1999 Meeting Abstracts A156: New Studies in South and Southeast Asian Buddhism

A156 Confidence and Uncertainties: Belief and Community in Avadana Literature
Andy Rotman, University of Chicago

The Divydvaddna ("The Divine Legend") is a compilation of narratives that offers unique insight into some of the lesser known areas of Buddhist thought and practice in the early centuries of the Common Era. One particular problem that it addresses is the question of belief (sraddha) more specifically, what it means to believe, what objects are to be believed in, who it is that believes, and what constitutes the ends of sanctioning such belief. Yet, to understand these notions of belief, it is also necessary to understand how such notions fit with the text's visual world, for the text employs numerous discursive strategies that are dependent on visual phenomena. Through a close examination of the Kotikama-avaddna ("The Story of One whose Ear is Worth Millions"), the first avadana in the Divydvaddna, while also drawing upon examples from other avadanas in the text, I will try to map out these overlapping constructs of vision and belief to understand better the Buddhist believer that the text constructs and presents and what precisely such a believer is supposed to believe in.

A156 Tracks of Multivalence: Footprints of the Buddha and/as Footprints of Visnu
Jacob N. Kinnard, Northwestern University

This paper examines this classificatory ambiguity of the Buddha's footprints within the early Buddhist tradition; what emerges is the distinct impression that the tradition itself regarded these objects as ambiguous and thus, as it were, fluidly situated them within the three traditional classes of relics. This apparent classificatory fluidity within Buddhist discourse is, however, mirrored by a second, more complex, level of ambiguity: namely, when these physical footprints have been actually located on the ground, as ritual objects, they have been regarded not only or not simply as representations of the Buddha's presence (or absence), but also as representations of Visnu, and they have not only been venerated by Vaisnava Hindus for centuries, but these images have over the centuries frequently found their way to nearby Gaya where they have been installed, unambiguously, as visnupodos. This paper thus examines the various and complex dynamics of the pad/as' blurred identities, and their participation in the intertwined ritual practices of Hindus and Buddhists in and around Bodhgaya.

A156 Nagaruna and Early Andhra Monastic Institutions
Joseph Walser, Tufts University

This paper addresses the place and function of Mahayana within the Buddhist monastic institutions and practices of ancient India. More specifically, it looks the place and function of the Madhyamika of Nagaruna within the Buddhist institutions of the late Satavahana dynasty in the Krishna River valley. It will address the status of this Mahāyāna philosophical school as a social institution vying with other institutions for intellectual recognition as well as material support. This relationship will be examined through epigraphical, art historical and finally through textual sources, in order to unpack the formative material conditions of its textual productions. I argue that the need to conform to certain monastic codes and the need to appeal to lay donors placed certain constraints on the formation of this early Mahayana doctrine.

A156 Monks and nuns; but where are the kids?
Mathieu Boisvert, Universite du Quebec Montreal

No research has been held on the actual role of children within the monastic community. It is therefore my intention to cover this gap, at least within the Theravada monastic tradition. The structure of the research is threefold. The first stage is to define the concept of childhood within the Theravada textual tradition. Were individuals who had been married at the age of nine still considered children? Only after we offer a working definition of childhood within that textual context, will we be capable of analyzing the function of child-nun and child-monk within the monastic context described in the canon. We will finally establish a bridge between our textual observations and the contemporary monastic situation, more particularly in Myanmar. For this purpose, we will of course base our observations on Burmese daily monastic life, but will also analyze in more details the dhammacarya national exam designed for monks between the age of 9 and 10, and attended by more than 5,000 young monastics each year. We are convinced that this paper will provide valuable information on childhood within the Theravada monastic tradition, past and contemporary.