikāyas after they had been classified and numbered, but there was always a number of unclassified works, and even when the Theravādins placed them in an additional Nikāya no agreement was ever reached as to what it contained. The literary activity of the Sarvāstivādins was even greater, for they continued to exist in India with a great system of education and centres of literary activity. The three forms of composition, nidāna, avadāna, and upadeśa became definite types of literature.¹ Of these, avadāna is the most important. Whatever the derivation of the word may be, there is no doubt that it means "heroic feat, glorious achievement", but this describes only the contents, and does not tell how as a class of composition Avadāna is to be distinguished from the rest. Yet the actual Avadānas have a very distinct character. They are either single works or a number of these works made into a collection. One of the best known is the Divyāvadāna, the divine Avadāna, and consists of thirty-eight tales. A number of them are evidently tales which illustrate the occasion leading to the formulation of a Vinaya rule, and S. Lévi has proved that most of the work is compiled from the tales in the Vinaya of the Mūla-Sarvāstivādins. Three other important Avadānas were evidently compiled in the same way, the Avadāna-śataka, the Karma-śataka, and the Damamūka.² It was easy for such works to be admitted as Scripture, for the tales of which they were composed mostly originated in canonical works, and any composition which contained sayings of Buddha might be reckoned as the Buddha-word.

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¹ The names also occur in Pāli. But nidāna "cause, occasion", has remained the name of an introductory composition explaining the occasion or motive of a work. The Pāli word apadāna makes it probable that the form avadāna is a Prakrit form representing apa-, but the derivation is uncertain. As a type of literature the Pāli Apandāna has nothing to do with the Sarvāstivādin Avadāna. There is the Mahāpadāna-sutta in the Dīgha, and the Apadāna, a work in verse in the Khuddaka-nikāya, neither of them having any connection as a literary form with Avadāna. Upadeśa is "instruction", and it remained with that general meaning in the Pāli.

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² For these, see Bibliography, p. 294.

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The Avadāna differs from Jātaka first in being a later form of literature. Jātakas occur in the earlier parts of the Canon, and are tales about previous existences of Buddha.

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It was by the Theravādins that this type was cultivated. They made a special collection, and were able to include secular tales and fables of any kind provided that one of the characters in the tale was the future Buddha. In the same way the Sarvāstivādins made collections of Avadānas. Their special feature is that an incident is told of a character in Buddha’s time, and it is then explained by Buddha as the result of some heroic act (*avadāna*) done in a previous existence. It is thus possible for Jātaka and Avadāna to overlap. The Avadānas have an important doctrinal significance, as they contain evidence for the rise of new dogmas during the centuries when the Canon as represented by the Vinaya and Āgamas was closed. This is seen also in the Avadāna of another school, the *Mahāvastu*.¹

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¹ The Pāli Udāna shows evidence of having developed in the same way. There are Udānas, “fervent utterances” of Buddha, scattered throughout the Scriptures. The work of this name is a collection of such utterances with the legends explaining when they were uttered. A considerable number are from the Vinaya.

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