Michael Radich. How Ajātaśatru Was Reformed: The Domestication of "Ajase" and Stories in Buddhist History. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 2011. iii + 202 pp. ISBN 978-4-906267-65-1.
Reviewed by Juan Wu (The University of Tokyo)
Published on H-Buddhism (March, 2013)
Commissioned by Dan Lusthaus (Harvard University)
The present book provides the broadest and most systematic survey to date of the history of the transmission and transformation of the Ajātaśatru (Japanese: Ajase) narrative in the Buddhist world, tracing its two and a half millennia-long journey from ancient India, across medieval China, to premodern and modern Japan. The primary concern of this survey is to explore the process of how the Ajātaśatru narrative was changed, gradually and transculturally, from a patricide-regicide tragedy in its ancient Indian versions eventually into a story about mother-son psychological conflicts in its modern Japanese presentations. Michael Radich has performed an exemplary feat of synthesizing abundant and complex textual materials coming from a wide range of historical and cultural backgrounds and composed in a variety of languages (Pāli, Sanskrit, Chinese, and Japanese). Through demonstrating the great diversity and adaptability of the Ajātaśatru narrative throughout its history, Radich suggests that the modern Japanese domesticated versions, however unusual they appear to be, should be understood within and contextualized as part of the long and continuous process of transformation of this narrative. There seems to be no precedent study, so far as I am aware, that has offered us such a wide and holistic perspective on the history of the Ajātaśatru/Ajase narrative spanning from ancient India to modern Japan. Radich surely deserves great praise and gratitude for his remarkable contribution to our knowledge of both the historical transformations of the Ajātaśatru/Ajase narrative in particular, and the significance of Buddhist stories in the study of the history of Buddhism in general.
The book contains ten chapters and six appendices. Its broad range could, indeed, challenge any reviewer’s scope of expertise. This review will mainly focus on chapters 2 and 3, in which Radich deals with Indian versions of the Ajātaśatru narrative and related issues, though evaluative comments will be made on the rest of the book as well.
Chapter 1 sets forth the background and rationale of the entire study. Radich begins by articulating the most radical transformation of the Ajātaśatru narrative in its history: while in traditional Buddhist sources the narrative concerns the Magadhan king Ajātaśatru’s killing of his father for the sake of the throne, in modern Japan, at the hands of the psychoanalyst Kosawa Heisaku 古沢平作(1897-1968) and his disciple Okonogi Keigo 小此木啓吾(1930-2003), it was adapted into a story centering on internal tensions between Ajātaśatru and his mother, and used by them to illustrate the so-called Ajase Complex as a challenge--or, perhaps more accurately, a supplement--to Sigmund Freud’s Oedipus Complex. Unlike previous modern Buddhologists who tended to criticize Kosawa and Okonogi for distorting the “standard” Ajātaśatru narrative, Radich questions whether such a standard really exists, and moreover suggests the need to reconsider Kosawa and Okonogi’s modifications in light of a more accurate understanding of the overall narrative tradition.
Chapter 2, “Ajātaśatru in India,” serves as Radich’s starting point for tracing the history of the Ajātaśatru narrative. It provides an overview of the patricide story and connected events (such as Ajātaśatru’s repentance and salvation) in Indian Buddhist sources, with brief mention also of Jaina sources. As Radich clarifies at the beginning of the chapter, there is “not a single story” but “a greatly ramified narrative complex” about the patricide of Ajātaśatru in Indian Buddhist literature, and his interest is in “presenting a summary of Indic sources of the Ajātaśatru narrative in an artificial, synthetic form” so as to show the “overall range of versions that existed in Buddhist (and Jaina) traditions” (p. 7). The synthetic form presented by Radich offers a clear view of both the contour and the internal diversity of the narrative complex of the patricide of Ajātaśatru in extant Indian Buddhist sources, although, as I will suggest below, there are still significant Buddhist texts about Ajātaśatru (for instance, several Sanskrit avadānas) that could be added.
Based on this synthetic form, Radich proceeds to analyze some broad trends in the development of the narrative. He observes that early material, such as the Pāli canon, contains two distinct episodes on the patricide of Ajātasattu, one in the Cullavagga of the Vinaya-piṭaka, which shows the Buddha’s archrival Devadatta instigating Ajātasattu to kill his own father Bimbisāra, and the other in the Sāmaññaphala-sutta of the Dīgha-nikāya, which concerns Ajātasattu’s repentance for his patricide. Radich suggests that these two episodes may represent “two originally separate traditions” of the Ajātaśatru narrative (p. 18). In particular, regarding the episode of Ajātaśatru’s repentance, he argues that various versions of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra exhibit “an overall tendency for Ajātaśatru’s salvation by the Buddha to become more and more complete and radical over time” (p. 21). Further, considering that the two early episodes separately present the prelude to the patricide (i.e., Devadatta’s instigation) or its aftermath (i.e., Ajātaśatru’s repentance) but neither tells us how Bimbisāra died, Radich argues that the “Prison Sequence”--i.e., the series of narrative elements concerning Ajātaśatru’s imprisoning of Bimbisāra--found in some Buddhist texts may have been “developed to fill this gap” (p. 23). He contends that this development can be traced back to one single text, the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya (MSV), and hypothesizes that the MSV may be “the source of the innovations that brings together the ‘Prison Sequence,’ the Devadatta plot, and Ajātaśatru’s repentance” (p. 24). Radich also argues, “it is possible ... that the unusually high concentration of rare elements [of the ‘Prison Sequence’] in MSV indicates that MSV was the original source in which these elements developed” (p. 27). Moreover, as for three other sources that are from traditions relatively distant from the MSV but contain versions of the patricide story very similar to the MSV version--namely, Buddhaghosa’s Sumaṅgala-vilāsinī, a Buddhist text of obscure origin (T. 507) and Jaina texts--Radich argues that they either all borrowed from the MSV or shared with the MSV a common but now lost source.
So far as I know, this second chapter provides us with the most comprehensive overview to date of the Ajātaśatru narrative in Indian sources. It constitutes an invaluable reference for future research toward a more systematic understanding of stories about Ajātaśatru both within and beyond Buddhist traditions in ancient India. Radich has succeeded in giving readers a very clear idea of the overall range of the Indian Buddhist narrative tradition of the patricide of Ajātaśatru, and has convincingly demonstrated that already in its Indian homeland, before its travel to China and Japan, “great variety was the norm, not the exception, for versions of the Ajātaśatru narrative” (p. 32). The following are comments on some arguments made by Radich, and on the Buddhist and Jaina sources used in this chapter.
First, in discussing the tendency of extant versions of the Śrāmaṇyaphala toward a more thorough salvation of Ajātaśatru, Radich writes, “this line of development is taken even further--we might even say that it is radicalised--in MPNS B [= ‘*Brahmacarya’ Chapter of the MPNS]” (p. 22).[1] The same argument is reiterated later in chapter 3, where, in analyzing the Ajātaśatru story in the MPNS B, Radich says, “the salvation Ajātaśatru attains is by now perfect and complete” (p. 35). While it is true that the MPNS concentrates on the frame story of the Śrāmaṇyaphala and reworks it into an extremely elaborate form, it is nevertheless not a text in which Ajātaśatru attains complete salvation, if we construe the term “salvation” in its ultimate sense as referring in Buddhist contexts to attainment of bodhi or nirvāṇa. The MPNS shows that through visiting the Buddha Ajātaśatru’s crime is substantially mitigated, and that he has conceived the aspiration for supreme perfect awakening (*anuttarasamyaksaṃbodhicitta). However, it does not tell us Ajātaśatru’s eventual spiritual status, or whether he could attain liberation in the future. Rather it is the Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodanā (AjKV), one of the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras, which was translated into Chinese in the late second century CE, that provides detailed information concerning the Buddha Śākyamuni's prophecy on Ajātaśatru’s future lives, saying that he will attain Buddha-hood and then parinirvāṇa in his final life.[2] Thus, in the AjKV Ajātaśatru is granted complete salvation. Although in his book Radich mentions the AjKV on a number of occasions, no particular emphasis is placed on this text. In fact, there are good reasons to consider the AjKV one of the most important Indian Buddhist sources on Ajātaśatru: it is the earliest extant Mahāyāna text that deals with his salvation and that has him saved in the most thorough way; moreover, it proposes a radical soteriological idea that even the most evil deeds, such as the five ānantarya crimes, can be purified through realization of the doctrine of emptiness.[3] The AjKV, therefore, deserves more attention than it receives in the book. Throughout his analyses Radich refers to the two early Chinese translations of the AjKV and to its extant Tibetan version. However, there seems to be relatively little awareness of the fragmentary Sanskrit version discovered in the Schøyen Collection and published by Paul Harrison and Jens Uwe-Hartmann.[4] On the AjKV, it is also worth mentioning that most recently Miyazaki Tenshō 宮崎展昌 has published a book that examines in detail the compilation process of this text.[5]
Second, in discussing the episode of Ajātaśatru imprisoning his father Bimbisāra, Radich argues that this episode was added in order to fill the gap between the episode of Devadatta’s instigation and that of Ajātaśatru’s repentance in the earlier narrative tradition of the patricide of Ajātaśatru. This argument, it seems to me, is not entirely convincing. While it is likely that the episode of Bimbisāra’s imprisonment was later added into the Ajātaśatru narrative, the original motive for such an addition was probably only to elaborate the legend of Devadatta and had nothing to do with Ajātaśatru’s repentance. It is well to keep in mind that the Indian Buddhist story of the patricide of Ajātaśatru essentially serves as a building block within the larger narrative cycle of the schism of Devadatta. As Biswadeb Mukherjee and André Bareau have observed in their studies of the Devadatta legend, the Sarvāstivāda-vinaya and MSV versions of this legend differ from the versions found in the vinayas of three other schools (Theravādins, Dharmaguptakas, and Mahīśāsakas) by including, inter alia, an episode of how Ajātaśatru imprisons his father and causes his death.[6] As Jonathan Silk has amply shown, this episode represents a “common property of the Buddhist and Śvetāmbara Jaina traditions.”[7] It was incorporated by the Buddhists into the Devadatta legend to condemn Devadatta by attributing to him responsibility for the death of Bimbisāra. While the MSV also includes after the patricide story a version of the Śrāmaṇyaphala-sūtra illustrating Ajātaśatru’s repentance, the Sarvāstivāda-vinaya only tells the patricide story without mentioning his repentance. Thus, for the Sarvāstivāda-vinaya, it is impossible to say that the episode of Bimbisāra’s imprisonment is used to fill the gap between Devadatta’s instigation and Ajātaśatru’s repentance. Radich hypothesizes that the MSV is the source that combines the “Prison Sequence,” the Devadatta plot, and Ajātaśatru’s repentance, whereas the Sarvāstivāda-vinaya and several other Buddhist texts “take up some but not all of the resulting synthesis” (p. 24). This hypothesis seems to assume that the composition of the MSV predates that of the Sarvāstivāda-vinaya and all the other related texts. Such an assumption, however, is debatable and requires further supporting evidence.
Radich also writes, “MSV contains an unusual concentration of many elements of this sequence [i.e., the ‘Prison Sequence’], and this suggests that it may be their source” (p. 32). I wonder whether this single-origin model is really applicable to the Ajātaśatru narrative. In comparison, another scenario seems more likely to me: the story of Ajātaśatru imprisoning his father and causing his death was part of narrative lore shared among Buddhists and Jainas in ancient India; Buddhists used this story to elaborate the Devadatta legend and presented it in different versions with various details; the compilers of the MSV assembled (perhaps some) existing details and further combined the patricide story with the episode of Ajātaśatru’s repentance, consequently offering the most extensive version of the Ajātaśatru narrative.
Regarding Buddhist narrative sources on Ajātaśatru’s patricide and his salvation, in addition to those listed by Radich in appendix 1, one may also consider several Sanskrit avadānas including, for instance, the Pañcavārṣikāvadāna (no. 16) of the Avadānaśataka along with its Chinese and Tibetan parallels, the Ajātaśatrupitṛdrohāvadāna (no. 45) of Kṣemendra’s Bodhisattvāvadānakalpalatā, and the *Ajātaśatrvavadāna ascribed by Michael Hahn to Gopadatta.[8] Each of these sources presents and interprets Ajātaśatru’s patricide and/or his salvation in a distinctive way. A careful examination of them will certainly widen our understanding of both the overall range and the diversity of the Ajātaśatru narrative complex in Indian Buddhist traditions.
Regarding Jaina sources of the Ajātaśatru narrative, as Radich says clearly in appendix 1, his information is not directly from Jaina texts, but from translations given by Silk in his exemplary study of Buddhist and Jaina parallels to the narrative frame of the Contemplation Sūtra (T. 365, henceforth Cont.), i.e., the episode of Ajātaśatru (known to Jainas as Kūṇika) imprisoning Bimbisāra (known to Jainas as Śreṇika).[9] Since the purpose of his study is to demonstrate the Indian origins of that particular episode, Silk translates in full a good number of Jaina versions of that episode and only briefly summarizes Jaina accounts of other parts of the Ajātaśatru narrative. As a result, Radich’s treatment of Jaina sources takes no account of whatever information the Jaina texts might have contained that was not provided by Silk. For instance, on page 9, under the first bold heading “Before Ajātaśatru’s birth, there are indications of trouble to come,” concerning the first variant element “Bimbisāra, out hunting, kills a forest sage” (1a), Radich lists two Buddhist sources (the MSV and the MPNS) on Ajātaśatru’s previous life as a sage who swears to kill Bimbisāra in revenge in his next life. In fact, at least three Śvetāmbara Jaina texts, the Āvaśyaka-cūrṇi (ĀvC) of Jinadāsa (ca. sixth-seventh century), the Āvaśyaka-ṭīkā (ĀvṬ) of Haribhadra (ca. eighth century), and the Triṣaṣṭi-śalākā-puruṣa-carita (Tri) of Hemacandra (ca. eleventh-twelfth century), also describe Kūṇika’s previous life as a revengeful sage, though following a storyline somewhat different from that of the Buddhist versions.[10] In these Jaina texts, as in the MSV and the MPNS, the story serves as a karmic explanation for Kūṇika Ajātaśatru’s causing the death of his father in this life. Also on page 9, under the same heading, Radich lists two Buddhist sources on the attempt of Ajātaśatru’s mother Vaidehī to abort him during the pregnancy (see 1e), without being aware that this detail is also told in the Nirayāvaliyāo (the eighth of the Śvetāmbara Uvaṅgas) and later Jaina sources.[11] In comparing Buddhist and Jaina versions of the Ajātaśatru narrative, Radich points out, “the names of the persons involved differ (Ajātaśatru = Kūṇika; Bimbisāra = Śreṇika; Vaidehī = Abhaya)” (p. 29). While the former two equations are correct, the third one is not. Abhaya is known to both Buddhists and Jainas as one of the sons of Śreṇika Bimbisāra.[12] He is a half-brother of Kūṇika Ajātaśatru. Ajātaśatru’s mother Vaidehī is named Cellaṇā in Jaina literature.[13] For the same reason, in appendix 3, on page 159, “Abhaya” should also be corrected to Cellaṇā. Moreover, in appendix 4, on page 162, while Radich rightly notices that one of the unusual features of the version of the Ajātaśatru story in the Cīvaravastu of the MSV is “the name Celā for Vaidehī,” he seems to be unaware of the fact that Celā corresponds to Cellaṇā in Jaina texts.
Chapter 3, “Between India and China,” analyzes the versions of the narrative separately told in the MPNS (T. 374) and the Cont. (T. 365). Both texts are widely supposed to have been at least partially composed outside India, either in China or Central Asia. Radich identifies a great number of unusual features of these two versions as compared with parallel versions of the Ajātaśatru narrative in Indian Buddhist sources. In particular, he observes, “both texts share the motif, otherwise unknown, of Ajātaśatru’s threatening the life of Vaidehī” (p. 47). The Cont. elaborates this motif even further, insofar as “the focus of the Ajātaśatru narrative is for the first time shifted quite thoroughly away from Ajātaśatru himself and onto his mother” (p. 45). As Radich suggests, since many unusual elements in the MPNS and Cont. versions “were to become mainstays of the Kosawa/Okonogi Ajase narrative,” “the Kosawa/Okonogi versions of the Ajase narrative are thus highly modified versions of highly modified versions of the Ajātaśatru narrative” (emphasis in original) (p. 47).
One supplementary note may be made on Radich’s analyses of the MPNS. In examining the extended passage on Ajātaśatru’s repentance and salvation in the “*Brahmacarya” chapter of the MPNS, which is apparently adapted from the frame story of the Śrāmaṇyaphala, Radich observes that both the teachings of the six heretics related by Ajātaśatru’s ministers and the discourse preached by the Buddha in this passage are highly unusual, “full of elements not seen in any other version of Ajātaśatru’s story” (p. 39). Interestingly, in an essay published last year (2012), Phyllis Granoff observes that both the heretical doctrines and the Buddha’s discourse in the MPNS contain arguments strikingly parallel to those found in the Śāntiparvan (Book 12) of the Mahābhārata, which are presented by brothers and wives of Yudhiṣṭhira (who is also called Ajātaśatru) to assuage his guilt of killing his own relatives. Granoff suggests that the parallels to the Mahābhārata may indicate an Indian origin of the MPNS, “at least for this expanded treatment of the Ajātaśatru story.”[14] On the one hand, given that Granoff’s essay appeared after the publication of the present book, Radich certainly could not have known this latest study of the MPNS. On the other hand, to be fair, although Radich does not associate the MPNS with the Mahābhārata, he is indeed aware that there are Indian elements in the portions of the MPNS on Ajātaśatru, for he says, “even if the MPNS Ajātaśatru narratives [i.e., the passage in the ‘*Brahmacarya’ chapter and that in the ‘Kāśyapa Bodhisattva’ chapter] were composed in China, their authors must have used some information about Indic traditions” (pp. 49-50). In any event, Radich’s analyses in chapter 3 and Granoff’s aforementioned essay taken together amply demonstrate that the MPNS version of the Ajātaśatru narrative, both in terms of its content and its underlying source(s), is highly distinctive as compared with other extant versions of the narrative.
Chapter 4, “The Making of the Chinese Ajātaśatru,” examines five important ideological trends in medieval China that may account for the “eventual popularity or even initial elaboration” of the MPNS and Cont. versions of the Ajātaśatru narrative (p. 61). This chapter, together with chapter 9, which discusses various factors in shaping Kosawa and Okonogi’s versions of the Ajase narrative in modern Japan, provides an excellent case study, particularly from a methodological point of view, of how to use Buddhist stories as windows into dynamics of ideas in the historical and cultural contexts they passed through.
Chapter 5, “New Twists on Ajātaśatru in Medieval China,” investigates two further developments of the Ajātaśatru narrative in China during the sixth and seventh centuries: one is “the gradual emergence of a tradition that Ajātaśatru was also, somehow, named ‘Broken Finger,’” and the other is “the introduction of the ‘white rabbit’ motif into the Ajātaśatru narrative” (pp. 62, 72). The “white rabbit” motif concerns Ajātaśatru’s reincarnation as a white rabbit before being reborn as Bimbisāra’s son. It seems to be unprecedented in the history of the Ajātaśatru story. As Radich convincingly shows, this motif “must once have enjoyed considerable currency” in Tang China, although nowadays it has almost been forgotten and rarely mentioned in modern scholarship (p. 72). As for the first development suggested by Radich, I have some misgivings. According to Radich, the name “Broken Finger” was coined by medieval Chinese commentators who attempted to make sense of an obscure statement in the MPNS, which says that Ajātaśatru was also named Poluoliuzhi 婆羅留枝 (Vāraruci?) because he was dropped from a high tower by his mother at birth and consequently suffered some injury to one of his fingers.[15] Radich says, “This [the name ‘Broken Finger’] perhaps first takes the form of Zhiyi’s claim that the name Poluoliuzh/*Vararuci means ‘fingerless’” (p. 62). However, it should be noted that in Jaina literature Ajātaśatru is called Kūṇika (var. Kūṇiya, Koṇika), a word probably etymologically derived from the Sanskrit root √kūṇ (“sich zusammenziehen” [to contract]) and thus having a meaning similar to Skt. kūṇi (“lahm am Arm” [crippled in the arm] or “Nagelgeschwür” [a nail sore]).[16] According to Jaina sources, Ajātaśatru is given this name because immediately after his birth he is abandoned by his mother in a grove, where one of his fingers is injured by the feather of a cock’s tail.[17] It is clear that Ajātaśatru already got the name “Broken Finger” in India, although it does not appear in extant Indian Buddhist texts.
Chapters 6-9 as a whole provide a close examination of various interpretations and adaptations of the Ajātaśatru narrative in premodern and modern Japan. These four chapters are the central part of the book, which certainly deserve a detailed review by someone more competent in Japanese religious and cultural studies than I am. The content of each chapter may be summarized as follows. Chapter 6, “Shinran and the ‘Rootless Faith,’” introduces how the Pure Land patriarch Shinran 親鸞 (1173-1262) placed the Ajātaśatru narrative at the center of his monumental work Kyōgyōshinshō and moreover used the narrative, particularly the notion of “rootless faith” exemplified by Ajātaśatru, to expound his radical doctrine of “akunin shōki [悪人正機] (‘It is precisely the evildoer who is the object [of salvific action]’)” (p. 82; Japanese Kanji added by the reviewer). Chapter 7, “Ajātaśatru Meets Snow White,” discusses some further developments of the Ajātaśatru between Shinran and the Meiji period, especially “its strong association in Japanese folklore with the story of Chūjōhime” (p. 85). Chapter 8, “Ajātaśatru Meets Freud,” examines different versions of the Ajase narrative composed by Kosawa and Okonogi “in the context of a wave of interest in Ajātaśatru and Vaidehī that ran from the Meiji through the Shōwa eras” (p. 103). As Radich emphasizes at the end of chapter 8, “their [Kosawa and Okonogi’s] versions of the Ajase story do, indeed, represent a startling new departure” from all the premodern versions, because in their treatments of the story Ajātaśatru’s patricide gradually becomes irrelevant, whereas his matricidal impulses, previously only seen in the MPNS and Cont. versions, are focused on and finally extended into a theory of mother-son psychological tensions (p. 104). Chapter 9, “The Making of the Japanese ‘Ajase,’” introduces a wide range of ideological and cultural factors at play at the time of Kosawa and Okonogi, which may account for the eventual shape of their Ajase narrative.
Chapter 10 presents concluding thoughts on the whole study. Based on a recapitulation of the major changes of the Ajātaśatru narrative through its long history, Radich argues that the narrative “encapsulates in microcosm many significant aspects of the larger story of Buddhism through the same contexts,” and that its longevity may be partially explained by its “‘piggybacking’ on other ideas and systems of ideas” (p. 132). He then goes on to suggest directions for future research and to consider larger implications of this study for Buddhist studies in general, such as the significance of Buddhist narratives “as evidence for the history of Buddhist ideas,” and the lessons to be learned by Buddhologists from modern developments of Buddhism (p. 134).[18]
All the objections aside, there can be no doubt that the present book has considerably updated our knowledge about the long and varied history of transformations of the Ajātaśatru narrative over more than two thousand years. Given the enormous range and great variety of the textual materials dealt with by Radich, the systematic and synthetic discussion provided in the book is truly unprecedented and awe-inspiring. This pioneering and fascinating volume will surely act as a great inspiration not only for future work on stories about Ajātaśatru, but also for the study of Buddhist narrative literature in general.
Notes
[1]. In his book, Radich uses the abbreviation MPNS to refer specifically to T. 374, i.e., *Dharmakṣema’s Chinese version of the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, a convention the reviewer will follow as well.
[2]. For the Sanskrit version of this prophecy, together with Chinese and Tibetan parallels as well as an English translation of the Tibetan, see Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann, “Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodanāsūtra,” in Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection I: Buddhist Manuscripts, ed. Jens Braavig et al. (Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2000), 1:205-214.
[3]. The five ānantarya crimes are usually said to be matricide, patricide, killing an arhat, drawing the blood of a buddha, and causing a schism in the Buddhist community. For a detailed study, see Jonathan Silk, “Good and Evil in Indian Buddhism: The Five Sins of Immediate Retribution,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 35 (2007): 253-286.
[4]. Besides the article mentioned above in note 2, one may also see Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann, “A Sanskrit Fragment of the Ajātaśatru-kaukṛtya-vinodanā-sūtra,” in Sūryacandrāya, Essays in Honour of Akira Yuyama on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. Paul Harrison and Gregory Schopen, Indica et Tibetica 35 (Swisttal-Odendorf: Indica et Tibetica Verlag, 1998), 67-86; Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann, “Two additional fragments of the Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodanāsūtra,” in Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection I: Buddhist Manuscripts, Vol. I, 301-302; and Paul Harrison and Jens-Uwe Hartmann, “Another Fragment of the Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodanāsūtra,” in Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection III: Buddhist Manuscripts, Vol. II, ed. Jens Braavig et al. (Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2002), 45-49. Radich does list the last of these publications in his bibliography (p. 175), but nowhere refers to it in the main body of the book.
[5]. Miyazaki Tenshō宮崎展昌, Ajase ō kyō no kenkyū: Sono hensan katei no kaimei wo chūshin toshite阿闍世王経の研究—その編纂過程の解明を中心として— [A Study of the Ajātaśatrukaukṛtyavinodana: Focusing on the Compilation Process], Bibliotheca Indologica et Buddhologica 15 (Tokyo: The Sankibo Press, 2012), esp. 47-97. Miyazaki’s book is based on his doctoral thesis submitted to the University of Tokyo in 2010.
[6]. Biswadeb Mukherjee, Die Überlieferung von Devadatta, dem Widersacher des Buddha, in den kanonischen Schriften (Munich: J. Kitzinger, 1966), 62n2; and André Bareau, “Les agissements de Devadatta selon les chapitres relatifs au schisme dans les divers Vinayapiṭaka,” Bulletin de l’École Française d’Extrême-Orient 78 (1991): 120.
[7]. Jonathan Silk, “The Composition of the Guan Wuliangshoufo-jing: Some Buddhist and Jaina Parallels to Its Narrative Frame,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 25 (1997): 219.
[8]. Michael Hahn, “Ajātaśatrvavadāna--A Gopadatta Story From Tibet,” in K. P. Jayaswal Commemoration Volume, ed. J. S. Jha (Patna: K. P. Jayaswal Research Institute, 1981), 242-276.
[9]. Silk, “The Composition of the Guan Wuliangshoufo-jing,” 181-256.
[10]. For the description in the ĀvC, see Śrīmaj-Jinadāsa-gaṇimahattara-kṛtayā sutra-cūrṇyā sametaṃ śrīmad-Āvaśyakasūtram (Ratlam: Śrīṛṣabhadevajī Keśarīmalajī Śvetāṃbara saṃsthā, 1928-29), 2:166.1-167.3, trans. in Juan Wu, “From Perdition to Awakening: A Study of Legends of the Salvation of the Patricide Ajātaśatru in Indian Buddhism” (PhD diss., Cardiff University, September 2012), 334-335. For the description in the ĀvṬ, see Śrīmad-bhavaviraha-Haribhadrasūri-sūtrita-vṛtty-alaṃkṛtaṃ śrīmad-Āvaśyakasūtram (Bombay: Āgamodaya Samiti, 1916-1917), 2:678a3-b5. I have no access to another Āvaśyaka-ṭīkā by Malayagiri (ca. eleventh-twelfth century).For the Tri version of the story, see Helen M. Johnson, Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra or The Lives of Sixty-Three Illustrious Persons by Ācārya Śrī Hemacandra, vol. 11, book 10 (Baroda: Oriental Institute, 1962), 138-141.
[11]. See Jozef Deleu, “Nirayāvaliyāsuyakkhandha: Uvanga’s 8-12 van de jaina Canon,” Orientalia Gandensia, no. 4 (1969): 102-104. See also ĀvC, vol. 2, 166.10: tīe ciṃtitaṃ eyassa gabbhasssa doso tti, gabbha-pātaṇehi vi na paḍati, “She realized, ‘This embryo has harm.’ Even by means of abortion, it did not fall.” For this detail in the Tri., see Johnson, Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacaritra or the Lives of Sixty-three Illustrious Persons by Ācārya Śrī Hemacandra. Vol. 11, Book 10, 156.
[12]. For Jaina sources on Abhaya, see Mohan Lal Mehta and K. Rishabh Chandra, Prakrit Proper Names (Ahmedabad: L. D. Institute of Indology, 1970-72), 1:49-51, s.v. “Abhaa.” For Buddhist sources on Abhaya, see Akanuma Chizen 赤沼智善, Indo bukkyō koyū meishi jiten 印度佛教固有名詞辞典 [A Dictionary of Proper Names in Indian Buddhism] (1931; repr., Kyoto: Hōzōkan 法蔵館, 1967), 1, s.v. “Abhaya1.”
[13]. On Cellaṇā, see Mehta and Chandra, Prakrit Proper Names, 1:265.
[14]. Phyllis Granoff, “After Sinning: Some Thoughts on Remorse, Responsibility, and the Remedies for Sin in Indian Religious Tradition,” in Sins and Sinners: Perspectives from Asian Religions, ed. Phyllis Granoff and Koichi Shinohara (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 175-215, quotation on 205.
[15]. See T. 374. 565c12-13.
[16]. See Otto von Böhtlingk, Sanskrit-Wörterbuch in kürzerer Fassung, 7 vols. (First St. Petersburg’s edition, 1883-86; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publisher, 1991), 2:88b, s.v. “kūṇ,” “kūṇita,” and “kūṇi.”
[17]. For the account in the Nirayāvaliyāo, see Deleu, “Nirayāvaliyāsuyakkhandha,” 103-104; for this detail in the ĀvC, see Rolf Heinrich Koch, “On the Interrelation of Certain Prakrit Sources,” Indologica Taurinensia 35 (2009): 279; and for this detail in the Tri and the Kathākośa, see Silk, “Composition of the Guan Wuliangshoufo-jing,” 209, 211.
[18]. Two very minor points may be made on the appendices at the end of the book. On page 147, Radich writes, “if we interpret the name [Ajātaśatru] as a kāmadhārya compound.” Here “kāmadhārya” should be corrected to karmadhārya (this error reappears in note 574 on the same page). On page 164, the name “Ajita Keśambalin” should be corrected to Ajita Keśakambalin or Keśakambala.
If there is additional discussion of this review, you may access it through the network, at: https://networks.h-net.org/h-buddhism.
Citation:
Juan Wu. Review of Radich, Michael, How Ajātaśatru Was Reformed: The Domestication of "Ajase" and Stories in Buddhist History.
H-Buddhism, H-Net Reviews.
March, 2013.
URL: http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=38350
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 3.0 United States License. |