Rahul Sankrityayan, "Prabha" §7
Rahul Sankrityayan, (राहुल सांकृत्यायन). 1942. वोल्गा से गंगा [From the Volga to the Ganges]. इलाहाबाद [Allahabad]: किताब महल [Kitab Mahal]. “प्रभा” [“Prabha” / “Radiance”], section 7, pp. 200–203.
Translation
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Prabha — Section 7
There is a large courtyard, with a veranda all around it and rooms in a three-storey building behind. Yellow robes are drying on racks along the verandas. In one corner of the courtyard is a well, with a bathing room beside it. Elsewhere in the courtyard are several trees, one of them a Pipal. Around the Pipal is a platform, and a little farther away stands a stone railing, with spaces for thousands of lamps. Prabha knelt down and bowed before the beautiful
tree, and said, “Beloved, it was a tree of this very kind beneath which Siddhartha Gautama sat, dispelled the delusions of his mind through his own effort and reflection, and attained awakening. From then on, he became known as the Buddha. It is only in memory of that beautiful event that we bow our heads before trees of this kind.”
“A symbol of dispelling the delusions of the mind and attaining awakening through one's own effort and reflection! Such a symbol deserves to be honoured, beloved. To honour such a symbol is to honour one's own effort—to conquer oneself!”
Then the two went to Bhadanta Dharmarakshita. At that time, he was sitting beneath a Bakula tree in the courtyard, where the sweet fragrance of newly opened blossoms filled the air. Prabha bowed to him in the manner of a Buddhist laywoman, prostrating herself with the five points of her body touching the ground: both feet, both knees, both hands, and her forehead.[1] Ashvaghosha showed his respect while remaining standing. Then the two took pieces of leather lying on the ground and sat down. The monk's disciples, assuming that Ashvaghosha had come to talk with him, withdrew. After the usual courtesies, Ashvaghosha broached the subject of philosophy. Dharmarakshita said, “Brahmin youth, even philosophy is described in the teaching of the Buddhas—the enlightened ones—as a bond, and a heavy bond at that: a fetter of views.”[2]
“Then, Bhadanta, does philosophy have no place in the Buddha's teaching?”
“Why should it have no place? The Buddha's teaching is full of philosophy. But the Buddha presents it as a raft for crossing over, not something to lift onto one's head and carry about.”
“What do you mean, like a raft?”
“Yes. People who come to a river where there is no boat make a raft and cross over on it. But once they have reached the other bank, they do not carry the raft's planks on their heads, even though the raft has served them well.”[3]
A man who had the courage to speak of his own teaching in this way must surely have seen the truth and its power. “Bhadanta, tell me something about the Buddha's philosophy
that will help us understand a great deal about our own minds as well.”
“It is the doctrine of non-self, Kumar. The Brahmins regard the self as an eternal, unchanging, everlasting reality. The Buddha does not accept any such eternal, unchanging, everlasting reality, either within the world or beyond it. That is why his philosophy is called the doctrine of non-self: it is a philosophy of impermanence, of arising and passing away from moment to moment.”[4]
“This one point is enough for me, Bhadanta. Ashvaghosha bows a hundred times to the Buddha, who declared that the teaching and the doctrine of non-self are like a raft. Ashvaghosha has found what he was searching for. I had been experiencing something like these waves within myself, but I could not give them a name. If people had properly understood the Buddha's teachings, the world would be a very different place today!”
“You are quite right, Kumar. Great philosophers have arisen in our Yavana country, too. Pythagoras and Heraclitus were alive in the Buddha's time; Socrates, Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle came a little later. These Greek philosophers thought deeply, but, with the exception of Heraclitus, none could rise above eternalism—the belief in what is permanent. They were too attached to the present. That is why they wanted to bind the future to it as well. Heraclitus, at least, did not believe that the world remained the same even for two successive moments, as the Buddha did. But he had a personal interest in this.”
“A personal interest in philosophical ideas?”
“Everyone has a stomach, Kumar. At that time, our city of Athens was governed by a gaṇa—a polity without a king. At first, powerful aristocrats, from families like Heraclitus's, held the reins of this form of government. Later, the merchants—the wealthy traders—displaced them and took control of the state. In this situation,
Heraclitus was dissatisfied. He wanted change, but not in order to move forward: he wanted to turn back!”
“We need change, but in order to move forward, not to turn back. I believe, Bhadanta, that the past is dead!”
“Exactly right, Kumar! The Buddha wanted change, too. To bring about a better world, he presented the community of monks as a model of that future world.”
“A world without caste, without high and low.”
“A world in which everyone shares equally in its benefits, and everyone shares equally in service. You must have seen our Mahāsthavira Dharmasena working outside, sweeping.”
“That dark-skinned monk?”
“Yes. He is the most esteemed among us. We bow to him every day with the five-point prostration. He is the leader of the monastic community throughout the whole Kosala country.”
“But I have heard that he comes from a Chandala family!”
“The monastic community does not look at family or birth, Kumar; it looks at a person's qualities. He is our leader and our father because of his learning and his virtues. If he receives even enough food to grease the inside of his bowl, he will not eat it without sharing it with his companions. This is the Buddha's teaching. Apart from our three robes, earthen alms bowls, a needle, a jalḍukkā, a razor, and a waistband, everything we have belongs to the community. This building, the vāra, the platforms, the seats, and everything else belong to the community. Some of our monasteries have fields as well, and those too belong to the community. The community examines a man and hears what he has to say before making him a monk; but once he has entered the community and become a monk, he is equal to everyone else.”[5]
“What if a community like this were established throughout the whole country?”
“How could that happen, Kumar? When have kings and the rich ever allowed others to become their equals? The monks once admitted a slave into the community.
As soon as he entered the community, he was no longer a slave: he was equal to everyone else. But the man who owned him began to raise an outcry. Other slaveholders joined him. Kings themselves own thousands of slaves. How could they tolerate an attack of this kind on their property? What could the Buddha do? He gave his word that, from then on, the community would not admit slaves. Our community is a little island in an ocean of inequality. That is why it cannot be safe as long as poverty and slavery of this kind continue to exist in the world.”[6]
Notes
- ↑ The Hindi calls this form of prostration pañca-pratiṣṭhita, literally involving five points of contact with the ground.
- ↑ The Hindi gives the expression as dṛṣṭi-saṃyojana, a bond or fetter of views.
- ↑ This is the familiar raft simile in the Alagaddūpama Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 22): the teaching is a means of crossing over, not something to which one should become attached.
- ↑ Here the story connects anātmavāda (the doctrine of non-self) with impermanence, in opposition to the Brahmanical conception of an eternal self.
- ↑ The passage contrasts the monks' limited personal requisites with the property held by the Saṅgha as a community. The precise meanings of jalḍukkā and vāra are uncertain from this text alone, so I have left them transliterated rather than guessed at their meanings.
- ↑ The story presents the Saṅgha as an egalitarian community constrained by the slaveholding society around it. The Buddha's promise is portrayed as a concession to the power of slaveholders, not as a resolution of the wider social inequality.
