Devadatta
Devadatta | |
---|---|
Personal | |
Religion | Buddhism |
Translations of Devadatta | |
---|---|
Sanskrit | देवदत्त (Devadatta) |
Pali | देवदत्त (Devadatta) |
Bengali | দেবদত্ত (Debdotto) |
Burmese | ဒေဝဒတ် (Dewadat) |
Chinese | 提婆達多 (Tipodaduo) |
Japanese | 提婆達多 (Daibadatta) |
Khmer | ទេវទត្ត (Tevatort) |
Korean | 데바닷타 (RR: (Debadatta)) |
Lao | ເທວະທັດ (Thevathat) |
Sinhala | දේවදත්ත |
Thai | เทวทัต (Thewathat) |
Vietnamese | Đề-bà-đạt-đa |
Glossary of Buddhism |
Part of a series on |
Buddhism |
---|
Devadatta was by tradition a
Etymology
The name Devadatta means god-given in Palī and Sanskrit. It is composed from the stem form of deva ("god") and the
Scholarship
Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya research
According to Andrew Skilton, modern scholarship generally agrees that the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya is the oldest extant Buddhist Vinaya.[2]
According to
However, as Bhikkhu Sujato has noted, the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya does indeed contain material depicting Devadatta as a schismatic figure trying to split the sangha (monastic community). Sujato adds: "The only relevant difference is the grounds he is said to base his attempt on. Whereas the Sthavira Vinayas say he promulgated a set of ‘five points’, by which he tried to enforce an excessively ascetic lifestyle on the monks, the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya omits the five points and attributes a much more comprehensive agenda to him."[5] Sujato further argues that "The fact that the Devadatta legend, at least the core episodes 13 and 14, is common to all six Vinayas including the Mahāsaṅghika suggests the legend arose among the presectarian community, and in all likelihood harks back to the time of the Buddha himself."[5]
Records from Chinese pilgrims to India
Theravāda portrayals of Devadatta
Devadatta in the Theravāda Vinaya
Cullavagga section VII of the Vinayapiṭaka of the Theravādins, which deals with schisms, recalls an account of how Devadatta went forth along with a number of the Buddha's other relatives and clansmen.[8] In the first year he attained psychic power (abhijñā), but made no supramundane achievement.
Seeking honor and status, Devadatta approached Prince Ajātashatru, the heir to the throne of Magadha. Having psychic power, he assumed the form of a young boy clad in snakes and sat in the prince's lap; this much impressed Ajātashatru, who became his disciple.
Ajātashatru began to send great offerings to Devadatta, and the latter became obsessed with his own worth. He began to believe that he should lead the Sangha instead of the Buddha; his attempts to usurp the Buddha decreased his psychic power, but Devadatta continued.
When told about the offerings that Devadatta was receiving, the Buddha remarked that all these gains were only going towards his destruction, just as a plantain or a bamboo is destroyed by its fruit.
Shortly thereafter, Devadatta asked the Buddha to retire and let him take over the running of the Sangha. The Buddha retorted that he did not even let his trusted disciples Śāriputra or Maudgalyayana run the Sangha, let alone someone like Devadatta. The Buddha declared that Devadatta should be cast out like spit, and the Buddha warned the Sangha that Devadatta had changed for the worse.[9]
Seeing the danger in this, Devadatta approached Prince Ajātashatru and encouraged him to kill his father King Bimbisāra, while Devadatta killed the Buddha. The king found out about his plan and handed over control of the kingdom to his son and heir.
Ajātashatru then gave mercenaries to Devadatta, who ordered them to kill the Buddha; in an elaborate plan to cover his tracks, he ordered other men to kill the killers, and more to kill them and so on. When the mercenaries approached the Buddha, they were unable to carry out their orders, and were rallied to his side instead.
Devadatta then tried to kill the Buddha himself by throwing a rock at him from a great height while the Buddha walked on the slopes of a mountain. This failed, and as a consequence he decided to have the elephant Nāḷāgiri intoxicated and let him loose on the Buddha while he was on alms-round. However, the power of the Buddha's love and kindness overcame the elephant, and he did not harm the Buddha.
Devadatta then decided to foment schism in the Buddhist community. He gathered some allies among the monks, and demanded that the Buddha accede to the following rules for the monks: they should dwell all their lives in the forest, live entirely on alms obtained by begging, wear only robes made of discarded rags, dwell at the foot of a tree, and abstain completely from fish and flesh.
The Buddha refused to make any of these compulsory. Devadatta declared that the Buddha was living in abundance in luxury, and caused a schism by reading out the initiation rites and codes (pāṭimokkha) to five hundred initiates, away from the Buddha and his followers.
The Buddha sent his two most trusted disciples, Śāriputra or Maudgalyayana, to bring back the errant young monks. Devadatta thought they had come to join his Sangha, and invited Śāriputra to a discussion; the former then fell asleep. The Buddha's disciples then persuaded the young monks to return to the Buddha.[10]
The Buddha did not show any hatred for Devadatta, even after what had happened. Soon after, Devadatta got sick and realized that what he had done was wrong. He tried to visit the Buddha and apologize for what he did, but it was too late; on the way to the Buddha, the earth sucked Devadatta into
Theravāda account
According to the
- that monks should dwell all their lives in the forest,
- that they should accept no invitations to meals, but live entirely on alms obtained by begging,
- that they should wear only robes made of discarded rags and accept no robes from the laity,
- that they should dwell at the foot of a tree and not under a roof,
- that they should abstain completely from fish and flesh.
The Buddha's reply was that those who felt so inclined could follow these rules – except that of sleeping under a tree during the rainy season – but he refused to make the rules obligatory. They are among the 13 ascetic practices (dhutanga).
His followers (including
King Kalābu was one of Devadatta's past lives.
Mahāyāna portrayals of Devadatta
Lotus Sūtra
According to Jacqueline Stone and Stephen F. Teiser, Devadatta was "well known to the sutra's early devotees as the Buddhist archetype of an evildoer." In the context of the "promise of buddhahood for everyone, this chapter became widely understood as illustrating the potential for enlightenment even in evil persons."[14]
In the
The Buddha said to his monks: "The king at that time was I myself, and this seer was the man who is now Devadatta. All because Devadatta was a good friend to me, I was able to become fully endowed with this six paramitas, pity, compassion, joy, and indifference, with the thirty-two features, the eighty characteristics, the purple-tinged golden color, the ten powers, the four kinds of fearlessness, the four methods of winning people, the eighteen unshared properties, and the transcendental powers and the power of the way. The fact that I have attained impartial and correct enlightenment and can save living beings on a broad scale is all due to Devadatta who was a good friend."
In the Mahāmeghasūtra Devadatta is called a mahāpuruṣa (great being).[17]
Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra
In the Mahayana Buddhist text, the
See also
References
- ^ "Devdutt Pattanaik: How Devdutt Saved Buddhism". 25 November 2017.
- ^ Skilton, Andrew. A Concise History of Buddhism. 2004. p. 48
- ^ Ray, Reginald (1994). Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. p. 168. (A condemned Saint: Devadatta), used by permission of Oxford University Press
- ^ Ray, Reginald (1994). Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. pp. 169–170. (A condemned Saint: Devadatta), used by permission of Oxford University Press
- ^ a b Bhikkhu Sujato (2012), "Why Devadatta Was No Saint, A critique of Reginald Ray’s thesis of the ‘condemned saint’"
- . The Clarendon Press, Oxford, p. 62.
- ^ 佛教开创时期的一场被歪曲被遗忘了的“路线斗争”
- ^ Horner, I.B. (1963). The Book of Discipline Vol. V (Cullavagga), London Luzac, pp. 259–285
- ^ Horner, I.B. (1963). The Book of Discipline Vol. V (Cullavagga), London Luzac, pp. 264–265
- ^ Horner, I.B. (1963). The Book of Discipline Vol. V (Cullavagga), London Luzac, pp. 279–281
- ISBN 978-81-7017-289-5.
- ISBN 9780824828813.
- ^ Vinaya, Cullavagga (PTS pg. 198 ff.)
- Stone, Jacqueline I.(2009). "Interpreting the Lotus Sutra". In: Teiser, Stephen, F., Stone, Jacqueline I. (editors), Readings of the Lotus Sūtra, New York, Columbia University Press, p.21
- ^ Tokiwa, Gishin (1997). "The Dharma-Lotus Truth Expounded by Devadatta", Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies 46 (1), 491–490
- ^ Watson, Burton (tr.). The Lotus Sutra. Columbia University Press, New York 1993, Chapter Twelve: Devadatta
- ^ Radich, Michael (2015). "Tathāgatagarbha Scriptures." In Jonathan Silk, Oskar von Hinüber, Vincent Eltschinger (eds.): Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism, Volume 1: Literature and Languages. Leiden: Brill, p. 266
Bibliography
- ISBN 9780691157863.
- Deeg, Max (1999). The Saṅgha of Devadatta: Fiction and History of a Heresy in the Buddhist Tradition, Journal of the International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies 2, 195- 230
- Jataka i. 142[full citation needed]
- Mahaavastu, iii. 76[full citation needed]
- Matsunami, Yoshihiro (1979), Conflict within the Development of Buddhism, Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 6 (1/2), 329–345
- Mukherjee, Biswadeb (1966). Die Überlieferung von Devadatta, dem Widersacher des Buddha, in den kanonischen Schriften, München: Kitzinger
- Tezuka, Osamu (2006), Devadatta, London: HarperCollins