Satrunjaya, the most important pilgrimage site of the period

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Panel 9 643

Phyllis Granoff

Jain Biographies of Nägärjuna

Or: Notes on the Writing ofa Biography in Medieval India

Jain sources preserve a distinct account of tiie life of the Buddhist Nägärjuna, who is regarded as a convert to Jainism and an alchemical wizard. Nägärjuna's life is told in all the major biographical collections of the Svetämbara Jains, the prabandhas that date mostly from the

13th and 14th centuries, and a 14th century pilgrimage text, the Vividhatirthakalpa of

Jinaprabhäsüri. The PrabarulhakoSa of Räja^ekharasüri (1349 A.D.) is typical of these

sources.

Nägärjuna is depicted as the son of a human princess and the snake king Väsuki, and his

birthplace is Mt. Satrunjaya, the most important pilgrimage site of the period. From his father he learns the essence of herbs and potions, but in order to leam to fly he betakes himself to the Jain teacher and wonder-worker, Pädaliptäcärya. Failing to leam the secret by subterfuge, he becomes Pädalipta's proper student, and in other accounts a pious Jain as well. Eventually Nägärjuna desires to make the elixir of immortality as a prelude to perfecting the virtue of

charity. Again unsuccessful, he must bring a magical image of the Jina Pärsvanätha and the

Sätavähana Queen herself to his place of operations, which will become another famous Jain holy site, Stambhana Tirtha. With this Nägärjuna succeeds, only to be killed by the queens's greedy sons who cut off his head with a blade of grass. The elixir is removed from its hiding

place on Mt. Satmfijaya by two Gods to prevent it from disturbing the balance of the

universe.

In its main features this Jain biography of Nägärjuna accords well with the legendary accounts

of the Buddhists in which Nägärjuna is likewise linked with snakes, alchemy, and a holy

mountain, is known for his charitableness, and dies an unnatural death. The life history is localized in the Jain tradition by several careful connections. Through his association with

snakes and alchemy, Nägärjuna is linked to Pädaliptäcärya, the famous Jain wizard who was

himself said to have been bom as a boon from the snake Goddess. He is then tied to two

pilgrimage sites, Mt. Satmöjaya, which was famous for its wells and streams yielding

immortality, and Stambhana with its magical image of the Jina Pärsvanätha, who was always

associated with snakes. This last connection explains why the biography is told in the

Vividhatirthakalpa as well as in the prabandhas.

Finally this paper suggests that the connection between biography and pilgrimage account,

between holy man and holy site, explored here and known elsewhere in Jainism, may have

been a cmcial one in the composition and dissemination of legends about holy men in

medieval India. Verification must await future research.

KOICHI Shinohara

Inscriptiorml Sources of Chinese Buddhist Biographies

Chinese Buddhist biographies found in the normative collections, "Biographies of Eminent Monks" by Hui-chao (519), "Further Biographies of Eminent Monks" by Tao-hsiian (645 and expanded later), and "Sung Biographies of Eminent Monks" by Tsan-ning, are for the most part based on stupa (ie., tomb) inscriptions. This paper examined the relationship between

A. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North African Sludies, Hamburg, 25th-30th Augusl 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).

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the biographies and the inscriptions they are based on from several points of view. The relationship was first examined most concretely by comparing the 22 cases from Tsan-ning's

Sung collection where the inscriptions, some specifically mentioned in the biography and

some not, are still preserved. The comparison revealed that the compiler generally reproduced the parts of the inscriptions giving the historical facts of the subjects faithfully, though with occasional modifications, but that the introductory rhetorical passages and the verse at the end (tsan) are generally omitted in the biography.

The second step in the examination of the relationship between the biographies and the

inscriptions focused on the references to the authors of stupa inscriptions that are given in the biographies themselves. The first point to be noted here is that generally speaking, the authors

of the inscriptions were not monks but widely known secular officials/writers. Chinese

biographies of monks were, therefore, complex documents: they were short summaries of the

lives of monks, first written in most cases as stupa inscriptions by secular/lay writers and

later edited by compilers of the normative collections who were themselves monks. The

authors of these inscriptions would have written these inscriptions only when they felt that

the deceased monks were sufficiently important, and the compilers of the biographical

collections mentioned only the most important men who authored inscriptions. A systematic

examination of these references in the three collections should throw some light on the

secular, that is lay, Buddhist community's view of Buddhism during the period covered by

each of the three collections. References appear to be concentrated in the category of

"exegetes" in Hui-chao's collection, in the categories of "exegetes", "meditation masters", and "vinaya masters" in Tao-hsiian's collections, and in the category of "meditation masters"

in Tsan-ning's collections. Furthermore, the list of authors mentioned suggested that a

relatively small number of writers were known as writers of stupa inscriptions for monks.

The third step in the examination of the relationship between the biographies and the

inscriptions focused on the descriptions of the death and funerals of the subjects. This

examination showed that not all biographies were based on stupa inscriptions. The three

collections contained biographies of monks who were still alive at the time of compilation and also most notably a number of biographies that state explicitiy that the circumstances of the

monk's death are unknown. Since stupa inscriptions usually describe these circumstances in

some detail, these biographies could not have been based on stupa inscriptions. A systematic examination of the number of biographies which state explicitiy that the circumstances of the

monk's death are unknown revealed that such statements were concentrated in several

categories of biographies. Most notably, the biographies ending with this statement were

concentrated in the category of "miracle workers" in all three collections. This suggests that miracle stories, which in China appear often to have been written in the form of biographies constituted an important source of Buddhist biographies in the three normative collections.

Finally, the process through which a miracle story, written as an inscription, becomes the

basis of a biography in the "miracle workers" section of Tsan-ning's collection was studied concretely using the case of Yiian-kui (chüan 19).

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Panel 9 645

JULLMM Baldick

The Legend of Räbi 'a of Basra

Räbi 'a of Basra, the most famous woman of Islamic mysticism, is presented as having lived in the eighth century AD by texts from the ninth century onwards, which speak of her witty repartee. A narrative of about 1200 says that before repenting, with the help of a preacher, and becoming an ascetic, she 'fell into minstrelsy'. This usually meant prostitution. A life of the mystic Rümi (d. 1273) alleges that when he called out 'Räbi'a!' a prostitute repented 'in the manner of Räbi a'. The story resembles that of Jesus and the woman who 'was a sinner'

in Luke 7:37-50. From the late twelfth century we hear of the veneration of Räbi'a at the

shrine of the legendary Christian penitent courtesan, Pelagia.

Another Räbi ' a, of Syria, placed in the early ninth century by texts from the tenth century onwards, is portrayed as not having intercourse with her pious husband. Thus, behind the two contrasting Räbi as, we can discem pairs of contrasting Marys. Räbi a of Syria corresponds to Mary the mother of Jesus, and also to Mary, the sexually abstinent wife of Theophilus of

Antioch. Räbi a of Basra, on the other hand, corresponds to the anonymous sinner of Luke

(identified with Mary Magdalen in Iraq around 850), and also to the promiscuous, then

repentant Mary of Egypt.

The sixteenth-century Tadhkira-yi Bughrä-Khäni, by Ahmad Uzgani of Turkestan, contains

biographies of evidentiy imaginary women mystics. The first entirely resembles Mary the

mother of Jesus. The second is forced to marry: she prays for deliverance, and her husband

is stmck dead. She makes a withered tree turn green, just as God does for Mary in Islamic

tradition. A third has a fine voice and is forced into prostitution (like the legendary Christian penitent Thais). She repents, with the help ofa pious figure, and is buried very much in the

manner of Mary of Egypt. A fourth is a singer, who is given to a tyrannical king: he is

stmck dead at her prayer. She repents and marries an impotent mystic.

In India we note that miniatures depicting Räbi 'a of Basra show the influence of paintings of the European Renaissance, portraying the 'Magdalen in the Wilderness' . In Algeria we find a sort of she-demon, Lalla Imma Tifellüt, who repents to become an ascetic. We can compare

her to a North Moroccan she-demon, Ä'isha Qandisha, whose sumame has been seen as

perpetuating the ancient Near Eastem term qedeshä, meaning a sacred prostitute. Thus we

are enabled to see a contrast delineated by Jacques Lacarri^re in a study of Christian

hagiography, that between the ancient alternatives of sacred prostitution and sexual

abstinence. We observe the presentation of women in the Gospels: Mary the mother of Jesus,

standing against the scandalously nomadic Mary Magdalen; and the domestic Martha,

standing against her shocking sister Mary. The study of Islamic hagiography can lead to a

better appreciation of the New Testament, Christian hagiography and Goethe's Faust.

a. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North African Studies, Hamburg, 25th-30ih August 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).

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Panel 10 647

Harumichi Ishizuka

Devices for Reading Chinese Texts Among the Neighbouring Peoples

7. "Xun-du" — reading and WiM "translation". The main subject of our panel is the xun-du-Tcading of Classical Chinese Texts (ccT). Xun-du is similar to the translation of a text in that it is a device for understanding CCT in any mother tongue, but it differs from the translation in that the original written form of a text is preserved. Xun-du is a specific and ingenious linguistic device. It existed as early as in the 7th century but its extent differed in

each language. In some languages only the word order was changed and the words were read

in Chinese, in others the word order was changed along with reading the words in the native language.

Example: X^^MmX. fl^fflÄUS- ' " T-^ffift

mmz. m^nmm- •" At^ mm

2. The aim of the panel. The aim of our panel is to explain, on the basis of the linguistic material from each language the origins of reading classical Chinese by means of xun-du, the development of the method, and the influence of the xun-du-rezding on each language.

Our panelists are specialists in Japanese, Korean and Vietnamese, but we welcome also any

remark from specialists in other languages present.

As it is considered that xun-du-rezdmg of classical Chinese developed to the greatest extent, and that the largest quantity of available material survived in the Japanese language, let me open our discussion with a report on the Japanese reading of ccT.

3. The state of the Japanese material related to the car. The existence of the Japanese data related to xun-du goes back to the end of the 8th century.

(Phot. 1 - zk.tLmt^xnm mmmm jsjiiKf (783) • (788) -

punctuations and igSfc kaeriten in red ink).

In the case of the early ccT in the Japanese xun-du-re&ämg, their basic character and the shape of the diacritical marks provided in order to achieve the accurate understanding of the

original text, was the same as in the case of the Chinese material. However, in the case of

Japanese, the problem is posed by kaeriten. In the beginning, their major aim was to show

the word order, and the function of 'returning' of a Chinese character was not necessarily fulfilled. In that respect, contrary to the Japanese usage, in Korean and Uighur data from 12-

13 centuries, the kaeriten were used as the 'returning' marks. However it seems that their

shape is the same in material from any language, (cf. Ishizuka 1970, 1977, Nam 1976,

1981, Shcxjatto 1982).

Furthermore, kata-kana originated in the time of the;c«n-dM-reading, and was used originally

only in the xun-t^u-reading of ccT (on the other hand hira-gana was used in any field of

private writing). Kata-kana may be regarded as a special Japanese device added to CCT and

being a sort of commentary. Kata-kana, which originated as simplification of manyo-gana,

may be thought of as a natural Japanese device for reading ccT. The manyo-gana usage had

been already present in the Korean material. (It existed also in Vietnamese).

However, up till now mutual relations between the kukyöl which originated as a result of such a simplification and the Japanese kata-kana have not been pointed out. Moreover, the shapes

A. Wezler/E. Hammerschmidt (Hrsg.): Proceedings of the XXXII Intemational Congress for Asian and North African Studies, Hamburg, 25th-30th August 1986 (ZDMG-Suppl. 9).