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The History of Buddhist Thought c28.s4: The Mahāvastu and Lives of Buddha

The History of Buddhist Thought c28.s4

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English

The Mahāvastu and Lives of Buddha

c28.s4.1

What has been said of the structure of the Avadāna applies also to the work of another school, the *Mahāvastu*. This is a work on a much larger scale than the others, but constructed in the same way. It has not always been recognized as an Avadāna, though it calls itself one. Even its introductory statement has been misunderstood, which is, “the beginning of the Great Story (*Mahāvastu*) of the Vinaya-piṭaka according to the text of the Mahāsanghikas, the Lokottaravādins of Madhyadeśa.”² This seems plain enough, and it is at least clear that this is what the work actually is. It is not the Vinaya but the “Great Story” of the career of Gautama Buddha, as conceived by an adherent of the Lokottaravāda school. In order to tell this he goes through the Vinaya and incorporates all the legends he can find. To what extent they were in his Vinaya cannot say, but some of the poems, eulogies, and ballads come from other parts of the Canon.³ In carrying out his plan, his respect for the Scripture has prevented him from welding the matter into a consistent unity, but the scheme of the whole can be seen. It is the career of the Bodhisattva conceived not as the life of one man, but as one instance of the career of the Bodhisattvas, who dedicate themselves to ages of training and acquiring the requisite qualities for one who is to be a saviour of the world. It begins with a statement of the stages of the bodhisattva’s career, and describes all the legendary events of Gautama’s life down to his enlightenment and first public preaching to king Bimbisāra. The thread of the story often seems to be missing, because the connecting link between two portions of narrative may not be there, and also because two or more parallel accounts of the same events may be given, so that there is often an apparent regression. The narrative is often broken by jātakas introduced to explain the cause of the events recorded. Apart from its importance as an instance of the later canonical literature, the *Mahāvastu* is also of great value in preserving much of the older canonical material which it quotes from the Scriptures of the Lokottaravādins, and it throws light especially on the development of dogmatic views about a Bodhisattva and Buddha.

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² Āryamahāsamghikānām lokottaravādinām madhyadeśikānām pāṭhena vinayapiṭakasya mahāvastuye ādi. Vol. i, 2.

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³ He also has quotations from the Vimānavatthu and the Buddhavamsa, showing that these works, though the latest in the Pāli Canon, came from India. The wildest views have been expressed about the date of the work. It is evident that the portions contributed by the compiler must be much later than the canonical passages which he quotes. For our purpose it is

c28.s4.4

There are two other works of Avadāna type, closely related to the *Mahāvastu* in that they give a biography of Buddha. The first, which exists only in Chinese, has been translated by S. Beal under the title, *The Romantic Legend of Sâkya Buddha* (London, 1875), and he declared it to be a version of the *Abhinishkramaṇa-sūtra*. The Chinese title, however, is *Fo-pan-hing-tsi-ching*, which Nanjio (No. 680) restores as *Buddha-pūrva-caryā-sangraha-sūtra*, “ Sūtra of the collection of the previous life of Buddha.” It forms a better arranged account than the *Mahāvastu*, and it is easy to see that it is constructed from Vinaya material. Much of it corresponds closely with the Pāli Vinaya, but a note at the end states that it belonged to the Dharmaguptas, and it was doubtless based on their Canon. The note also mentions the names of five lives of Buddha as current in different schools. Beal’s note seems to imply that they are different names of the same work. One of them is *Ta-sse*, which he correctly

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only necessary to note that the canonical matter forming the bulk of the work belongs to a Hinayāna school parallel to the Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda, and that it contributed to the buddhology of Mahāyāna.

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interprets as *Mahāvastu*, and which is doubtless our *Mahāvastu*, as it belonged to the Mahāsanghikas. It is clear that not one book in the different schools is meant, but that each school possessed its own life of Buddha.¹

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¹ See Nanjio’s note, *Cat.* No. 680.

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Another title of one of these lives, given by Beal as that of the book of the Sarvāstivādins, is *Ta-chong-yen*, “Great magnificence,” which Vasiliev identified with the *Lalita-vistara*. But the latter title means “extended account of the sports (of the Bodhisattva)”, and it is a Mahāyāna work. It is, however, easy to see that the *Lalita-vistara* is based largely on Sarvāstivāda material, and this material may even have been the work called “Great Magnificence”. The *Lalita-vistara*, besides containing much avadāna matter, still retains direct evidence of having once been a Sarvāstivāda avadāna, for it has two beginnings. After the usual introduction of a Mahāyāna sūtra, saying that the Lord once dwelt at Śrāvastī, it begins over again: “At that time the Lord was dwelling near the great city of Śrāvastī, honoured, reverenced, respected, worshipped.” If the words “at that time” were omitted, we should have the same abrupt beginning as we find in the avadānas, followed by the same stereotyped list of epithets, *satkṛto, gurukṛto*, etc. This looks like a survival of the original beginning of an avadāna. The work is of much greater literary ability than the *Mahāvastu*. The narrative is well ordered, and much of it, both in prose and verse, corresponds closely to the Pāli, but is most probably from the Sarvāstivāda Canon. Besides this there are long verbose passages of purely Mahāyāna origin, as well as poems very different from the canonical verses which it quotes. They are often in elaborate metres and in very corrupt Sanskrit due to their having been adapted and Sanskritized as far as possible from a Prakrit dialect.

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Another work may be mentioned here, though it is not canonical, as being the chief Pāli authority for Buddha’s life. It is the introduction to the *Jātaka*, the *Nidāna-kathā*, “discussion of the causes or occasions (of Buddha’s deeds recorded in the *Jātaka*).” It was composed in Ceylon, and the author has compiled the first part by quoting largely from the *Buddhavamsa*. The rest, from the decision to be born to the first preaching, is based on the Canon and the old Sinhalese commentaries, to which the author directly refers. The reputation of the Pāli Canon has given a quite spurious authority to the *Nidāna-kathā*. It was treated as equally canonical, but whatever the age of that Canon, the *Nidāna-kathā* cannot be earlier than the fifth century A.D. The author probably knew the *Lalita-vistara* or one of the rival works, for he protests against the story that Buddha, when he was tempted by Māra’s daughters in the guise of old women, condemned them to remain in that state.

Cites (7)