The Stream of Deathless Nectar (Amatarasadhārā)

This encyclopedia entry surveys the artistic, epigraphic, textual, and ritual evidence for the worship of the past and future Buddhas in mainland Southeast Asia.

These entries: – ‘Bodhisattva Career in the Theravāda’, ‘Buddha’ (main entry), ‘Buddha, Dates of’, ‘Buddha, Early Symbols’, ‘Buddha, Family of’, ‘Buddha, Historical Context’, ‘Buddha, Relics of’‘Buddha, Story of’, ‘Buddha, Style of Teaching’, ‘Buddha and Cakravartins’, ‘Buddhas, Past and Future’, ‘Ennobling Truths/Realities’, ‘Ennobling Truths/Realities, the First’,‘Ennobling Truths/Realities, the Second’, ‘Ennobling Truths/Realities, the Third: Nirvāṇa’, ‘Ennobling Truths/Realities, the Fourth: the Ennobling Eightfold Path’, ‘Not-Self (Anātman)’, ‘Pratyeka-buddhas’.

This essay examines how nikāya traditions and early Mahāyānists understood the bodhisattva path. It makes the point that these traditions shared the understanding that it is only possible to enter the path in the presence of a living Buddha and that it is thus impossible for any person now living to do so. It argues that while Buddhists following nikāya traditions found a few ways to work around this problem, the authors of early Mahāyāna sūtras established a coherent bodhisattva tradition by using a bold approach to attribute bodhisattva status to their followers. Because it is very helpful for the journal that published this paper to get "clicks", please click the following link: https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/pdf/10.1086/716425.

Buddhism is a vast and complex religious and philosophical tradition with a history that stretches over 2,500 years, and which is now followed by around 115 million people. In this introduction to the foundations of Buddhism, Rupert Gethin concentrates on the ideas and practices which constitute the common heritage of the different traditions of Buddhism (Thervada, Tibetan, and Eastern) that exist in the world today. From the narrative of the story of the Buddha, through discussions of aspects such as textual traditions, the framework of the Four Noble Truths, the interaction between the monastic and lay ways of life, the cosmology of karma and rebirth, and the path of the bodhisattva, this book provides a stimulating introduction to Buddhism as a religion and way of life.

Contents The online pagination 2012 corresponds to the hard copy pagination 1990 Abbreviations........................................................................vii Introduction...........................................................................1 R.F. Gombrich Recovering the Buddha’s Message....................................5 R.F. Gombrich How the Mahāyāna Began................................................21 K.R. Norman Pāli Philology and the Study of Buddhism.......................31 A. Huxley How Buddhist is Theravāda Buddhist Law?.....................41 T.H. Barrett Kill the Patriarchs!................................................................87 T.H. Barrett Exploratory Observations on Some Weeping Pilgrims...99 I. Astley-Kristensen Images and Permutations of Vajrasattva in the Vajradhātumaṇḍala................................................111

This article presents an avadāna excerpt found in Śamathadeva’s Abhidharmakośopāyikā-ṭīkā. The tale reports a monk’s change of sex to female, followed by five hundred successive births as a woman, all of which happened as the karmic result of having addressed his fellow monks as women. The avadāna identifies this monk, who is introduced as a reciter of the Tripiṭaka, with the Bodhisattva in a past life. The story of the past serves to explain why the Buddha’s advice was disregarded by the quarreling monks of Kauśāmbī, who were involved in a dispute over a minor issue of monastic discipline. The present study places this unsourced avadāna in its broader textual context, suggesting the possibility of its placement in a no longer extant Mūlasarvāstivāda Kṣudraka-piṭaka. It then explores the question of a ‘gendered evaluation’ of karmic retribution, as well as the significance of a change of sex to female (and eventually back to male). This change reportedly took place when the Bodhisattva was already on the path to Buddhahood and had generated the bodhicitta, his resolve to reach full awakening.