3. The Collection of Relics: A New Story The overall magnification and positivization of Aśoka as time went on is also reflected in the development of the legend of his gathering the relics of the Buddha from the abode of the naga kings. In the Aśokāvadāna and the Mahāvaṃsa, as we have seen, Aśoka fails to obtain the relics from the underwater pal - ace, leaving them in the one instance to the nāgas and in the other to Soṇuttara and Duṭṭhagāmaṇi. But with the increas - ing magnification of Aśoka as a model of kingship, and with the increasing symbolic significance of his distribution of all the relics of the Buddha — his whole body — throughout Jambudvīpa, such a presentation of the story was no longer really satisfactory. It would hardly do to have the great world 169 monarch bested by a nāga, nor, outside of Sri Lanka at least, would it be all right for him to be outdone by Duṭṭhagāmaṇi. Some other solution had to be found. Several were. The Chinese translation of the Sanskrit Sa ṃ yukt ā gama (Pali: Saṃyutta Nikāya), for instance, tells exactly the same story of Aśoka’s attempts to get the relics from the nāgas as the Aśokāvadāna except that he is successful and does not go away empty-handed. 61 Moreover, there exists another rather different tradition about Aśoka in which he is also successful in obtaining the relics from the nāga king. This is preserved in a bewilderingly wide variety of texts such as Buddhaghosa’s commentary on the Dīgha Nikāya, the Sumangalavil ā sin ī ; the last section of the A-y ü wang chuan (a Chinese collection of miscellaneous Aśoka stories); the 12 th century Burmese Pali cosmology, the Lokapa ñ ñ atti; the 13 th century chronicle of the Great Stūpa of Sri Lanka, the Th ū pava ṃ sa; and the 16 th century Tibetan history of Buddhism, Tāranātha’s Chos ḥ byung. 6 2 In these sources, we are told that king Ajātaśatru long ago had deposited all the Buddha relics in the Ganges where they were guarded by a huge revolving water wheel on which wooden figures armed with sharp swords spun around and effectively prevented anyone from passing. Aśoka, however, manages to stop the wheel from turning although the way in which he does this differs from text to text. Variously, he diverts the course of the river to keep the wheel from spin - ning (Tāranātha); he throws prunes into the water to block the mechanism (A-y ü wang chuan); he calls on Viśvakarman, the divine artificer, to disarm the wooden figures holding the words (Th ū pava ṃ sa, Sumangalavil ā sin ī ) ; and he recruits the son of the magician-engineer from the “Land of Roma” who made the figures in the first place (Lokapa ñ ñ atti). 170 Having passed this first checkpoint, however, Aśoka then encounters a nāga king who further bars his way. Not know - ing how to proceed, he turns to a monk for advice. The monk tells him that he will be successful in getting the relics only if his merit is greater than that of the nāga. Their relative merit is then calculated as follows: two statues (r ū pa) of identical size are made — one of Aśoka and one of the nāga — and are then weighed. The implication is that he whose statue is the heavi - est will be the one who has the most merit. At first, the nāga’s, statue weighs twice as much as that of Aśoka. Aśoka then has - tens to acquire more merit, and gradually his statue gets heav - ier and heavier until finally it outweighs that of his adversary and he is able to pass and take away the relics. 63 The implications of this story need hardly be spelled out. Here Aśoka clearly overcomes the comparative weaknesses which he exhibited in the Aśokāvadāna and the Mahāvaṃsa and which led to his failure to obtain the Buddha-relics. This time, there is no stopping him. Indeed, in seemingly direct con - tradiction to the Mahāvaṃsa, the Thūpavaṃsa would have us believe that his success was foretold long ago, for, in its account of the story, Aśoka is said to find in the relic chamber a golden plaque that reads: “In the future, a prince named... Aśoka will take these relics and have them widely dispersed.” 64 4. The 84,000 Stūpas Once More This dispersal of the relics that the Thūpavaṃsa refers to is, of course, none other than the construction of the 84,000 stūpas which we examined earlier. This Aśoka-legend too was sub - ject to evolution in the later tradition. As mentioned, it was to become Aśoka’s most famous act, and Buddhist rulers as far 171 as Japan were inspired to emulate it. 65 Even today, it remains a model for certain rituals in Southeast Asia. 66 But nowhere was this episode developed quite as spectacu- larly as in the Lokappa ñ ñ atti, written in Burma in the 11 th cen - tury. Here the festival celebrating the completion of the 84,000 stūpas becomes a sort of model for merit-making festivals in general; in it, Upagupta plays the important role of keeping Māra at bay so that he will not disrupt the proceedings, while Aśoka himself, as king and layman, takes on the role of chief devotee. He prepares magnificent offerings for presentation to the monks and to the stūpas during seven years, seven months, and seven days. But the most spectacular event of this great ceremony, and the one I wish to focus on, is the last, when Aśoka, in a moment of self-sacrifice and devotion, makes an offering of himself to the great stūpa in his capital. The epi - sode has been much neglected in Aśokan studies and is worth translating here: On the seventh day, King Aśoka, desirous of paying pūjā to the great stūpa, had his own body wrapped in cotton up to his neck and his limbs up to his wrists, and had himself soaked with five hundred pots of scented oil. Then, standing facing the Mahā- stūpa, making añjali, his head anointed with oil, and mindful of the Buddha, he had his body set on fire; and the flames rose up in the air to a height of seven persons. The king kept repeat - ing a stanza in praise of the Buddha: “Namo Bhagavato Arahato Sammāsambuddhassa — Hail to the Blessed One, the arhat, he who is altogether enlightened. For the benefit of many he taught the Dharma which is well spoken, made visible, timely, open to all, leading to Nirvāṇa, to be known by each individual, and well practised by the wise. His is the community of disciples which conducts itself up rightly, properly and correctly.” In this way he recollected the Triple Gem, and, while he was 172 so meditating, the flames did not hurt him in the slightest and his body remained as cool as though it had been smeared with sandalwood paste. And thus it was on the second, third, and up to the seventh day; the king payed pūja to the great stūpa with his entire body ablaze. Then he washed and, adorned with all his ornaments, and surrounded by his ministers, he did wor - ship the stūpa, circumambulating it three times. Then he lis - tened to the preaching of the Dharma for seven days and nights, offered food to the community of monks, worshipped it and went off with his entourage. 67 Several things are remarkable about this rather extraordinary tale which presents Aśoka as a model devotee and hero of Buddha- bhakti. First of all, in it, Aśoka manages to achieve by means of devotion (or more precisely by means of the contem - plation of the Three Refuges) an ecstatic state which makes possible a supernatural feat akin to those usually achieved by persons far advanced in the practice of meditation. Indeed, the non-burning of the body in flames is a common feature of the supernatural powers sometimes exhibited by arhats. Secondly, this account of Aśoka’s burning recalls also prep - arations for a cremation, more specifically for the cremation of a cakravartin king. 68 The message is a clever one; in his per - fection of bhakti, Aśoka has here achieved something that he was unable to accomplish during his lifetime: the perfection of kingship — full cakravartinhood. Finally, the fact that in this, his cremation, Aśoka does not die indicates that in this event he manages to go beyond death. He is, so to speak, reborn in a new state, something that was indicated in the older versions of the story by his name change from Caṇḍāśoka to Dharmāśoka, but which is made more graphic, here. 173 Conclusion With this Lokapa ñ ñ atti legend, we come to a logical endpoint in our study of the development of Aśoka ’ s image. It is a develop - ment that has taken us from the time of Aśoka himself through to the relatively late layers of the tradition. In the course of it, we have been able to trace what might be called the general idealization of Aśoka from a Buddhist point of view. In the edicts, Aśoka ’ s relation to Buddhism is, as we have seen, ambiguous; at best he is a sympathetic semi-patron whose concern for Buddhism is but part of a larger interest in the spiritual state of his empire. In the Aśokāvadāna and the Mahāvaṃsa, however, we found the image of a fully Buddhist A ś oka, but one which was skewed by its context and presented differently depending on the different outlooks of its present - ers. Finally, in later sources, in South, Southeast and East Asia, we saw some of those special concerns drop and give way to a full magnification of the person of Aśoka as the great and ideal Buddhist king, the model of devotion and bhakti. There is one final image of Aśoka that we have not touched on here but which might, in fact, concern us more than any other. That is the image of Aśoka that has developed among modern scholars and among present-day followers of Buddhism. In our own time, I have heard Aśoka heralded as a champion of Buddhist socialism, as a founder of Indian nationalism, as an advocate of animal rights, as the prophet of pacifism. Likewise he has been lambasted as a hypocrite, a totalitarian Big Brother, a maker of monastic landlordism. To some extent, all of these views may be rooted in the sources we have considered, and it is likely that there is some truth in each of them. But taken together they testify once again to the ongoing development and the ever-changing nature of the image of Aśoka.urbandharma.org/pdf/king_asoka.pdf
Posted on: Mon, 17 Mar 2014 10:44:46 +0000
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