Pregnant Words: South Asian Buddhist Tales of Fertility and Child Protection Author(s): Amy Paris Langenberg Source: History of Religions

Pregnant Words: South Asian Buddhist Tales of Fertility and Child Protection Author(s): Amy Paris Langenberg Source: History of Religions, Vol. 52, No. 4 (May 2013), pp. 340-369 Published by: The University of Chicago Press Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/669645 . Accessed: 09/06/2013 13:48 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact support@jstor.org. . The University of Chicago Press is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to History of Religions. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions  Amy Paris Langenberg PREGNANT WORDS: SOUTH ASIAN BUDDHIST TALES OF FERTILITY AND CHILD PROTECTION Apology and distancing are two discursive strategies for openly acknowledg- ing opposing interests while subtly dictating the terms of their acknowledgment. Apology, for example, can be simultaneously an admission of wrongdoing and a means of reconciling all involved to the transgression. The child who apologizes for grabbing his sister’s toy does not necessarily mean that he will never do it again. He recognizes, however, and desires to make amends for the disturbance he has caused. Distancing through sarcastic asides or dismis- sive body language can be a means of pushing someone away while still keep- ing her within reach. A mall-going adolescent who employs distancing strate- gies to separate from her mother is saved from social ignominy but need not reject the maternal credit card. This article contends that middle period (ca. 100 BCE–600 CE)1 Indian Buddhist monastic storytellers engaged in distanc- Earlier versions of this article were presented at the annual conference on South Asia (2008), the annual meeting of the American Oriental Society (2009), and the annual meeting of the American Academy of Religion (2010). I would like to thank all who listened and commented. In addition, I would like express sincere appreciation for my generous colleagues, Bhikkhu An
alayo, Alexander von Rospatt, Robert DeCaroli, Matthew Bagger, Joseph Walser, David Mellins, and the anonymous reviewers, who were all kind enough to read and provide detailed responses to earlier drafts. Thanks also to Alex Hsu, editorial assistant for History of Religions, for his astute comments and valuable suggestions. 1 Here I follow Schopen, who uses the term “middle period” because he wishes to avoid the dis- tortions introduced by referring to this period as “the early Mah
ay
ana Period,” a more traditional way of periodizing Indian Buddhism. Schopen argues that scholars’ dependence on Chinese trans- Ó 2013 by The University of Chicago. All rights reserved. 0018-2710/2013/5204-0002$10.00. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 341 ing and apology through various narrative strategies when they produced accounts of fertility and child protection rituals. In so doing, they, like the toy- grabbing child and the mall-going adolescent, attempted to manage conflict while keeping options open, to push certain practices away, but not too far away. It is no longer news that Indian Buddhist monks and monasteries partici- pated in any number of ritual interactions with local spirits and local commu- nities in the ancient Indic milieu.2 For the Buddhist community to thrive, it had to provide not only for the ritual requirements of monks but for lay ritual needs as well. Working in part from middle period and early medieval narra- tive texts, Phyllis Granoff has suggested that, at least in theory, Buddhists and Jains did reject certain village rituals, including rituals performed for the pur- pose of procuring children, as part of their effort to distinguish themselves from Vedic Hindus. She also argues, however, that ritual practice is not a sta- ble marker of sectarian identity and that we should not be surprised to find descriptions of Jains (her primary focus) performing the same rituals they pur- port to reject.3 Here, I build upon Granoff’s insight, maintaining that the ambivalence Buddhist storytellers evince toward this common type of ritual is not an indication that Buddhists eschewed fertility or child protection rituals as a category but rather evidence of their creative attempts to reconcile such rituals with a monastic ethic. Indeed, The teachings of monastic Buddhism offered little in the way of direct support or encouragement for the reproduc- tive ambitions of householders. As an ideal, monasticism rests on the princi- lations of Indian Buddhist texts has led them to exaggerate the influence of Mah
ay
ana texts and doctrines in India during this period. Gregory Schopen, “The Mah
ay
ana and the Middle Period in India Buddhism: Through a Chinese Looking-Glass,” in Figments and Fragments of Mah
ay
ana Buddhism in India: More Collected Papers (Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2005), 3–24. I posit 100 BCE as the beginning date for the middle period because this is a likely date for the clos- ing of the P
ali canon, and the end of the early period. See An
alayo, “The Historical Value of the P
ali Discourse,” Indo-Iranian Journal 55 (2012): 223–53. I posit 600 CE as a closing date for the middle period because this is the time when Tantric literature begins to appear, marking a new and distinct period in Indian Buddhism. 2 John Strong, The Legend and Cult of Upagupta: Sanskrit Buddhism in North India and South- east Asia (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992); Gregory Schopen, “Counting the Bud- dha and the Local Spirits In: A Monastic Ritual of Inclusion for the Rain Retreat,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 30, no. 4 (2002): 359–88; Robert DeCaroli, Haunting the Buddha: Indian Pop- ular Religions and the Formation of Buddhism (New York: Oxford University, 2004); Phyllis Granoff, “My Rituals and My Gods: Ritual Exclusiveness in Medieval India,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 29, no. 1 (2001): 109–34, “Other People’s Rituals: Ritual Eclecticism in Early Medie- val Indian Religious,” Journal of Indian Philosophy 28 (2000): 399–424, and “Paradigms of Pro- tection in Early Indian Religious Texts or an Essay on What to Do with Your Demons,” in Essays in Jaina Philosophy and Religion (Delhi, 2003), 181–212; Richard Cohen, “N
aga, Yakṣiṇı¯, Bud- dha: Local Deities and Local Buddhism at Ajanta,” History of Religions 37, no. 4 (1998): 360– 400. 3 Granoff, “My Rituals and My Gods.” This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 342 Pregnant Words ple of homelessness, of living ones life outside of the clutch of blood relations and sexuality, a principle clearly expressed in narratives of the Buddha’s life. In theory, at least, the matter of enhancing a woman’s fertility falls well out- side of the purview of Buddhist monks and nuns. If, therefore, middle period monastic communities were going to involve themselves in fertility and child protection rituals, it would have been useful for them to distance themselves from or apologize for their participation in such rituals by engaging narrative strategies such as characterization, dramatic irony, and conceptual reframing. In Sanskrit and P
ali narratives, Buddhist practices aimed at promoting the successful birth of children are treated in complex ways and with obvious am- bivalence. Some narratives depict humans and deities specializing in the protec- tion of mothers and children, for instance, as exceedingly pernicious prior to Buddhist conversion. Other Buddhist narratives describe monks engaging in tense negotiations with infertile laypeople, bringing their spiritual powers to bear on the problem but exacting the high price of a child in return. My discus- sion of the interpretive dynamics surrounding issues of fertility in Buddhist nar- rative is based on four specific examples from the middle period of Indian Bud- dhism. First, representations of the monastic protector and disease goddess H
arı¯tı¯ are (though a topic that has already received ample scholarly attention)4 an important source of information about the intersection of Buddhist monasti- cism and the reproductive needs of householders in early first-millennium India. P
ali narratives about the serial-murderer-turned-monk, A_ngulim
ala, provide another ambivalent account of a monastery-sponsored fertility and protection rit- ual. Additionally, P
ali versions of the traditional tale of the laywoman Suj
at
a’s offering to the Bodhisattva on the eve of his enlightenment can be read as a sly commentary on the ritual dynamics of fertility. Finally, Sanskrit avad
ana pas- sages in which Aniruddha and other monastic elders assist in child protection through the prenatal initiation of children situate what is essentially a monas- tery-sponsored Buddhist ritual for protecting fetuses and infants within the logic of merit making and renunciation. 4 See, e.g., Noel Peri, “H
aritı¯, la me`re de demons,” Bulletin de l’E´cole Franc¸aise d’Extreˆme- Orient 17, no. 3 (1917): 1–102; R. Misra, Yaksha Cult and Iconography (New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1981); Miranda Shaw, Buddhist Goddesses of India (Princeton, NJ: Princeton Univer- sity Press, 2006); Alfred Foucher, “The Buddhist Madonna,” in The Beginnings of Buddhist Art and Other Essays in Indian and Central-Asian Archaeology (London: Humphrey Milford, 1917), 271–79; A. D. Bivar, “Hariti and the Chronology of the Kuṣ
aṇas,” Bulletin of the School of Orien- tal and African Studies 33, no. 1 (1970): 10–21; Alexander von Rospatt, “The Sacred Origins of the Svayambh
ucaitya and the Nepal Valley: Foreign Speculation and Local Myth,” Journal of the Nepal Research Centre 13 (2009): 33–89; Schopen, “Counting the Buddha and the Local Spirits In”; Brigitte Merz, “Wild Goddess and Mother of Us All,” in Wild Goddesses in India and Nepal, ed. Axel Michaels, Cornelia Vogelsanger, and Annette Wilke (Bern: Peter Lang, 1996), 343–54; Reiko Ohnuma, “Mother-Love and Mother-Grief: South Asian Buddhist Variations on a Theme,” Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 23, no. 1 (2007): 95–116. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 343 _ Stories concerning H
arı¯tı¯, Angulim
ala, and Suj
at
a and the practice of pre- natal pledging are discussed here because of their narrative complexity, not because they comprise the only or even the best evidence of monastic involve- ment in rituals performed to ensure fertility, safe childbirth, and the protection of very young children from the early and middle periods of Indian Buddhism. The Vinaya tradition in particular contains compelling traces of such involve- ment, which Gregory Schopen has documented in two of his essays. In the M
ulasarv
astiv
ada tradition, for example, the nun Sth
ulanand
a is censored for carrying what appears to be a ritual vessel used for blessing and protecting children.5 The P
ali Vinaya contains a rule that allows monks to tread upon pieces of white cloth (something ordinarily forbidden to monks) if requested to do so by childless laypeople as part of an auspicious ritual.6 Unlike those rel- atively obscure and compellingly specific vignettes from the Vinaya, the four tales examined here were told and retold multiple times in a number of different textual (and sculptural) contexts over centuries. They are developed, multiva- lent, story traditions and, as such, have the potential to reveal interesting dimen- sions of how monastic intellectuals and storytellers came to frame and justify unorthoprax Buddhist concessions to village ritual. In them, monastic discom- fort with village fertility and child protection ritual is not only expressed but also managed through the art of storytelling. Historically, Indian monastics had much to gain from neutralizing their discomfort around rituals of reproduction and child protection. A monk who could bring about a pregnancy, ease childbirth, or protect an infant boy from the fever goddess would never lack a meal or a robe. Indeed, unwinding the discursive and literary contrivances that swaddle Buddhist narratives involv- ing fertility and childbirth reveals a surprising figure: a Buddhist adept who is not only a master of virtue and understanding but also, however reluctantly, a virtuoso of human fecundity. Thus, reading these old Buddhist stories with special attention to strategies of distancing and apology elucidates important dimensions of an ancient Indian Buddhism that comprised not only philoso- phy and ascetic discipline but also a symbolically complex, richly narrated, 5 Gregory Schopen, “The Urban Buddhist Nun and a Protective Rite for Children in Early North India,” in P
as
adikad
anam: Festschrift f€ ur Bhikkhu Pasadika (Marburg: Indica et Tibetica, 2009), 259–380. 6 Cullavagga v.2.127–129. A description of Prince Bodhi laying a white cloth on the ground and requesting the Buddha to walk over it is also found at Majjhima-nik
aya ii.91. 5–8. The Majjhima- nik
aya Aṭṭhakath
a explains that he did this in hopes that good fortune in the form of a son would result. Bhikkhu Bodhi and Bhikkhu N ˜
aṇamoli, trans., The Middle Length Discourses of the Bud- dha: A Translation of the Majjhima Nikaya (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2005), 705 n. 817; Gregory Schopen, “A New Hat for H
arı¯tı¯: On ‘Giving’ Children for their Protection to Buddhist Monks and Nuns in Early India,” in Little Buddhas: Children and Childhoods in Buddhist Texts and Traditions, ed. Vanessa Sasson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2012), 43–74. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 344 Pregnant Words and thickly ritualized religious system capable of serving a range of social, cultural, and psychological functions.7 distancing through characterization: ha
rı¯tı¯ and angulim _
la a Characterization is the process of creating characters for the purpose of story- telling. Playwrights, novelists, and screenwriters provide their protagonists with backgrounds, private thoughts, special physical traits, and distinctive speaking styles in order to convey information about them crucial to the story being told. Without developed characterization, protagonists cannot embody the author’s meanings. Rather, they are without texture, flat, capable of sounding only one note. Characterization is a literary feature especially associated with character- driven genres such as the modern European novel. Sanskrit aestheticians also theorized the ways in which characterization evokes certain aesthetic moods (rasa) in plays and poetry.8 Here, I do not seriously engage either aesthetic tra- dition, Sanskritic or European. I use the term “characterization” only in the sparest sense to index the ways that Buddhist storytellers establish characters’ backstories and associations, supplying tone and complexity to their descrip- tions of (and prescriptions for) lay-monk interactions. In particular, the associa- tion of ambivalent and formerly violent figures with rituals concerning fertility and childbirth creates a distancing effect that allows such rituals to be simulta- neously legitimized and marginalized. The tale of H
arı¯tı¯ is the first instance of distancing through characterization to be considered here. Buddhist narrative literature recognizes many spirits capable of bringing both benefit and harm to fetuses, infants, and small chil- dren, but the most famous of these by far is this infantophagic yakṣiṇı¯ turned dharma protector. The figure of H
arı¯tı¯ also appears regularly in Indian Buddhist art during the middle period, especially in the regions of Gandh
ara and Mathur
a. The impressive schist H
arı¯tı¯s from Gandh
ara show her alone or accompanied by her yakṣa husband P
an˜cika, seated or standing, and bearing a 7 Throughout this article, I use the words “ascetic” and “asceticism” to refer to all varieties of Buddhist renouncers and Buddhist monasticism, making no distinction between more and less rig- orous types. As Oliver Freiberger has pointed out, early Buddhist texts criticize extreme forms of asceticism of the type practiced by the Buddha and his companions prior to his enlightenment and also record monks performing these very same practices. Hence, Oliver Freiberger (“Early Bud- dhism, Asceticism, and the Politics of the Middle Way,” in Asceticism and Its Critics: Historical Accounts and Comparative Perspectives [Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2006], 235–58) draws a distinction between “ascetic” and “monastic” Buddhists. I make no such distinction here, as it is not relevant to my argument. All Indian Buddhist monastics, whether monks of the forest or of the town must refrain from sexual contact and put a stop to the production of children, at least in the- ory. These are the features of the ascetic path most germane to this study. 8 For instance, the N
aṭyas
astra, an early first-millennium Sanskrit manual on the performing arts, provides advice about what facial expressions, gestures, manner of dress, and speaking style ought to be employed to express various aesthetic moods and character types. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 345 variety of auspicious symbols, including money purses, cups, and clusters of grapes. She is usually depicted as an ample woman, richly dressed and benignly smiling while her children nurse at her breast, climb on her shoulders, play with her bead necklace, or wrestle at her feet. Sculptural depictions of H
arı¯tı¯ are non- uniform, but these busy infants are one distinctive and identifying feature of her iconography.9 In Gandh
ara, images of H
arı¯tı¯ and her husband, P
an˜cika, inhabited many Buddhist sites.10 Although a large number of well-known early images are from Gandh
ara, H
arı¯tı¯ was also present in other parts of Buddhist India during the Kuṣ
aṇa period.11 In Mathur
a, what are taken to be representations of H
arı¯tı¯ often resemble other locally popular fertility goddesses, especially the m
atṛkas, who are sometimes shown sitting with wide-planted feet and babies on their laps. Doorjambs and other panels from Mathur
a depicting tutelary couples are also usually taken to be representations of H
arı¯tı¯/P
an˜cika.12 Cave 2 at Ajaṇṭ
a, which dates to the late fifth century CE, contains a well-preserved H
arı¯tı¯ shrine, completed, in Walter Spink’s opinion, prior to the main Buddha image. This, again in Spink’s opinion, indicates a possibly female patron’s special devotion or awe for this goddess, “so connected in particular with the protection of children.”13 In contrast to narrative depictions, statuary depic- tions of H
arı¯tı¯ do not typically depict her as a tamed demoness, but, perhaps 9 “The presence of the infant is the identifying mark of the goddess and leaves little doubt con- cerning this iconography.” Stanislaw J. Czuma, Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India (Cleveland: Cleveland Art Museum/Indiana University Press, 1985), 157. “In the sculptures H
ariti has been shown either with P
an˜cika or alone, but always encumbered with children.” Misra, Yak- sha Cult and Iconography, 77. 10 W. Zwalf, A Catalogue of the Gandh
ara Sculpture in the British Museum (London: British Museum Press, 1996), 44–45, especially pl. 92. Stanislaw J. Czuma, Kushan Sculpture: Images from Early India (Cleveland: Cleveland Art Museum/Indiana University Press, 1985), 22, pls. 74, 7, 80. Harald Ingholt, Gandh
aran Art in Pakistan (New York: Pantheon, 1957), pls. 340, 342, 344. Anna Maria Quagliotti, “An Inscribed Image of H
arı¯tı¯ in the Chandigarh Government Museum and Art Gallery,” in Silk Road Art and Archaeology, vol. 6, Papers in Honour of Francine Tissot, ed. Elizabeth Errington and Osmund Bopearachchi (Kamakura: Institute of Silk Road Studies, 1999–2000), 51–60. 11 Foucher documents H
arı¯tı¯’s spread from Gandh
ara and Mathur
a north and east through Cen- tral Asia to Japan and China and southeast to Java. See also Aruna Tripathi, The Buddhist Art of Kau sambhı¯ (from 300 BC to AD 550), Emerging Perceptions in Buddhist Studies 17 (New Delhi: K.D. Printworld, 2003), 29, 119–20. Mallar Mitra, “H
arı¯tı¯ in Buddhist Monasteries,” in Historical Archaeology of India: A Dialogue between Archaeologists and Historians (New Delhi: Books & Books, 1990), 323. 12 Ananda Coomaraswamy, Yakṣas: Essays in the Water Cosmology (1928; New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), pt. 1, 42, pl. 21, numbers 3–4; Shaw, Buddhist Goddesses of India, 128–29. 13 Walter Spink, Ajanta: History and Development (Leiden: Brill, 2007), 48. Cohen (“N
aga, Yakṣiṇı¯, Buddha”) discusses this shrinelet in detail. In the cave monasteries of Aurangabad and Ellora, and at later Buddhist centers such as Ratnagiri and N
aland
a, H
arı¯tı¯ and her spouse were somewhat less prominently placed, occupying niches or alcoves on the verandas or outer walls of vih
aras. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 346 Pregnant Words euphemistically or for purposes of appeasement, as a gentle and smiling matron. The fact of this interpretive difference suggests that monastic story- tellers’ choice to emphasize H
arı¯tı¯’s bloodthirsty ferocity, narrowly con- tained, it is implied, by the superior power of the Buddha and his community, is deliberate, and can be legitimately interpreted as an example of distancing through characterization. H
arı¯tı¯ is ubiquitous in the Buddhist Sanskrit textual tradition,14 the most extensive version of her story being located in the M
ulasarv
astiv
ada Vinaya.15 The Vinaya informs us that after miscarrying a child in a previous embodi- ment, H
arı¯tı¯ angrily vows to be reborn as a child-eating yakṣı¯ with five hun- dred yakṣa sons. She is indeed born as a tutelary goddess with five hundred sons in the city of R
ajagṛha, and eventually succumbs to an overpowering urge to capture and consume the city’s young children. Only the Buddha is able to cure her craving for the flesh of children by kidnapping her beloved _ youngest child, Priyankara. When the Buddha finally returns the baby to his frantic mother, reminding her that the mothers whose children were her vic- tims cared as much as she, the ogress is chastened. She promises to cease her murderous ways and act instead as guardian to the Buddhist sangha. In return, the Buddha pledges that the Buddhist community will henceforth provide her and her children with sustenance in the form of food offerings. Thus, the Bud- 14 The story of a demon mother hushing her crying child, Priyankara, _ in the night so they can hear the edifying recitations of the visiting monk, Aniruddha, is found in the Sanskrit tradition of the Saṃyukta-
agama. This story is also cited in the Mah
aprajn˜aparamit
asa
stra (attributed to N
ag
arjuna) and Xuangzang’s Mah
avibh
asa
stra; Peri, “H
aritı¯, la me`re de demons,” 34–37. The aṣ
Lalitavistara mentions H
arı¯tı¯ as the mother of five hundred yakṣa sons, who, along with P
an˜cika and other yakṣa commanders, conspires to escort the Bodhisattva from the city on the night of the Great Departure, supporting the hooves of his mount, Kaṇṭhaka; Bijoya Goswami, Lalitavistara (Kolkata: Asiatic Society, 2001), 192. The Mah
avastu mentions a H
arı¯tı¯-like yakṣinı¯ whose one thousand sons descend upon Vais
alı¯ after her death and steal the vitality (ojas) of the people there. No one is able to quell the demonic horde except the Buddha; Emile Senart, Le Mah^ avastu (1897; Tokyo: Meicho-Fukyu-Kai, 1977), 253–54. Brief mention of H
arı¯tı¯ can be also found in the dh
araṇı¯ chapter of the Saddharmapuṇḍarı¯ka S
utra, in which a group of rakṣası¯s led by one Kuntı¯ pledge to protect the dharma teachers from all manner of malign beings. The Mah
am
ay
a S
utra reprises the tale of her conversion in verse; Peri, “H
aritı¯, la me`re de demons,” 30–31. The snake- bite text, the Mah
am
ayurı¯, also prescribes methods for pacifying her and counts her among those deities present at the Bodhisattva’s birth (ibid., 27). This is a representative, but not exhaustive, list of Sanskrit Buddhist texts that mention H
arı¯tı¯. 15 In the Tibetan Kanjur, the H
arı¯tı¯ story is found at Derge ‘dul ba Da 144b.5 or Tog Palace ‘dul ba Tha 215b.5. All Kanjur references are to chos kyi ‘byung gnas, bka’ ‘gyur (sde dge par phud), TBRC W22084, 103 vols. (Delhi: Delhi Karmapae Chodhey Gyalwae Sungrab Partun Khang, 1976–79), http://tbrc.org/link?RID¼W22084, or bka’ ‘gyur (stog pho brang bris ma), TBRC W22083, 109 vols. (Leh: Smanrtsis Shesrig Dpemzod, 1975–1980), http://tbrc.org/link? RID¼W22083. Unless otherwise noted, all translations are my own. Peri (“H
aritı¯, la me`re de demons”) provides an account of Yijing’s Chinese translation of the M
ulasarv
astiv
ada Vinaya, which contains an epilogue missing in the Tibetan version. Some of the missing material is present in various commentaries on Guṇaprabha’s Vinayas
utra preserved in Tibetan; for details, see Scho- pen, “New Hat for H
arı¯tı¯.” This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 347 dha saves H
arı¯tı¯ and the people of R
ajagṛha, neutralizing H
arı¯tı¯’s negative traits, accentuating her only positive trait (her strong maternal love), and sub- jugating her forever to the superior authority of the sangha. In this way, the M
ulasarv
astiv
ada narrative tradition assigns the formerly autonomous yakṣiṇı¯, H
arı¯tı¯, to the role of dharma protector. This new role does not, however, negate or even dilute her association with fertility and childhood disease. Chinese pilgrims to India report on her ongoing role as fer- tility and disease goddess. The seventh-century monk Yijing recounts the story of how the Buddha tamed H
arı¯tı¯, enlisting her to protect the sangha, and describes her worship by monastics and laypeople. “The sick and those with- out children,” he notes, “offer her food to obtain their wishes.”16 Xuanzang, too, reports on laypeople who desire offspring propitiating the “mother of the demons” (a common epithet of H
arı¯tı¯ in Chinese sources) with offerings in Gandh
ara.17 Inscriptional evidence also supports H
arı¯tı¯’s ongoing association with fertility and protection from disease.18 Although H
arı¯tı¯ is seen primarily as a “Buddhist” goddess, this sectarian label is probably misleading. Indo-Grecian and Kuṣ
aṇa-era seals and coins show, for instance, tutelary couples variously identified with any number of Br
ahmaṇa, Iranian, or Buddhist H
arı¯tı¯/P
an˜cika-like deities.19 In the Gandh
aran context, this tutelary couple (found also at Mathur
a) is not primarily a signifier of sec- tarian affiliation but rather serves a functional role as the bringer of fertility and wealth.20 Furthermore, as the archaeologist Prierfrancesco Callieri has suggested, the classical Gandh
aran sculpted images of H
arı¯tı¯ “likely represent a reemergence of the same form of local devotion that, prior to the develop- 16 Samuel Beal, trans., Si-yu-ki: Buddhist Records of the Western World, vol. 2 (Calcutta: Susil Gupta, 1958), 160 n. 96. 17 Ibid., 160. 18 Quagliotti, “An Inscribed Image of H
arı¯tı¯,” 54; Gerard Fussman, “Les Inscriptions Kharoṣṭhı¯ de la Paline de Chilas,” in Antiquities of Northern Pakistan: Reports and Studies, ed. Karl Jettmar (Mainz: von Zabern, 1989), 10–11; Martha Carter, “Petroglyphs at Chilas II: Evidence for a Pre- iconic Phase of Buddhist Art in Gandhara,” in South Asian Archaeology 1991, ed. Gail Adalbert and Gerd J. R. Mevissen (Stuttgart: Steiner, 1993), 355 n. 13; Sten Konow, Kharoshṭhı¯ Inscrip- tions: With the Exception of Those of Asoka (Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1969), 124–27; E´tienne Lamotte, History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins to the Saka Era, trans. Sara Webb-Boin (Louvain-la-Neuve: Universite Catholique de Louvain Institut Orientaliste, 1988), 689. 19 Pierfrancesco Callieri writes, “The seals indicate religious devotion to a goddess who, whether  Srı¯, Ardoxsˇo, Um
a, or H
arı¯tı¯, expresses concepts of fertility and fortune. They also show a male  deity who is at times possible to identify as K
artikkeya, Siva, or Pharro. We can call this couple the ‘Gandh
aran tutelary deities’” (“Buddhist Presence in the Urban Settlements of Sw
at,” in Gandh
aran Buddhism, ed. Pia Brancaccio and Kurt Berhrendt [Toronto: UBC Press, 2006], 77). 20 Wladimir Zwalf (A Catalogue of the Gandh
ara Sculpture in the British Museum [London: British Museum Press, 1996], 44) calls these representations of seated pairs, the male with purse and spear, his mate with cornucopia, sometimes with pots of money and children at their feet, a “very diffuse iconography, in which the concept was of tutelaries perhaps more than single defined entities” and relates them to coins depicting the Iranian gods Ardoxsˇo and Pharro. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 348 Pregnant Words ment of stone sculpture, relied on terracotta figurines.”21 These figurines depict fertile female forms and are believed by scholars to have served a reli- gious purpose.22 In other words, sculptural images of Gandh
aran H
arı¯tı¯s appear to be new during the middle period only because they express emerg- ing sculptural styles, but they actually represent a continuation of pre-Buddhist local forms of worship. A similar argument can be made regarding what are taken to be H
arı¯tı¯ images from Mathur
a in relationship to the local worship of yakṣiṇı¯s and m
atṛkas. Indeed, Peri makes the same general point regarding H
arı¯tı¯ in all of her Indic contexts, commenting on how local disease goddesses were “enveloppe dans la gloire de H
arı¯tı¯,” some of their traits replacing some of hers, and her more famous name attaching to them.23 I have laid out evidence supporting the view that both historically, and in terms her ritual role across North India, H
arı¯tı¯ was a disease and fertility god- dess first and a monastic protector second.24 Only after understanding this pri- mary, widespread, and long-standing identification of H
arı¯tı¯ with childbirth and disease can the message of the M
ulasarv
astiv
ada narrative be fully appreci- ated. Beset by a rampaging demoness known to them by the name Abhirati (Joyous), the people of R
ajagṛha are portrayed as unable to solve the problem through customary offerings. In the end, the people label the yakṣiṇı¯ a merci- less “snatcher” and send an appeal to the Lord Buddha for assistance: The king asked the nobles of the various surrounding districts, “Hey, tell me who is taking the children born to the many people of R
ajagṛha.” Somberly, they told him, “With every child taken, the demons increase. With the demons increasing, which- ever household has a pregnant woman is shifting to another country and staying there.” . . . He commanded his ministers, “Hey listen! Make a proclamation in the town of R
ajagṛha. Everyone from R
ajagṛha and everyone coming from various places in the countryside must make offerings at the place [sacred to] the yakṣas, worship there, and pay respects. . . . The many people of R
ajagṛha swept the stones, pottery shards and rubble away from the town. Having sprinkled everything with drops of sandalwood-scented water, they hung out various fragrant incense burners, hoisted up streamers and the royal insignia, and hung many five-colored silk flags. Scattering various flowers, they adorned the place so that it resembled the divine apsara pleasure garden, Tuṣita. Then they made offerings, worshiped and showed their respects at all of the places [sacred to] the yakṣas, but despite all of this, Abhir- ati was not pacified. Then the gods of R
ajagṛha said to the many people of R
ajagṛha, 21 Callieri, “Buddhist Presence,” 72–73, 77. 22 Ibid., 62. 23 Peri, “H
aritı¯, la me`re de demons,” 38. 24 Von Rospatt (“Sacred Origins,” 35–44) interprets the Nepalese history of H
arı¯tı¯ (or, more commonly in Nepal, H
aratı¯) in a similar manner, stressing the various strategies by which Newar Buddhist practice and sacred architecture serves to keep the autochthonous mother goddess, domesticated as H
aratı¯, “in check.” This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 349 “Go see the Lord Buddha, and he will discipline her.” [The people] replied, “You know, she is not joyous (Abhirati)! She is a snatcher (H
arı¯tı¯)! She steals our children and babies!” Thus, the name Abhirati was eliminated. The yakṣiṇı¯ was given the name H
arı¯tı¯.25 As mentioned above, the Buddha eventually pacifies the hungry yakṣiṇı¯ by appealing to her maternal feelings. Thus, the M
ulasarv
astiv
ada narrative of H
arı¯tı¯ inserts the main deity of Buddhism (the Buddha) and by association his disciples (Buddhist monks) as a fulcrum mediating between the townspeople and their local gods, especially those unpredictable spirits that rule over the dangerous processes of pregnancy and birth.26 The M
ulasarv
astiv
ada H
arı¯tı¯ narrative legitimizes H
arı¯tı¯ worship in monas- tic or Buddhist cultic contexts, Through this story, local people are encouraged to believe that her infanticidal excesses will be curbed and regulated only in Buddhist settings. For their part, Buddhist monks are taught that they need not shrink from acting in the role of priest, possibly even laying the reproductive aspirations of lay sponsors before her, as she is a perfectly legitimate monastic protector.27 Indeed, as Alexander von Rospatt points out, the M
ulasarv
astiv
ada commentarial tradition of Guṇaprabha consistently champions her as “the pro- totypical naiv
asika [residential] deity attached to a monastery.”28 Still, it is difficult to avoid the impression that some lingering distaste adheres to the figure of H
arı¯tı¯, literally “the snatcher,” in monastic contexts. Histori- cally, H
arı¯tı¯ images were kept waiting on monastery porches, assigned a corner of the mess hall, kept at home to guard the women and children, or assigned to subsidiary shrines. They never occupied the main temple altar. However popu- lar in some quarters, her narrative reminds us that she is a deity with a dark past, that her adherence to the Dharma was coerced, and that her relationship to the Buddhist community is contractual. Though she occupied monastic spaces, purity, insight, and freedom were never really the domain of H
arı¯tı¯, the great mother of demons.29 On the contrary, despite her alliance with Buddhist mon- asteries, her special domain remained the dangerous and blood-filled realm of childbirth, and the anxious nursery worries of mothers. Like the backhanded 25 Kanjur, Derge ‘dul ba Da 147a.5–147b.7. 26 For a book-length treatment of interactions between Indian monastic Buddhism and village re- ligion, see Robert DeCaroli, Haunting the Buddha. 27 In his discussion of Ajanta Cave 2, Cohen (“N
aga, Yakṣiṇı¯, Buddha,” 383) writes about how “at some level H
arı¯tı¯ may have served to limit local impact on Buddhist life. The apologetic was always available: she looks like a local yakṣiṇı¯ but ‘really’ is not.” 28 Von Rospatt, “Sacred Origins,” 38. 29 Von Rospatt makes a similar point in comparing the H
aratı¯ cult at Svayambh
u to the Vaj- rayoginı¯ temple at Sako: “it has to be borne in mind that unlike the converted local yakṣiṇı¯ of the H
aratı¯ legend, Vajrayoginı¯ is a central tantric goddess whose cult is clearly soteriological in inspi- ration” (ibid., 46). This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 350 Pregnant Words compliment of an acquaintance who “knew you when,” and so marvels at how far you’ve come, the H
arı¯tı¯ narrative lends legitimacy to this ambivalent god- dess, while simultaneously evoking, through the technique of characterization, the specter of her unseemly appetites and erstwhile tendencies. Another figure from Buddhist narrative closely associated with the travails _ of child bearing is Angulim
ala, a murderer who embraces the dharma. In con- temporary Therav
ada Buddhism, Angulim
_ ala is revered as a saint and is a symbol of spiritual transformation. His story is taken as evidence of the Bud- dha’s great power as a teacher and of the moral salvation that the Buddha’s dharma offers. Still, though he becomes an arhat and H
arı¯tı¯ does not, the two are similar in important and striking ways. Both spill a lot of innocent human blood before meeting the Buddha, both are finally tamed by wisdom (not might), and both become protectors of pregnant women and very young chil- _ dren after their transformation. Thus, the Angulim
ala legend potentially broad- ens the claim that South Asian Buddhist narratives portray ritual treatments of fertility as distasteful yet tolerable through complex characterizations. The canonical P
ali version of the A_ngulim
ala tale is found in the Majjhima- nik
aya.30 In it we learn that a homicidal brigand has been terrorizing the king- dom of Kosala, laying waste to its villages and town. Since he wears the fingers of his victims around his neck as a tally, he is known as A_ngulim
ala, “the one who wears a garland of fingers.” One day, Angulim
_ ala encounters the Buddha on the road outside of S
avatthı¯ and pursues him with murderous intent. Through a display of magical power, the Buddha arrests him on the road, instructing him in the teachings and initiating him into the community of monks. One day, as the newly ordained A_ngulim
ala is begging for alms in the town of S
avatthı¯, he encounters a woman in the grip of a breach labor, struggling to deliver a dead or deformed child.31 He feels very anguished for the mother and child and, upon returning, tells the Blessed One about that sorrowful sight. The Blessed One advises him to perform an act of truth (saccakiriy
a) for the woman and her infant, consisting of uttering the phrase, “Sister, since I was born with the noble birth, I do not recall that I ever intentionally deprived a living being of life. By 30 Majjhima-nik
aya ii.97–105; V. Trenckner, R. Chalmers, and Caroline Rhys Davids, eds., The Majjhima-nik
_ aya (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1888). The Angulim
ala Sutta has five parallels in the Chinese canon (two in the Saṃyukta-
agama, one in the Ekottarika-
agama, and two stand- alone versions), survives in several Sanskrit fragments, and is recorded in a Chinese Ud
ana collec- tion and in a story collection perserved in Tibetan and Chinese titled “Discourse on the Wise and the Fool.” For a detailed comparison of the Majjhima-nik
aya version and its five Chinese parallels, a translation of one of the Saṃyukata-ag
ama versions, and detailed bibliographic information on the A_ngulim
ala tradition across Buddhist literature, see An
alayo, “The Conversion of A_ngulim
ala in the Saṃyukta-
agama,” Buddhist Studies Review 25, no. 2 (2008): 135–48, and also A Compara- tive Study of the Majjhima-nik
aya, Dharma Drum Buddhist College Research Series (Taipei: Dharma Drum, 2011). 31 Majjhima-nik
aya ii.102. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 351 this truth, may you be well and may your infant be well.”32 This is, in fact, a true statement, the Buddha explains, since the “noble birth” mentioned refers to the A_ngulim
ala’s ordination, not his physical birth. He follows the Buddha’s advice and the woman and her infant become well. Thus, A_ngulim
ala, a serial killer, spontaneously manifests compassion, bringing life rather than death to the townspeople.33 Here, “noble birth” is also rather obviously put forth as a curative for ordinary physical birth. After this watershed event, A_ngulim
ala soon finds peace.34 This dramatic story is reprised and further developed in two commen- taries attributed to the fifth-century scholar Buddhaghosa,35 and in later P
ali and Sinhala commentaries.36 In modern Therav
ada Buddhist countries, recitation of the A_ngulim
ala paritta (protective verses from Buddhist scriptures) is the central component of a ritual commonly practiced to ensure safe childbirth.37 Buddhist literature is rich in stories about conversion and awakening. Of these many tales, very few link the acceptance of the Buddha’s teachings to the prevention of miscarriage or ease in childbirth. Of those very few, the tales _ of H
arı¯tı¯ and Angulim
ala are the best known. It seems that somehow former murderers and dangerous ogresses make good midwives and pediatricians from the ancient South Asian Buddhist point of view. Perhaps this has some- thing to do with the isomorphism of the death and birth processes, an awe for the blood and impurity associated with both,38 or a symbolic association of bloodletting with generativity. Within a view of existence in which lives flow 32 yatohaṃ bhagini, ariy
aya j
atiy
a j
ato n
abhij
an
ami san˜cicca p
aṇaṃ jı¯vit
a voropet
a. tena sac- cena sotthi te hotu sotthi gabbhass
a (Majjhima-nik
aya ii.103; English translation from Bodhi and N˜
aṇamoli, Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 714). A useful summary of P
ali narrations of _ the Angulim
ala story can be found in Thera Nyanaponika and Hellmuth Hecker, Great Disciples of the Buddha: Their Lives, Their Works, Their Legacy (Boston: Wisdom, 1997), 317–34. 33 According to the Majjhima-nik
aya Aṭṭhakath
a, A_ngulim
ala’s compassion for the laboring woman is the result of his ordination. He had never previously felt any comparable feeling for his multiple victims; Bodhi and N ˜
aṇamoli, Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha, 714 n. 822. 34 This incident is also recorded in three out of five of the Chinese parallels of the A_ngulim
ala tale. It doesn’t appear in either of the Chinese Saṃyukyta-
agama translations. In the Chinese Ud
ana-varga version, A_ngulim
ala helps a laboring female elephant rather than human woman; An
alayo, Comparative Study, 495–96. 35 The Papan˜cas
udanı¯ and the Dhammapadaṭṭhakath
a. Among other things, the commentarial literature provides background information about A_ngulim
ala’s youth and the path that led him to become a serial murderer. 36 See, e.g., Dhammap
ala’s Paramatthadı¯panı¯ and also the thirteenth-century Sinhala digest of the Dhammapadaṭṭhakath
a by Dharmase¯na Thera called the Saddharma Ratn
avaliya. My sincere thanks to Liz Wilson for kindly bringing these Therav
ada sources on A_ngulim
ala to my attention. 37 Richard Gombrich, Precept and Practice: Traditional Buddhism in the Rural Highlands of Ceylon (Oxford: Clarendon, 1971), 202, 224; M. Charles Duroiselle, “Four Burmese Saints,” Archeaological Survey of India (1922): 176. 38 This point was also made by Elizabeth Wilson in her presentation on “Male Motherhood in P
ali Buddhist Accounts of the Conversion of A_ngulim
ala,” delivered at the South Asian Masculin- ities Symposium, Miami University, 2011. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 352 Pregnant Words on and on, and bodies are constructed and discarded endlessly, it makes some sense to view knowledge of death as a good qualification for the birthing room and nursery. Perhaps this association also stems from an ambivalence toward motherhood and mothering of the type explored by Reiko Ohnuma in her work on maternal love and grief in South Asian Buddhist texts.39 Or perhaps, as Richard Gombrich suggests, Angulim
_ ala is meant to be recognized as a prototantric devotee of Mahesa, a dark master of both life and death and there- fore a lineage brother to demonesses like H
arı¯tı¯.40 _ A full comparison of the figures of H
arı¯tı¯ and Angulim
ala is beyond the scope of this article. Still, even in the absence of such an analysis, one might venture a more modest claim regarding the apparent convergence of murder- ous bloodletting and attendance on childbirth in South Asian Buddhist narra- tives, namely, that this association has the power to place distance between monasteries and monastics on the one hand, and Buddhist-inflected practices of fertility and child protection rituals on the other. H
arı¯tı¯ is an ambivalent and marginalized presence, her commitment to the ethical principles of Bud- dhism questionable.41 Even though A_ngulim
ala becomes an arhat, society still marks him as a violent and fearful man, a reality brought home when angry townspeople pelt him with mud clods, sticks, and potsherds as he makes his begging rounds.42 Indeed, according to the Mah
avagga, a section of the P
ali Vinaya, it is in response to the ordination of A_ngulim
ala that the Buddha estab- lishes a monastic law forbidding the future initiation of criminals into the monastic ranks.43 Whatever symbolic equivalence, metaphysical tenet, or sec- tarian message underpins the pairing of murder and midwifery, the narrative _ traditions of H
arı¯tı¯ and Angulim
ala also function as commentaries on the ortho- praxy of Buddhist fertility rituals. They indicate in indirect ways that if a Bud- dhist laywoman wishes to secure for herself safe passage through childbirth, protection for her child, or a new pregnancy, within a Buddhist ritual context, 39 Ohnuma, “Mother-Love and Mother-Grief.” 40 Richard Gombrich, “Who Was A_ngulim
ala?” in How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teaching, ed. Richard Gombrich (London: Athlone, 1996), 135–64. An
alayo (“Conversion of A_ngulim
ala,” 144–45 n. 42) takes issue with Gombrich’s theory. 41 Von Rospatt, “Sacred Origins.” 42 As mentioned previously, A_ngulim
ala’s act of compassion toward the laboring woman does not appear in all versions of his story. Moreover, historically, other aspects of this narrative have been given more attention than A_ngulim
ala’s talents as a midwife, namely, the Buddha’s miracu- lous ability to walk slowly and fearlessly but still outpace the fearsome killer. But the very fact that the origin story for a Buddhist ritual of childbirth is a nonessential side episode, not vital to the main narrative, suggests that it may have been more or less deliberately inserted into the Angulim
_ ala Sutta at one point and removed at another. This would tend to support the idea that the A_ngulim
ala story struck Buddhist redactors as an appropriate and fruitful place to include a passage concerning the dangerous, polluting, and scary business of childbirth. 43 Mah
avagga 41. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 353 she may have to move away from the centers of power and authority and out to the portico of mainstream Buddhist monasticism.44 At the same time that the A_ngulim
ala and H
arı¯tı¯ narratives create distance between the pure, nonviolent, male-gendered center of Buddhist discipline and female-oriented auspicious ritual45 at the periphery through the repugnant trope of uncontrolled and brutal violence, however, they also open an umbrella over this popular type of village practice, claiming it as Buddhist. Later commenta- tors suggest the power to heal may have been the only thing standing between marginal monks like A_ngulim
ala and starvation, and therefore was an option that the Buddhist establishment could not afford to foreclose.46 The tension between Buddhist monastic tolerance of and distaste for village _ rituals of fertility and child protection is expressed in the figure of Angulim
ala,  who, like the god Siva, is simultaneously generative and celibate.47 As recent work on Buddhism and masculinity has shown, the Buddha, himself, that “bull of a man,” is sometimes described in just this way in Buddhist narrative.48 It is to a story concerning both the sage Gotama’s superior generativity, and his transcendence of village fertility rites, that we now turn. distancing through dramatic irony: suja
ta
’s oblation As argued above, the narrative traditions of H
arı¯tı¯ and An˙gulim
ala function as subtle commentaries on the orthopraxy of Buddhist rites of fertility and child protection, using characterization to generate a sense of distance between the core principles and practices of monasticism at the center, and the messy busi- ness of childbirth and childrearing on the periphery. Here, I adduce an exam- ple of a Buddhist narrative deploying dramatic irony for much the same purpose. I refer to irony as the feigned ignorance or dissimulation that is oper- ative in literary contexts when actions or words have the opposite effect of what is literally intended. In situations of dramatic irony, the actor is unaware of a truth to which the audience has special access. Some (but not all) tellings of a traditional story about the laywoman Suj
at
a’s offering of milk-rice to the 44 _ It is not clear if the contemporary use of the Angulim
ala paritta for protecting pregnant women is problematic in the way I am describing, at least not from the available secondary litera- ture, although one author does note that the worship of saints for worldly purposes, is “not tolerated by the Therav
ada system of Buddhism now prevailing in Burma”; Duroiselle, “Four Burmese Saints,” 174–75. 45 _ Asoka’s ninth rock edict criticizes the many “auspicious rituals” (mangala) performed by lay- people, especially women; Alexander Cunningham, Inscriptions of Asoka, vol. 1, Corpus Inscriptio- num Indicarum (Calcutta: Office of the Superintendent of Government Printing, 1877), 77–78. 46 Nyanaponika and Hecker, Great Disciples of the Buddha, 328. 47 Wilson, “Male Motherhood.” 48 John Powers, A Bull of a Man: Images of Masculinity, Sex, and the Body in Indian Buddhism (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2009). This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 354 Pregnant Words Bodhisatta directly prior to his enlightenment employ dramatic irony in a manner relevant to the topic of fertility rites in Buddhist narrative.49 In the P
ali versions of this tale found in the Nid
anakath
a (the introduction to the past life stories or J
ataka) and the Manorathap
uraṇı¯ (a commentary on the _ Anguttara Nik
aya), both attributed to Buddhaghosa,50 Suj
at
a’s female servant mistakes the gaunt yet magnetic stranger sitting in meditation under a tree for the powerful yakkha (here, a tree spirit) she believes has blessed her mistress with a felicitous marriage and healthy baby son. When Suj
at
a’s servant happens upon him, the Bodhisatta is sitting on the bank of the Nairan˜jar
a River, having recently forsaken his rigorous austerities. As a result of finally taking nourishment, he emits a golden glow and displays the thirty-two marks of a great man. He occupies a tree shrine, or caitya, of a local tree spirit to whom Suj
at
a had previously made a vow. “If, once I am married to someone of the same caste, my first child is a son,” she promised, “I will every year make a food offering to you.”51 She subsequently married a man of equal rank, and bore a healthy son, to whom she gave the name of Yasa. Planning to perform her obligatory offering on the full-moon day of Vis
akha, the very moment when the Bodhisatta is concluding his six years of austerities, she carefully prepares a rich offering of milk-rice (p
ay
asa) in a golden bowl.52 Realizing who the recipient of the offering will be, the four directional guardians fortify it with oja, a vital sap or warmth essential to life.53 When Suj
at
a’s servant girl sees the Bodhisatta seated at the caitya, believing him to be the yakkha descended from his sacred banyan, she hastens 49 John Strong, The Experience of Buddhism: Sources and Interpretations, 3rd ed. (Belmont CA: Wadsworth, 2008), 58–60; Alan Cole, “Buddhism,” in Sex, Marriage, and Family in World Religions, ed. Don Browning and M. Christian Green (New York: Columbia University Press, 2006), 338–41; DeCaroli, Haunting the Buddha, 109–14; Hans Penner, Rediscovering the Bud- dha: Legends of the Buddha and Their Interpretation (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 30–31, 202–3. 50 V. Fausb€oll, The J
ataka Together with Its Commentary being Tales of the Anterior Births of Gautama Buddha (London: Trubner, 1877), 68–69; M. Walleser and H. Kopf, Buddhaghosa’s Commentary on the Anguttara Nik
aya, vol. 1 (London: Pali Text Society, 1924), 402–4; N. A Jayawickrama, trans., The Story of Gotama Buddha: The Nid
ana-Kath
a of the J
atakaṭṭhakath
a, reprinted with corrections (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 2000), 90–92; Strong, Experience of Bud- dhism, 58–60. 51 “sace samaj
atikaṃ kulagharaṃ gantv
a paṭhagabbhe puttaṃ labhiss
ami, anusaṃvaccharaṃ balikammaṃ kariss
ami.” Her vow is the same in the Nid
anakath
a, except she puts a number on it, promising to “spend a hundred thousand”; Strong, Experience of Buddhism, 59; Walleser and Kopf, Buddhaghosa’s Commentary, 402; Jayawickrama, Story of Gotama Buddha, 90; Fausb€oll, J
ataka Together with Its Commentary, 68. 52 Walleser and Kopf, Buddhaghosa’s Commentary, 68; Fausb€oll, J
ataka Together with Its Commentary, 402. The Sanskrit p
ayasa (something made from milk) is from payas (milk, semen). 53 Walleser and Kopf, Buddhaghosa’s Commentary, 402. In the Nid
anakath
a, the directional guardians collect oja enough for all the men and gods of the four continents and two thousand sur- rounding islands and add it to the p
ay
asa. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 355 to tell Suj
at
a. After hearing the news, Suj
at
a personally attends upon the “yak- kha,” offering the golden bowl of p
ay
asa that she has already prepared in ful- fillment of her vow. Although aware of many auspicious portents and over- joyed by his presence, it is unclear whether she fully and clearly recognizes the figure under the tree as the Bodhisatta he is or the Buddha he will shortly become.54 She receives no religious teaching and makes no religious vow.55 Before departing, she does, however, express a hope that implies a parallelism between her marital felicity and his spiritual accomplishment: “Even as my wish has been fulfilled may yours as well be fulfilled!”56 In fact, Suj
at
a even- tually becomes a student of the dharma and a stream winner, but only after her child has grown and joined the order, not as an immediate result of her early encounter with the Bodhisattva. After she leaves, the Bodhisattva rolls the milk- rice oblation she has offered into rice balls, or piṇḍas, four according to the Manorathap
uraṇı¯ and forty-nine according to the Nid
anakath
a. This super- naturally fortified meal sustains the Buddha through the night of his awaken- ing and during the forty-nine days afterward while he sits in meditation. This confusion of the Bodhisatta for the tree spirit Suj
at
a believes has given her a son is the central irony of the Suj
at
a tale in these two fifth-century P
ali commentaries. Sujata and her maid mistake the Bodhisatta, impressively radi- ating the power of his six years of wisdom seeking, for a demigod of the type commonly consulted in matters of fertility, childbirth, and childhood illness. The Bodhisatta, celibate and removed from worldly concerns for all these six years, had nothing to do with the pregnancy. In fact, he is on the verge of unlocking the secret to bringing the cycles of birth and death, generation and decay to a halt. Since Sanskrit versions of this story do not contain this element of mistaken identity, it is fair to assume that its inclusion by P
ali authors is intentional.57 By playing on elements of village fertility practice as well as sex- 54 The Nid
anakath
a simply states rather mysteriously that “The Great Being looked at Suj
at
a. She understood what it meant” (“mah
apuriso suj
atam olokesi. s
a
ak
araṃ sallakkhetva”); Jaya- wickrama, Story of Gotama Buddha, 92; Fausb€oll, J
ataka Together with Its Commentary, 69. According to the Manorathap
uraṇı¯, “When she saw the Great Being, there arose in her an over- powering gladness” (“mah
apuriṣaṃ disv
a balvapı¯tiṃ upp
adetv
a” ); Strong, Experience of Bud- dhism, 59; Walleser and Kopf, Buddhaghosa’s Commentary, 403. 55 According to the Manorathap
uraṇı¯, however, the chance meeting between the Bodhisattva and Suj
at
a is itself the result of a past intention or adhik
ara to be a Buddhist laywoman, declared in the time of the Buddha Padumuttara. 56 “yath
a mayhaṃ manoratho nipphanno evam tumh
akaṃ pi nippajjat
u”; Jayawickrama, Story of Gotama Buddha, 92; Fausb€oll, J
ataka Together with Its Commentary, 69–70; Strong, Experi- ence of Buddhism, 60; Walleser and Kopf, Buddhaghosa’s Commentary, 403. 57 The Mah
avastu has Suj
at
a suffering alongside the Bodhisattva during the six years of his pen- ance in the forest as a result of a religious vow she has taken. When she presents the milk-rice, she demonstrates a fairly specific knowledge of his path: “Partake of this sweet milk-rice and become the destroyer of the conduit that formerly irrigated existence, and attain immortality, the griefless This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 356 Pregnant Words ual and reproductive symbolism drawn from solemn Vedic ritual, P
ali versions of this old Buddhist story about the first laywoman double as a sly Buddhist comment on the aims and effectiveness of such rituals. Suj
at
a is supposed to be just a village woman worshipping a local god at a village shrine, not a br
ahmaṇı¯ participating in a solemn Vedic rite. Still, given the growing association between br
ahmaṇa tradition and Indian Buddhism, through the early centuries of the first millennium,58 to suggest that Vedic- Hindu symbolism and the ritual role ascribed to women in Vedic Hindu ritual carries over to this Buddhist narrative text, however loosely or imprecisely, does not seem far-fetched. Many Buddhist scholars, including Buddhaghosa, are said to have been raised in the br
ahamaṇa tradition. Even in the absence of a bona fide br
ahmaṇa education, however, there is no reason to think mid-first- millennium Buddhist authors or audiences would not have grasped the basic structures and aims of Vedic Hindu ritual, especially since post-Vedic popular narratives, notably the R
am
ayaṇa or Mah
abh
arata, contain many references to Vedic style rites. In any case, a broad familiarity with and instinctive under- standing of Vedic Hindu symbolic resonances would have been sufficient for the purposes of this Buddhist critique. Grain and milk are heavily laden with sexual and reproductive symbolism in Vedic ritual lore.59 In ritual contexts, milk (payas), the Sanskrit word for which means “something expressed” and can signify both milk and semen, state, in a grove in the king’s domain.” No mention whatsoever is made of a child. See J. J. Jones, The Mah
avastu, vol. 2 (London: Luzac, 1952), 196. In the Buddhacarita, she is called Nandabal
a. In its brief description, she is both joyful and faithful and, by eating her offering, the Bodhisattva “cause[s] her to obtain the reward of her birth” (“kṛtv
a tadupabhogena pr
aptajanmaphal
aṃ sa t
am”). Although this statement is usually interpreted to be a reference to the merit she will gain through her offering, the P
ali stories open up the possibility that janmaphala may refer to the reward of successful childbirth rather than a better rebirth. No specific mention is made of a child, however; see Patrick Olivelle, Life of the Buddha by Ashvaghosha (New York: Clay Sanskrit Library, 2008), 365. In the Lalitavistara, Suj
at
a feeds five hundred br
ahmaṇas daily, a way of feeding the Bodhi- sattva by proxy. At the conclusion of his fast, she prepares the honeyed milk-rice. Upon noting auspicious portents, she thinks, “Since such signs have been seen, without doubt the Bodhisattva will attain highest complete awakening after eating this food” (“y
adṛs
anı¯m
ani p
urvanimitt
ani saṃdṛsyante niḥsaṃsayamidaṃ bhojanaṃ bhuktv
a bodhisattvo ‘nuttar
aṃ samyaksaṃbodhiṃ pr
apsyati”). Here the offering is linked directly to his status as an enlightened being. Again, no men- tion whatsoever is made of a child; S. Lefmann, Lalita Vistara: Leben und Lehre des S
akya-Buddha (1902; Tokyo: Meicho-Fuky
u-Kai, 1977), 264–72. For an English translation of the Suj
at
a section of this text, see Goswami, Lalitavistara, 247–53. 58 Johannes Bronkhorst, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism (Leiden: Brill, 2011). 59 See Wendy Doniger’s work on the symbolic equation of milk, soma, and semen in Vedic and post-Vedic texts, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980), 17–61. Stephanie Jamison also provides many examples of these equiva- lences; Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife: Women, Ritual, and Hospitality in Ancient India (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), 55–59, 51–53. A locus classicus for the association of p
ayasa with fecundity is the Bṛhad
aranyaka Upaniṣad 6.4.13–18, which prescribes the ritual feed- ing of rice, mixed variously with water, milk and ghee, to women immediately after their men- strual periods in order to promote fertility. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 357 often operates as a soma and semen substitute.60 In the Nid
anakath
a version, the milk that Suj
at
a uses in preparing her p
ay
asa (something made from payas) is particularly potent, as she has obtained it through a process that the text names “recycling the milk” (khı¯raparivattana).61 In this process, one feeds the milk of one thousand cows to five hundred cows, the milk of those five hundred cows to two hundred and fifty, and so on down to eight cows. Suj
at
a then boils this superenriched milk with rice over a smokeless fire. While it boils, its bubbles all rising and turning auspiciously to the right, the four guardian deities, including Brahma and Sakka, empower Suj
at
a’s p
ay
asa further by infusing it with a vital essence or oja. In Vedic Hindu ritual practice and mythology, any woman who consumes the leftovers from a supercharged oblation of the type offered by Suj
at
a would surely become pregnant. The trope of pregnancy through oblation eating, which finds a mythic prototype in the Vedic goddess Aditi, is played out in epic literature and elsewhere.62 Suj
at
a’s oblation would also have been seen as conducive to fertility from an ancient medical point of view. Physiologi- cally, many medical authorities held oja (Sanksrit ojas), which the directional deities added to Suj
at
a’s p
ay
asa, to be the essence remaining after semen has been distilled from the body’s tissues. Some call it the essence (s
ara) of semen.63 Its ingestion would have been akin to a procreative act. In Suj
at
a’s case, however, the aim of bearing a son has already been accom- plished, and not, presumably, through the offices of the actual (as opposed to intended) oblation recipient, the Bodhisatta. Furthermore, the imposter recipi- ent of her ritual efforts consumes every bit of the potent oblation, full as it is of fungible, fertility-promoting substances, and traps it within his own powerful male body by means of his perfect sexual continence.64 No oblation leftovers 60 Doniger, Women, Androgynes, and Other Mythical Beasts, 20–28; Francis Zimmermann, The Jungle and the Aroma of Meats: An Ecological Theme in Hindu Medicine (Berkeley: Univer- sity of California Press, 1987), 221–22. 61 C. A. F. Rhys Davids translates this phrase as “working the milk in and in”; Buddhist Birth- Stories: Jataka Tales; the Commentarial introduction entitled Nidanakatha; the story of the line- age, trans. from V. Fausbo¨ll’s edition of the Pali text by T. W. Rhys Davids (London: Routledge, 1878), 184; Fausb€oll, J
ataka Together with Its Commentary, 91. 62 According to the Maitr
ayaṇı¯ Saṃhit
a (I.6.12), Aditi gives birth to three sets of twin sons after cooking three rice porridges (odana), offering them to the gods, and eating the leftovers. The fourth time, she decides to eat the rice porridge before making an offering. The fourth set of twins are aborted by their brothers. With intervention, they both survive MS I.6.12.; translated in Stepha- nie Jamison, The Ravenous Hyenas and the Wounded Sun: Myth and Ritual in Ancient India (Ith- aca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1991), 205. 63 Rahul Das, The Origin of the Life of a Human Being: Conception and the Female according to Ancient Indian Medical and Sexological Literature, 1st ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2003), 530–32; Zimmermann, Jungle and the Aroma of Meats, 177–78. 64 See Powers, Bull of a Man. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 358 Pregnant Words are to be had. Suj
at
a’s act of worship is impotent, at least as regards her ongoing aims and desires as an auspicious young wife and mother. When Suj
at
a makes her offering no husband or male relative is present. She and her young female servant face the strange presence under the tree on their own. This gender dynamic, in which a female worshipper approaches a male deity is, I suggest, also significant within the context of Vedic Hindu ritual tra- ditions. Stephanie Jamison tells us that almost every action of the sacrificer’s wife in Vedic Hindu rites increases the power of the ritual to bring about gener- ativity and fecundity of all types. Many of her actions are charged with sexual symbolism, as when, for instance, she symbolically copulates with the altar broom65 or performs a repeated ritual action called “grasping from behind” (anv
arambhana).66 In Vedic Hinduism, women’s ritual roles are often tied to their auspicious sexuality and power as reproducers.67 The Suj
at
a story, in which an auspicious wife and her maid are the ritual actors, exaggerates the tra- ditional association of women with sexuality and fecundity in Vedic Hindu rit- ual by doubling up on female agency and excluding male relatives from the rit- ual entirely. It also, in casting the Bodhisattva as the consumer and neutralizer of Suj
at
a’s superpotent oblations, implies a Buddhist mastery of fecundity. Suj
at
a is traditionally held to be the first female lay devotee of the Buddha, by virtue of the milk-rice she offers him just prior to his enlightenment. Hans Penner is in line with traditional interpretations of the Suj
at
a episode in arguing that it acts as a template for the lay-monastic relationship, one in which a gift is made to the renouncer in exchange for the promise of spiritual merit.68 Penner’s structuralist interpretation emphasizes the polarity of house- holder/renouncer, and the way this relationship is cemented through an asym- metrical gift exchange in which the recipient benefits in this life, the donor in the next. While this interpretation may work well for some versions of the epi- sode, and certainly conforms with the Buddhist tradition of regarding Suj
at
a as the first Buddhist laywoman, P
ali versions of this tale actually say nothing about Suj
at
a earning merit. Penner bases his larger study of the Buddha’s life story on the P
ali Tipiṭaka, but here he is forced to go outside of the P
ali tradi- tion to Asvaghoṣa’s Sanskrit Buddhacarita to find a reference to Suj
at
a’s spir- 65 Jamison, Sacrificed Wife/Sacrificer’s Wife, 59–61. 66 In this action, she holds the sacrificer’s clothing or a sacrificial implement in order to infuse ritual actions with her auspicious sexuality; ibid., 53–55. 67 Suj
at
a is specifically said to perform her ritual worship of the tree spirit on the full-moon day, a day when Br
ahmaṇas would also have been performing an important nonsanguinary srauta rit- ual, the dar sap
urṇam
asa. This br
ahmaṇa ritual contains appeals to the Vedic deities to increase fecundity, and ritual actions that, according to Jamison’s analysis, magically connect the sacrificer and the ritual itself to the sexual and generative power of women; ibid., 42–62. 68 Penner, Rediscovering the Buddha, 202–3. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 359 itual reward.69 By attending to the particulars of each telling of Suj
at
a, and especially the differences between the P
ali and Sanskrit Buddhist traditions, a different Suj
at
a from the one Penner and others describe swims up to the sur- face. She is not, as the P
ali commentators narrate it, the paradigmatic Bud- dhist laywoman because she exchanges gifts for merit; rather, she is “typical” (in the eye-rolling sense), because she looks upon a future Buddha not as a precious source of wisdom, but as an agent of fertility. Suj
at
a’s ritual fails to proceed according to the usual Vedic Hindu patterns. Rather than consuming a subtle portion and returning the rest to fuel the cycles of terrestrial fecundity, the “deity” swallows up Suj
at
a’s superpotent oblations and traps them in his hypercontinent body, but not, just to further prove his point, without first transforming them into something reminiscent of funerary offerings.70 Here, commentators are not critiquing the efficacy of rit- ual action in general, or questioning the power of rice and milk oblations to nourish various types of beings, whether they be living or dead, gross or sub- tle. Radical skepticism about ritual efficacy is sometimes present in Indian Buddhist thought. In the Suj
at
a story, however, the Buddha is said to live on the potency of Suj
at
a’s oblations for forty-nine days after his enlightenment. The power of Suj
at
a’s oblation is not in question. The commentators’ ironic critique is aimed not at ritual insights about the fungibility of and equivalences between essential fluids like semen, soma and milk, or the gods’ power to sanctify offerings, but at underlying Vedic-Hindu assumptions about the source of ritual power. In P
ali commentaries, the Buddhist Great Being trumps the local demigod, the Buddhist ascetic brings more vital power to the ritual than the auspicious wife, and potent offerings serve to nourish a monk’s ascetic practice rather than fill a woman’s womb. Contra Penner, then, we should not read this P
ali version of Suj
at
a’s story as a paradigm of gift exchange between laypersons and monastics, but rather as an attempt by Bud- 69 Although this excursion is not marked in the body of his text, Penner discloses his methodol- ogy in his introduction to part 1 and cites his source in a footnote. The giving of alms to monks is, of course, the primary mechanism for merit generation in Therav
ada Buddhism, a view that likely dates to the earliest days of the community. See, for instance, Dı¯gha-nik
aya ii.135. The point I make here is that the version of the S
uj
ata story that appears in the Nid
anakath
a and Mano- rathap
uraṇı¯ does not foreground this aspect of that famous encounter between the Bodhisatta and the first Buddhist laywoman. 70 DeCaroli (Haunting the Buddha, 110–11) takes his analysis of the Suj
at
a story in a some- what different direction than I do, emphasizing the funerary nature of the forty-nine piṇḍas in the Nid
anakath
a. Alexander von Rospatt suggested to me that “the piṇḍas serve . . . to reconstitute the body of the Buddha just as they do in death rituals for the ancestors and hence can be understood in terms of gestation and deification.” (personal e-mail communication, May 2, 2011). Even in the br
ahmaṇa  sr
addha ritual, the symbolism of the piṇḍa is generative and embryological. As a cau- tionary note, it should be noted, however, that piṇḍap
ata is the standard P
ali word for “alms food.” Piṇḍa by itself is a standard metonymic term for food, not unlike the English use of “bite” or “bread” to refer to food in general. Thanks to Bhikkhu An
alayo and James Fitzgerald for remind- ing me of these uses. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 360 Pregnant Words dhist monastic storytellers to subvert Vedic-Hindu ritual patterns through dra- matic irony, thereby gaining appropriate distance from non-Buddhist and fecundist accounts of what can be taken to be auspicious and powerful. apology through conceptual reframing: karma and child initiation Through characterization and irony, Buddhist narratives work to create a sense of skeptical aloofness regarding the various popular rites of fertility and child protection practiced in and around Buddhist sites and monasteries. These rites likely included the propitiation of H
arı¯tı¯, direct appeals to power- ful and charismatic monks, the recitation of protective scriptural formulas, and the worship of yakṣas associated with Buddhist sites or villages occupied by Buddhist lay supporters. Buddhist story literature also describes another, less uncomfortable, type of Buddhist fertility and child protection ritual, posi- tioning it vis-a`-vis the monastic ethic by linking it to a prestigious monastic ritual and embedding it in the logic of moral causality (karman).71 Here, I use the term “conceptual reframing” to designate a discourse that explains certain religious practices in terms of orthodox Buddhist doctrine regardless of how they may have been commonly understood by actual practitioners. In two dif- ferent avad
anas featuring the elder Aniruddha,72 infertile couples are able to conceive only after committing any child that might be born to Aniruddha’s care to serve as his “following-after-ascetic” (pa sc
acchramaṇa, hereafter translated as “monastic servant”), a low-status monastic initiate who serves as attendant to a senior monk.73 Other tales of pre-natal pledging include the ini- 71 It is in Strong’s stunning book on the elder Upagupta that I first learned of the Indic Buddhist practice of initiating children before birth. I am indebted to his book for getting me started on this topic and am especially grateful for nn. 6–9 (Legend and Cult of Upagupta, 59). 72 Aniruddha (P
ali: Anuruddha), one of the ten principal disciples of the Buddha and a member akya clan, is famous for his mastery of the divine eye and his cultivation of the four founda- of the S
tions of mindfulness. In a number of j
ataka tales, he is identified with Sakka, the lord of the heaven of the thirty-three. He also seems to have been particularly magnetic and handsome for, in many narratives, women are drawn to him. For a summary of P
ali accounts of Anuruddha, see Nyanapo- nika and Hecker, Great Disciples of the Buddha, 183–210. 73 The “following-after-ascetic” (pasc
_ acchramaṇa) is described at Anguttara Nik
aya iii.137 and in the av
adana literature as a low-rank servant and student, often very young, who accompanies a senior monk on begging rounds to carry the alms bowl, and to alert his master should he be in dan- ger of breaking a vow. Schopen (“New Hat for H
arı¯tı¯”) is of the opinion that the term pa sc
acchra- maṇa is better translated as “attending menial” or “menial” because the basic meaning of sramaṇa is “laboring” or “exerting effort” and those designated as such seem to often have been young boys initiated for the purpose of performing menial tasks around the monastery. For a more thorough discussion of the ritual status of children in Indian Buddhist monasteries, see Amy Paris Langen- berg, “Scarecrows, Up
asakas, Fetuses, and Other Child Monastics in Middle Period Indian Bud- dhism,” in Little Buddhas: Children and Childhood in Buddhist Texts and Traditions, ed. Vanessa Sasson (New York: Oxford University Press, 2013), 43–74. I have chosen to translate this term as “following-after-ascetic” because in Buddhist contexts sramaṇa generally means simply “monk,” This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 361 _ tiation stories of Upagupta,74 Dhı¯tika,75 and Sangharakṣita, 76 a Karmasataka  story about a young disciple of S
ariputra’s called “Little Eye,”77 and a story from the Upagupta cycle involving twin tigers reborn in the womb of a br
ahmaṇı¯ woman.78 A similar pattern is repeated in all such stories (although infertility or childhood illness is not explicitly at issue in every example): a lone senior monk approaches a household equipped with the clairvoyant knowledge about the spiritual potential of the family but unaccompanied by a monastic servant or pasc
acchramaṇa. In response, the householder pledges his unborn child to serve the elder as his pa sc
acchramaṇa. The elder then empha- sizes the solemn nature of this vow. The monk is fed. The child is born and grows up. When the child is about seven the elder returns to claim him as his own monastic servant.79 Ritually speaking, the senior monk assumes a position parallel to that of H
arı¯tı¯ in these stories. Offerings are made to him in the child’s name in return, it is implied, for safe passage through pregnancy, birth, and early childhood, but he retains special and enduring rights over the child.80 The Sumanas Avad
ana from the Avad
sataka (second century CE),81 is ana “renouncer,” or “ascetic.” Also, while these boys’ status in the monastery was undoubtedly low, they were nonetheless official members of the monastic community. 74 Divy
avad
ana 26; see E. B. Cowell and R. A. Neil, eds., The Divy
avad
ana, a Collection of Early Buddhist Legends (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1886), 351–556. 75 Dhı¯tika’s ordination story is found in the Asokar
aj
avad
ana, Taisho 2042 (50): 126a–b, and translated in Strong, Legend and Cult of Upagupta, 134–35. 76 Divy
avad
ana 23; see Cowell and Neil, Divy
avad
ana, a Collection, 329–31. 77 A story about a little dog that loves the elder S
ariputra and becomes his following-after- ascetic after being reborn in his former mistress’s womb is found at Karmasataka 2, Kanjur, Derge mdo sde Ha 5b.7, and summarized in Leon Feer, “Le Karma-c¸ataka,” Journal Asiatique 17 (1901): 63–64. 78 This story occurs in the Chinese Asokar
aj
avad
ana. Upagupta finds the two starving cubs then causes them to be reborn in the house of a brahmin family. The family pledges one of the twins to Upagupta. The other twin does not wish to be left alone, however. Upagupta initates both boys at age eight: Taisho 2042 (50) 121b-22b; translated in Strong, Legend and Cult of Upagupta, 134. 79 Seven years, or old enough to scare crows, is the minimum age for Buddhist initiation according to the Vinaya. For a full discussion of the crow-scaring age rule, see Langenberg, “Scarecrows, Up
asakas, Fetuses, and Other Child Monastics.” 80 Two reliquary inscriptions from the S
an˜chı¯ and Andheri Topes in Central India mention H
aritı¯putasa (“belonging to the son of H
aritı¯), which could mean, as Quagliotti suggests, that the entombed was a devotee or ward of the goddess. Quagliotti, “An Inscribed Image of H
arı¯tı¯,” 54. Alexander Cunningham, The Bhilsa Topes or Buddhist Monuments of Central India (Varanasi: Indological Book House, 1966), 185, 226. 81 Avad
anasataka 82. An edition of the Sanskrit text based on Nepalese manuscripts with refer- ence to both the Tibetan and Chinese translations, can be found in J. Speyer, Avad
anac¸ataka: A Century of Edifying Tales Belonging to the Hı¯nay
ana, 1st Indian ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsi- dass, 1992); see also Parasur
ama Vaidya, Avad
 ana-Sataka (Darbhanga: Mithila Institute of Post- graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit Learning, 1958). Vaidya’s edition is a largely a rework- ing of Speyer. A shorter version of the story of Sumanas is also found at Karma sataka 10. The Sumanas Avad
ana is discussed as an example of child initiation in Langenberg, “Scarecrows, Up
asakas, Fetuses, and Other Child Monastics.” Schopen’s “New Hat for H
arı¯tı¯” covers some of This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 362 Pregnant Words a particularly interesting example of this Buddhist narrative trope.82 It tells of a wealthy householder in Sr
 avastı¯ who marries a woman from a suitable family. He is delighted by her, enjoys her, and makes love to her. Sons are born, but they all die. The elder Aniruddha, one of the Buddha’s senior disciples, is a reg- ular visitor in that home. One day, a thought occurs to the saddened house- holder: “The elder Aniruddha is called ‘the great master [whose past virtuous deeds] are ripe.’ I will make a proposal to him as follows: if a son is born to me, I will give that son to him as a monastic servant (pa acchramaṇa).”83 Having sc
approached Aniruddha with a food offering (piṇḍaka), the childless house- holder makes his request. Aniruddha replies, “So be it,” and then, perhaps recalling the strong bonds of parenthood, adds, “but remember your promise.” In due time, the householder’s wife becomes pregnant and a beautiful and special boy baby is born. His birth ceremony (j
atimaha) is performed, and he is named Sumanas (Fair-minded). Aniruddha is respectfully summoned and the boy is ritually “returned” (niry
atita), a word choice indicating that with the symbolic offering of the boy, a debt has been paid.84 Aniruddha then provides red-brown robes (k
aṣ
aṇi), as is the duty of a monastic preceptor, and wishes ay
the child a long life. The boy remains with his parents until age seven, at which point he is entrusted to the care of Aniruddha. Aniruddha causes him to go forth and invests him with the power of mental focus (manasik
ara). Sumanas prac- tices hard and soon realizes the unstable nature of cyclic existence. He destroys all the psychic poisons (klesa) and achieves sainthood.85 In another avad
ana collection known as the Karma sataka is found a similar story involving, again, the elder Aniruddha, and a boy called P
urṇa. A rich but  avastı¯ is distraught over the sterility of his marriage. childless householder in Sr
The elder Aniruddha realizes that this childless householder is destined to be converted by a sr
avaka and not by the Buddha himself. After coming to his house to preach the dharma many times, Aniruddha arrives one day absolutely the same ground as the current article, including the Sumanas Avad
ana and the role of H
arı¯tı¯ as child protector in monastic contexts. 82 In the P
ali tradition of the Dhammapadaṭṭhakath
a, Aniruddha and Sumanas, there known as Anuruddha and Sumana, were also destined to be linked as master and student. In this version of the story, Sumana is initiated as a young boy of seven, but we hear nothing of infertility, child pro- tection, or prenatal pledging. See Buddhaghosa, Buddhist Legends, trans. Eugene Watson Burlin- game, vol. 3, Harvard Oriental Series 28–30 (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1921), XXV.12c. 83 “ayaṃ sthavir
aniruddha vip
akamahes
akhyaḥ. etaṃ t
avad
ay
aciṣyate yadi me putro j
ayate asya pas
acchramaṇaṃ d
asy
ami”; Speyer, Avad
anac¸ataka, 67, lines 10–11. 84 This word is sometimes used in donative inscriptions. Consider, for instance, “savatrateṇa niyatito vihare matapitu puyae devadato”; see Konow, Kharoshṭhı¯ Inscriptions, 100 (xxxvii, 6). I am grateful to Jason Neelis for alerting me to this usage. 85 Speyer, Avad
anac¸ataka, 68, line 3, through 69, line 2; Vaidya, Avad
 ana-Sataka, 204, lines 7–20. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 363 alone, which appalls the householder. Aniruddha explains that, while he does not currently have a monastic attendant to accompany him on his begging rounds, it is in the householder’s power to furnish him with one. The house- holder responds that should a son be born to him, he will give him gladly. Aniruddha warns him not to forget the promise. A little later, the wife of the householder becomes pregnant and has a son who receives the name P
urṇa (full, accomplished, complete) since his parents’ wish has been fulfilled.86 The child is subsequently initiated into the Buddhist monastic community. Though the dominant explanation for infertility and miscarriage in the ancient South Asian context references ambivalent, potentially infantophagic spirits like H
arı¯tı¯, Buddhist avad
anas appeal mainly to karman as a causal explanation for these events. The “stories of the past” (atı¯tavastu) for the avad
anas discussed above describe how the children’s past deeds enable them to encounter a teacher in the dharma. Thus, the dominant logic of these tales indicates that a child’s good luck at entering a human womb and surviving gestation, birth, and childhood has little to do with a senior monk’s influence over malign beings but everything to do with his own past virtuous actions. Whatever good there is in the child’s past karma has led him safely through the dangers of the birth process into the protective embrace of the Buddhist sangha, where he will experience a state of security more profound than what his own family could hope to offer him. His parents have only to stand back and allow it. According to the logic of these stories, pledging a fetus or pre- committing a child not yet conceived to the monastery is the ultimate act of child protection, one that protects not from temporary illness or simple death, but from something much worse: the suffering that comes from ignorance and desire and repeated death. Just as the Vedic life cycle rites, or saṃsk
aras, remove what Manu calls the baijika and g
arbhika impurity (the impurity that comes from seed and womb),87 the initiation of a child ritually and symboli- cally removes the taint of the mental poisons (kle sa).88 This conceptual reframing of what desperate childless laypeople likely interpreted simply as an effective ritual of child protection explains the protective capacities of monastic ritual in a manner that appeals not to magic or supernatural entities, but to basic Buddhist principles such as the law of cause and effect or the role of desire, hatred, and ignorance in causing suffering. 86 Kanjur, Derge mdo sde, Ha 11a.3, and summarized in Feer, “Le Karma-c¸ataka,” 58–57. 87 Manusmṛti 1.27. 88 For a fuller discussion of possible continuities between Vedic-Hindu life cycle rites and Bud- dhist initiation, see Langenberg, “Scarecrows, Up
asakas, Fetuses, and Other Child Monastics.” John Strong makes the argument that the ritual of ordination is properly understood as a culmina- tion, rather than a beginning; that it bestows not just the status of monkhood, but of ideal monk- hood, that is arhatship. It is, in effect, a ritualization of arhatship. Strong, Legend and Cult of Upa- gupta, 86–89. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 364 Pregnant Words In general, Buddhist narratives often express skepticism about super- natural intercessions in the processes of birth by giving pride of place to quasi-naturalistic explanations of conception. Throughout Sanskrit Buddhist literature, including avad
ana, vinaya, abhidharma, and s
utra, we find the authoritative advocacy of an explanation for conception that grants no purchase to gods and semidivine beings. A common Buddhist formulation teaches that successful conception results from the presence of semen, blood, a healthy fertile womb, and a transmigrating being.89 In a repeated stock passage from the avad
ana literature that describes the plight of infertile couples, this quasi- naturalistic explanation is preferred while the idea of interfering spirit deities is dismissed as superstition: [Despite] making love, no son or daughter was born to [the householder]. With his head in his hands, he brooded: “My household is endowed with many blessings. But I have no son, no daughter. After my death, saying ‘He is childless,’ they will take everything from me and it will become the king’s property.” He is told by ascetics and priests, and friendly, well-meaning relatives: “Make a request to the deity. It is believed by many that when one propitiates [the deity], sons and daughters are born.” It is not so. If it were so, everyone would have one thousand sons, and they all would be like cakravartin kings. Moreover, daughters and sons are born when three factors come together. Which three? The fluids of the mother and father have fallen simulta- neously, the mother is in a fertile period, and a transmigrating being has approached. Sons and daughters are born if these three factors come together.90 The dismissive tone of this passage indicates that the quasi-naturalistic expla- nation of conception is the more intellectually prestigious one in Buddhist monastic culture, however popular magical explanations or appeals to the supernatural might be. Though this passage does not occur in any of the pledging stories cited above, it occurs in other stories from the collections in which the pledging stories occur, and so share with them the same narrative space. A passage from the Abhidharma-Mah
avibh
aṣ
a, one of the foundational abhidharma compendiums of the Sarv
astiv
adan school, does, however, link healthy pregnancies and births with the magical qualities of Buddhist initia- 89 For instance, the Mah
ataṇh
asankhaya Sutta from the Majjhima-nik
aya and the Mah
anid
ana Sutta from the Dı¯gha-nik
aya. The Garbh
avakr
antis
utra, found in the Kṣudrakavastu and the Ratnak
uṭa collection, also contains this explanation of conception. 90 Vaidya, Avad
 ana-Sataka, 299. Vaidya compiled this and other common stock passages in an appendix (labeled punaḥ punaḥ prayukt
an
aṃ kath
aṃsa
n
aṃ s
ucı¯) to his addition of the Avad
ana- ataka, although he doesn’t give citations to specific avad
anas. Among the places in his edition where something close to this passage can be found are Avad
ana sataka 3, 7, lines 10–12, and Avad
anasataka 21, 56, lines 20–30. Another of this type of statement can be can be found in Divy
avad
ana 1, Koṭikarṇ
avad
ana. See Cowell and Neil, Divy
avad
ana, a Collection, 1. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 365 tion. The topic of precommitting unborn children or infants is raised within the context of a discussion of whether one must produce the vocal act oneself in order legitimately to take refuge. When the mother accepts “refuge and dis- cipline” on behalf of a child “not yet born or too small,” this is an example of one person producing the vocal act of refuge for another. Is it valid? No, according to this text: “He [i.e., the child] obtains neither refuge nor disci- pline, not being equipped with thought.” However this practice is still recom- mended for several reasons. One reason involves its effect on the world of gods and spirits: “If the mother or other people take refuge and discipline for the infant, it is also the case that the gods and spirits protect the child, so that since he has taken refuge, the gods and spirits who respect the [Three] Jewels would protect the baby and see to it that he doesn’t die or become sick.”91 According to the Abhidharma-Mah
avibh
aṣ
a, then, monks are able to create a barrier through the ritual acts of refuge and initiation, protecting the infant from certain “gods and spirits” (the ones, like H
arı¯tı¯, who can be made to respect the Buddha, dharma, and sangha). Still, even this Mah
avibh
aṣa pas- sage supplements its argument that taking refuge and discipline protects a fetus from child-snatching deities and spirits with the more orthodox assertion that the fetus’s good deeds in past lives protect it in utero and lead to its benefi- cial and fortunate relationship with the Three Jewels. It also suggests that, from a practical standpoint, child initiation is beneficial because it provides parents moral leverage when children misbehave later in life.92 These various moves to interpret through the lens of Buddhist doctrine (and thereby legitimize) rituals related to fetal and child protection that might other- wise be interpreted as monastic meddling in domestic matters indirectly sug- gests that commentators and storytellers wished to justify, or apologize for the practice of child pledging. In one instance, an avad
ana account actually expresses subtle monastic discomfort with child pledging more directly in the form of a multivalent and acerbic comment by the crusty S
ariputra during negotiations for his pa sc
acchramaṇa, Sa_ngharakṣita, found at Divy
avad
ana 23. When the devout householder Buddharakṣita expresses surprise that ariputra has come to his house alone, with no monastic attendant trailing S
behind (a deliberate choice on the part of S
ariputra, of course), the elder retorts, “Householder, do you think our monastic attendants (pa sc
acchramaṇa) come from spreading k
asa grass or ku sa grass? The monastic attendants we have we get from people like you.”93 91 Translated from the French of Louis de la Vallee Poussin, “Documents d’Abhidharma, Part 2,” Me langes Chinois de Bouddhiques 1 (1932): 83–84. 92 Ibid., 83. 93 “gṛhapate, kimasm
akaṃ k
asadh
an
adv
a kusadh
an
adv
a pasc
acchramaṇ
a bhavanti? api tu ye bhavadvidh
an
aṃ sak
as
allabhyante, asm
akaṃ te pasc
acchramaṇ
a bhavant”; Cowell and Neil, This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 366 Pregnant Words This quip can be read in at least two ways. On the one hand, S
ariputra seems to be alluding to the sorts of rituals laypeople perform prior to, during, and after the birth of a child. Many of these involve spreading ku sa grass around the ritual area. We monks don’t do these sorts of things, S
ariputra says, because we are not in the business of having children. But S
ariputra could also be referring to spreading grass on the seat of meditation or instruction. Boris Oguibenine points out that references to arranging a seat (typically of grass) for a new disciple connotes his imminent initiation and instruction.94 In this reading, S
ariputra’s comment would mean something like “What, stupid, do you think children come from understanding and practicing the Buddhist teachings?” Either of the two possibilities would indicate S
ariputra’s uncom- fortable awareness of the sangha’s dependence on the reproductive capacities of the laity.95 Verbally skilled, S
ariputra lets slip a peevish comment that expresses his impatience with this unsuitable yet necessary foray into the householder’s business of reproduction. ariputra’s impatience appears to be justified. While pious, the house- S
holders depicted in Buddhist pledging stories are of dubious understanding. Narrators portray a situation in which it is unclear whether householders initiate their sons out of an earnest faith in the monastic ethical worldview, or because they regarded Buddhist elders as providers of protective charms and powerful rituals. John Strong trenchantly observes that, in some of these stories, parents “could give birth to a live son, ironically, only by giving him up to the Sangha and thereby tapping the powers of the monks, and through them the powers of benevolent deities.”96 Aniruddha’s warning to Sumanas’s father to “remember his promise” is suggestive of his awareness that parents might renege or vacil- late when the time for handing over the child actually arrives. The merchant, Gupta reneges on his agreement with the elder S
aṇakav
asin several times before finally relinquishing his third-born son, Upagupta.97 In other such narra- tives, parents sometimes actually terminate the arrangement altogether. After Divy
avad
ana, a Collection, 330. I would like to acknowledge James Fitzgerald’s invaluable assis- tance in puzzling out this passage. 94 Boris Oguibenine, “From a Vedic Ritual to the Buddhist Practice of Initiation into the Doc- trine,” in Buddhist Studies Ancient and Modern, ed. Phillip Denwood and Alexander Piatigorsky (London: Curzon, 1983), 107–23. 95 Both seat arranging and the first time instruction of a new disciple are designated by causa- tive forms of the Sanskrit verb prajn˜
a (“to instruct”). Note also the punning, with the words k
asadh
ana in the first line echoed in reverse in the second, vidh
an
asa
t, which seems to pho- am sak
nologically link householder “types” with all that useless busyness about grass. On the other hand, Alex Hsua has pointed out that the two interpretations I offer here can be deployed together. If both are kept in mind simultaneously, S
ariputra’s comment came be paraphrased as “When you guys spread the grass, you get babies; when we spread the grass, we get understanding” (personal com- munication, November 21, 2012). 96 Strong, Legend and Cult of Upagupta, 59. 97 Ibid. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 367 being collected at the required time by Aniruddha and taken to the monastery, for instance, little P
urṇa works so hard at his duties that he becomes exhausted and falls ill. With Aniruddha’s permission, the parents collect their sick boy and bring him home to be nursed. He is said to recover, convert his family to Buddhism, and become an arhat, but his parents do not return him to monastic life. Instead, shortly thereafter, he enters nirv
aṇa, here a seemingly euphemistic reference to death.98 The accounts of child pledging found in Buddhist avad
ana literature describe what appear to be rituals of fetal and child protection based on a cen- trally important Buddhist monastic ritual, namely initiation. The benefits and efficacy of this ritual are explained in this literature according to the logic of moral causality (karman). Buddhist elders and the unborn encounter one another in the dharma because past actions make it inevitable. Buddhist initia- tion provides protection only insofar as it cleanses the child’s mind of poisons. Textual references to persistent lay belief in supernatural beings and their power to disrupt pregnancies indicate, however, that Buddhist storytellers were aware of disparities in lay and monastic accounts of these ritual inter- changes. Narrative references to parental ambivalence around losing sons to the monastery are also indicative of these disparities between lay and monas- tic perspectives on prenatal pledging. The occasional note of distaste or con- descension in reference to monks’ involvement in such matters adds further complexity to these stories. In all of these ways, Buddhist avad
anists har- nessed their narrative powers to the task of conceptually reframing in order to apologize for fertility and child protection rituals performed in a Buddhist idiom. conclusion: pregnant words Many normative Indian Buddhist writings from the period in question voice a critique of the biologically defined family as the basis of social life, an abhor- rence of sexuality, and a distaste for childbearing. Beautiful young women are foul sacks of dung. The home is cramped and squalid. The wife is best viewed as a demoness. The womb is filthy. The child is a fetter. The Buddhist ascetic is, therefore, homeless. Vinaya scholars like Gregory Schopen and Shayne Clarke, on the other hand, have documented Indian monks’ and nuns’ ongo- ing involvement with natal family. Robert DeCaroli, Richard Cohen, and others have argued that Buddhist monks were enmeshed in local cults, which often sought to promote the fertility of the land and the fecundity of wives and livestock. None of these scholars have asserted that involvement in family obli- gations and local religion implies a simultaneous abandonment of sramaṇa atti- 98 Karma sataka 3; Feer, “Le Karma-c¸ataka,” 65. This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 368 Pregnant Words tudes toward sexuality and reproduction. On the contrary, some have suggested that the Buddhist sangha’s prosperity, popularity, and social relevance spurred the retrenchment of ascetic rigor that many scholars now see as characteristic of the early Mah
ay
ana period.99 The narrative strategies discussed here, in par- ticular distancing and apology, can be seen as symptomatic of emerging fault lines within the monastic milieu during the middle period of Indian Buddhism, areas of tension between the renunciatory values that inspired its ascetic wing, and the wellfleshed, full-blooded religious culture that ensured its continued prosperity. Buddhist literature and material remains testify to the fact that during, the last few centuries of the last era and the first three or four centuries of the pre- sent one, Indian monastic Buddhists put down deep roots in the communities in which they lived and established consistent and diverse sources of patronage. But for a group whose most authoritative values were ascetic, securing the cooperation and loyalty of lay patrons committed to generating wealth, garner- ing political power, and producing children required a massive creative out- pouring. Here, I have suggested that Indian Buddhist institutions straddled the ideal of renunciation and the fecundist social ethic of the laity in part by encour- aging storytellers to explain, excuse, make fun of, and reinterpret what men and women actually did in their homes, monasteries, and places of worship. In particular, it would have been very difficult, without the help of the bards, for a monastic community with ascetic roots and core values to make room for the lushly symbolic and celebratory ritualism surrounding matters of sexuality, childbirth, child protection, and childhood in Vedic and village Hinduism. Bud- dhist storytellers, however, were able to put the piquant details of childbearing and its attendant ritual practices to excellent use. Their sarcastic humor and sense of irony apologized for Buddhists’ meddling in matters of sexuality and childbearing while keeping open the option of doing it again. Their feats of conceptual reframing and subtle expressions of disapproval neutralized the taint of sexuality and childbearing without calling for a disadvantageous mora- torium on monastic involvement in vital lay concerns around fertility and infant survival. Their complex characterizations (the maternal infantophage, the mur- derous midwife, the generative monk) allowed Buddhist monks and Buddhist laypeople to imagine how the concerns of celibate ascetic and householder might dovetail in mutually advantageous ways. Middle period Indian Buddhist monks’ struggle to define themselves against female fecundity while also involving themselves in female fecundity has its parallels in many other religious traditions. Male monastic communities and male institutional elites are never as sequestered from the concerns of the laity 99 See, e.g., Gregory Schopen, “Mah
ay
ana,” in Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Robert Buswell (New York: Macmillan Reference USA–Thomson Gale, 2004). This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions History of Religions 369 and reproduction as they sometimes purport to be. Their attempts to reconcile themselves to this inevitable entanglement in matters related to lay reproductiv- ity are often most persuasively articulated by the tellers of religious stories. Deft at imagining complex characters, ironic situations, and new ways of understanding old rituals, Buddhist monastic storytellers employed strategies like distancing and apology to include without condoning the unorthoprax, affirming the centrality of monasticism while simultaneously accommodating and marginalizing the fecundist rites of the laity. Auburn University This content downloaded from 131.204.172.32 on Sun, 9 Jun 2013 13:48:24 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions