Khuddaka Nikaya - Therigatha ( Psalms of the Sisters ) The Commentator's Introduction
THE COMMENTATOR'S INTRODUCTION
Honour to that Exalted One, Arahant, Very Buddha!
NOW is the occasion come for commenting on the meaning of the psalms of the
Sisters. The exposition of their several poems will be made easier and more
intelligible, if I first relate the circumstances under which the Bhikkhunīs in
the beginning came to leave the world and obtain admission into the Order. Of
this, therefore, I will give an account in outline.
When the Lord of the world had combined the Eight Factors–humanity and the rest
of Buddhahood–when, having made his great resolve at the feet of the Buddha
Dīpankără,63 and mastering equally all the Thirty Perfections, according to the
prophecy of the Four-and-Twenty Buddha in succession concerning him, he had
reached the climax in his progress towards wisdom, knowledge of the world and
Buddhahood, then he took rebirth in the Realms of Bliss (Tusita). And there,
when he had lived the span of life among the ten thousand gods of the Cosmic
Circles, he thereupon assented to the request of those gods to be reborn as a
man that he might become a Buddha, according to their words:
'The time is now at hand when Thou,
Great Hero, shouldst as man be born.
Bearing both gods and men across,
Do Thou reveal th' Ambrosial Way!'
So he made the Five Great Considerations, and then, in the house of King
Suddhodana, of the princely clan of the Sākiyas, did he, mindful and
self-possessed, enter a mother's womb; then, mindful and self-possessed, did he
there ten months abide; then, mindful and self-possessed, did he thence emerge
and come to birth in the Lumbinī Grove.
Reared by divers nurses, surrounded ever in luxury by a great retinue, he grew
up in due course, dwelling in one of three mansions, amid divers bands of
nautch-women, and enjoying honours like a god. Then, anguish being stirred in
him at sight of an aged man, a diseased man, and a dead man, he, from the
maturity of his insight, saw the danger in the life of the senses and the profit
in renouncing it. Mounting his horse Kanthaka, and with Channa as his companion,
at midnight, through the gate set open by spirits, he went forth on the Great
Renunciation. During the remainder of that night he traversed three kingdoms,
and, coming to the bank of the river Anomā, and taking the outward marks of an
Arahant, brought to him by the Brahmā-god Ghaṭīkāra, he left the world.
Thereupon, as though he were already an Elder with the eight requisites, 64
comely in appearance and of graceful deportment, he came in due course to
Rājagaha, and there going round for alms, he ate his meal in the cave of Mount
Paṇḍava. There the King of Magadha offered him his kingdom. But he, refusing it,
went to Bhaggava's hermitage and learnt his system; thence to Āḷāra and Uddaka
and learnt their systems. Finding all that inadequate, he proceeded to Uruvelā,
and there for six years practised austerities. Then, discerning that this
brought no penetration of the Ariyan Norm, he said, 'This is not the Path to
Enlightenment,' and, taking solid food, he in a few days recovered strength. So,
on full-moon day in the month of May, he ate the choice food given by Sujātā, 65
and, casting the golden dish upstream into the river, he, full of his resolve,
'To-day will I become a Buddha!' ascended at eventide the Bo-tree seat–his
praises sung by Kāla, king of the Nāgas–and there, in a quakeless spot 66 facing
the eastern world, seated him cross-legged and indomitable. There, fixing his
will in four respects, he vanquished the power of Māra ere the sun went down. In
the first watch of the night he recalled his former lives; in the middle watch
he purified the eye celestial; in the last watch he sounded the depth of the
knowledge of the Causal Law. And, grasping in direct and reverse order the
formula of causal relation, he developed insight, and reached that perfect
enlightenment reached by all Buddhas but shared by no one else. There then
abiding seven days in the Fruition which has Nibbana as its object, and, in the
same manner, abiding yet other seven days on the Bo-tree seat, he partook of
sweet food beneath the Rājāyatana tree.67 Then, again, seated beneath the
Goatherds' Banyan, he reflected on the depth of the essence of the Norm. 68 And
his mind was disinclined for effort till he was entreated by Great Brahmā; but
then he gazed upon the world with the Buddha-Eye, and, seeing all the diverse
range of faculties in all beings, he promised Great Brahmā that he would teach
the Norm. Meditating, 'Where, now, shall I first teach the Norm?' he discerned
that Āḷāra and Uddaka had passed away; but then he thought, 'Very helpful to me
were the Five who were attending on me when I broke off from my ascetic
struggles. What if I were first to preach to them?' So, in the full moon of
July, he went from the Great Bo-tree toward Benāres. And when he had travelled
eighteen leagues, he met halfway the recluse Upaka 69 and conversed with him;
and so on to Isipatana, where he convinced the Five by means of the Discourse
called Turning the Wheel of the Norm, 70 beginning:
'There are two extremes, O bhikkhus, which the man who has given up the world
ought not to follow' . . .
thus giving them, beginning with Aññakondañña, together with eighteen myriads of
Brahma-gods, a draught of Truth-ambrosia. Then on the first day of the next
fortnight he established also Elder Bhaddaji in the path of the Stream-winners;
on the second day, Elder Vappa; on the third day, Elder Mahānāma; on the fourth,
Elder Assaji; and on the fifth day, by preaching the sermon of the Mark of
No-Soul, he established them all in Arahantship. Thereafter he brought over many
folk into the Ariyan fold 71 –to wit, the fifty-five youths led by Yasa, the
thirty Bhaddavaggiyans in the Cotton-tree Grove, and the thousand former
ascetics on the ridge of Gayā-Head. And when he had established eleven myriads,
with Bimbisāra at their head, in the fruit of Entering the Stream (conversion),
and one myriad in the Three Refuges, he accepted the gift of the Bamboo Grove,
and there abode. Now, when Sāriputta and Moggallāna, brought into the First Path
through Assaji, had taken leave of Sañjaya (their teacher), had joined the
Buddha with their respective followings, and had realized the topmost Fruition,
he set them, who had attained the perfection of discipleship, over all his
disciples. Then, going at the entreaty of Elder Kāḷudāyi to Kapilavatthu, he
subdued the proud stubbornness of his kinsmen by the Twin Miracle, 72 and
establishing his father in the Path of No-Return, and Great Pajāpatī 73 in the
Fruition of Entering the Stream, and causing the princes Nanda and Rāhula 74 to
renounce the world, he went back to Rājagaha.
Now it came thereafter to pass, while the Master was staying at the Hall of the
Gabled House near Vesālī, that King Suddhodhana attained Arahantship while under
the white canopy, 75 and then passed away. Then in Great Pajāpatī arose the
thought of renouncing the world. Then there came to her the wives of those five
hundred young nobles who had renounced the world on hearing, on the bank of the
Rohinī river, the 'Discourse concerning Strife and Dissension,' and they told
her, saying: 'We will all renounce the world to follow the Master.' And they
wished that she should lead them to him. Now Great Pajāpatī had once already
asked the Master for admission to his Order, and had not won his consent;
wherefore she now bade her hairdresser cut off her hair, and donning the yellow
robes, she took all those Sākiya ladies with her to Vesālī, and there entreating
Him of the Tenfold Power through Elder Ānanda, she gained his permission to
leave the world and enter the Order by accepting the Eight Rules. 76 And the
others, also, were all ordained at the same time.
This, in brief, is the story. What is here said has been handed down at greater
length here and there in the Pali Canon.
Thus ordained, Great Pajāpatī came before the Master, and, saluting him, stood
on one side. Then he taught her the Norm. She, taking up under him the system of
exercise, attained to Arahantship. The other five hundred Bhikkhunīs attained it
at the end of Nandaka's sermon.77 Now the Order of Bhikkhunīs being thus well
established, and multiplying in divers villages, towns, country districts, and
royal residences, dames, daughters-in-law and maidens of the clans, hearing of
the great enlightenment of the Buddha, of the very truth of the Norm, of the
excellent practices of the Order, were mightily pleased with the system, and,
dreading the round of rebirth, they sought permission of husband, parents, and
kin, and taking the system to their bosom, renounced the world. So renouncing
and living virtuously, they received instruction from the Master and the Elders,
and with toil and effort soon realized Arahantship. And the psalms which they
uttered from time to time, in bursts of enthusiasm and otherwise, were
afterwards by the Recensionists included in the Rehearsal, and arranged together
in eleven cantos. They are called the Verses of the Elder Women (Therī-gāthā),
and they are divided into cantos of single verses, two verses, and so on, as
follows:
63 One of the twenty-four Buddhas of later Buddhism. Early Buddhism reckoned
only seven. For this and the following episodes in greater detail, cf. Rhys
Davids, Buddhist Birth Stories, pp. 12 ſ. 27, 28; 60, 61; 87; 92.
64 Loc. cit., 87.
65 Ibid., 92 ſſ.
66 Loc. cit., 96.
67 =King's-stead Tree.
68 See Translator's Preface.
69 See his story in Ps. lxviii.
70 Translated by Rhys Davids in Buddhist Suttas, S.B.E. xi., pp. 146 ſſ.
71 Lit., territory–i.e., the 'true faith.' Cf. Buddhist Birth Stories, p. 113.
72 Cf. Buddhist Birth Stories, p. 123 ſ.
73 The sister and co-wife of the Buddha's mother. See Ps. lv.
74 His half-brother (son of Pajāpatī), and his own son.
75 I.e., as King and layman, without renouncing the world.
76 For the oldest acoount of this, see Rhys Davids and Oldenberg, Vinaya
Texts, iii., 320 ſ.
77 Majjhima Nikāya, iii., pp. 270 ſſ.
0 comments:
Post a Comment