Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahayana

Daniel Boucher

Daniel Boucher

Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahayana

A Study and Translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra

In: Studies in the Buddhist Traditions

University of Hawaii Press | 2008

https://doi.org/10.1515/9780824861650

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Bodhisattvas of the Forest delves into the socioreligious milieu of the authors, editors, and propagators of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra (Questions of Rastrapala), a Buddhist text circulating in India during the first half of the first millennium C.E. In this meticulously researched study, Daniel Boucher first reflects upon the problems that plague historians of Mahayana Buddhism, whose previous efforts to comprehend the tradition have often ignored the social dynamics that motivated some of the innovations of this new literature. Following that is a careful analysis of several motifs found in the Indian text and an examination of the value of the earliest Chinese translation for charting the sutra’s evolution.

The first part of the study looks at the relationship between the bodily glorification of the Buddha and the ascetic career—spanning thousands of lifetimes—that produced it within the socioeconomic world of early medieval Buddhist monasticism. The authors of the Rastrapala sharply criticize their monastic contemporaries for rejecting the rigorous lifestyle of the first Buddhist communities, an ideal that, for the sutra’s authors, self-consciously imitates the disciplines and sacrifices of the Buddha’s own bodhisattva career, the very career that led to his acquisition of bodily perfection. Thus, Boucher reveals the ways in which the authors of the Rastrapala authors co-opted this topos concerning the bodily perfection of the Buddha from the Mainstream tradition to subvert their co-religionists whose behavior they regarded as representing a degenerate version of that tradition.

In Part 2 Boucher focuses on the third-century Chinese translation of the sutra attributed to Dharmaraksa and traces the changes in the translation to the late tenth century. The significance of this translation, Boucher explains, is to be found in the ways it differs from all other witnesses. These differences, which are significant, almost certainly reveal an earlier shape of the sutra before later editors were inspired to alter dramatically the text’s tone and rhetoric. The early Chinese translations, though invaluable in revealing developments in the Indian milieu that led to changes in the text, present particular challenges to the interpreter. It takes an understanding of not only their abstruse idiom, but also the process by which they were rendered from an undetermined Indian language into a Chinese cultural uh_product. One of the signal contributions of this study is Boucher’s skill at identifying the traces left by the process and ability to uncover clues about the nature of the source text as well as the world of the principal recipients.

Bodhisattvas of the Forest concludes with an annotated translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra based on a new reading of its earliest extant Sanskrit manuscript. The translation takes note of important variants in Chinese and Tibetan versions to correct the many corruptions of the Sanskrit manuscript.

Frontmatter Free access PDF PDF	i
Contents Free access PDF PDF	v
Acknowledgments Free access PDF PDF	vii
Abbreviations Free access PDF PDF	ix
Introduction Free access PDF PDF	xi
Part I: Asceticism and the Glorification of the Buddha’s Body: The Indian Text of the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā-sūtra
Chapter One: The Physiognomy of Virtue Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	3
Chapter Two: Former Life Narratives and the Bodhisattva Career Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	20
Chapter Three: Wilderness Dwelling and the Ascetic Disciplines Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	40
Chapter Four: “Profit and Honor”: A Critique of Sedentary Monasticism Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	64
Part II: Indian Buddhism through a Chinese Lens: Dharmarakṛa’s Translation of the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā-sūtra
Chapter Five: The Role of Translation in Reconstructing the Early Mahāyāna Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	87
Chapter Six: Mistranslation and Missed Translation Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	101
Part III: An Annotated Translation of the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā-sūtra
One: Prologue Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	113
Two: The Story of Puṇyaraśmi Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	142
Notes Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	171
Bibliography Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	251
Index Access restricted Content is available PDF PDF	283

Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahayana

A Study and Translation of the Rastrapalapariprccha-sutra

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