Other Natural Religions

[Husky]

Will eventually get back to the Daoist Moon Goddess Chang-e. But for now want to post something else.



The first two posts of this page of the thread referred to the Buddhist stories of a hare donating itself as sacrifice and ending up immortal on the moon as reward.



There were two Buddhist variants (detailed colonial rendering at sacred-texts.com/astro/ml/ml08.htm "Moon Lore, by Timothy Harley, [1885]", Chapter "IV. THE HARE IN THE MOON"):

- The earlier one appears to have been the Buddhist Jataka where Indra comes disguised as a pilgrim to test the 3 animals including the hare's intention. The Jataka had it that the hare was the Buddha in an earlier birth.

- A later version changes the story to the Buddha (a.o.t. Indra) testing the animals and rewarding the hare.



That change appears to be a development internal to Buddhism.



However it's hard to shake the suspicion that the first mentioned may turn out to be one of the great many Bauddhified Jataka fables, i.e. the great many "pre-Buddhist Indian" (=code for Hindu) narratives which got Bauddhicised and included into the Jatakas. Often via the "And this character was a previous incarnation of the Buddha" routine.



Because a lot of even Hindus' Pauranic accounts and those from the Itihasas got copied, Bauddhified and included into the Jatakas (and other Buddha stories) in just such a manner. E.g. the narrative of the devout and just King Shibi, a very popular Vedic King to Hindus is already mentioned and remembered - and his rightful conduct recounted - as a historical ancestor in the exclusively-Hindoo Itihaasas:



originstories.blogspot.com/2013/10/shibi.html

Saturday, October 26, 2013

Shibi

The story of the King and the pigeon and the hawk is used to illustrate the compassion and generosity of the king. This story of Shibi appears in both the Mahabharata and the Ramayana. The story of Shibi is as follows:

[...]

(For a summary of the MBh mention, see mahabharataonline.com/stories/mahabharata_story.php?id=7

Will look up the ref in Ramayanam later.)



In contrast, a Bauddhified plagiarism of the originally Hindu account exists in the Jatakas apparently, called the "Shibi/Sivi Jataka" as per en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shibi_(King),

where the Bauddhified clone of the Hindu Shibi offered a totally different part of his body as sacrifice (his eyes), and to Indra undercover as a brahmin rather than a hawk. <- A few of the Buddhist "innovations"; someone get them a prize for originality. The other Buddhist novelty was of course that Sivi was then declared to be a previous life of the Buddha (since the Jatakas are about the "previous lives of the Buddha" and - like Jainism's backprojections of their teerthankaras - are all about claiming great famous Vedic Hindoos and great famous ancient Hindoo narratives of Vedic society as being "originally Buddhist" instead. <- I.e. back-projection of Buddhism and the Bauddhifying of Hindus' past for the converts to Buddhism. Like the christoconvert Deivanayakam is trying to claim all things Tamil Hindu as originally christian; or the Santa Thomas myth and backprojection of christianism into India's history to create a false sense of history among christians).

The Jataka or Stories of the Buddha's Former Births - Google Books Result

books.google.co.uk/books?isbn=8120614739

E. B. Cowell, Edward B. Cowell - ?2000 - Reference

SIVI-JATAKA 250 How a prince gave his own eyes as a gift, and his reward. ...

manners: a tale of two parrots of which one was good and one bad according to ...

wisdomlib.org/definition/sivi-jataka/index.html

Sivi Jataka, 1 Definition(s)

'Sivi Jataka' belongs in these categories: Buddhism, Pali



1 DEFINITION(S):

The Bodhisatta was once born as Sivi, king of Aritthapura, his father bearing the same name as himself. He ruled well, and daily gave alms to the amount of six hundred thousand. One day the desire came to him to give part of his body to any who might ask for it. Sakka read his thoughts, and, appearing before him as a blind brahmin, asked for his eyes. The king agreed to give them, and sent for his surgeon Sivaka. Amid the protests and lamentations of his family and his subjects, Sivi had his eyes removed and given to the brahmin. It is said that the surgeon did his work in several stages, giving Sivi chances of withdrawing his offer. When the sockets healed Sivi wished to become an ascetic, and went into the park with one attendant. Sakkas throne grew hot, and appearing before Sivi, he offered him a boon. The king wished to die, but Sakka insisted on his choosing something else. He then asked that his sight might be restored. Sakka suggested an Act of Truth (sacca kiriya), as not even Sakka could restore lost sight. The eyes reappeared, but they were neither natural eyes nor divine, but eyes called Truth, Absolute and Perfect. Sivi collected all his subjects, and, resting on a throne in a pavilion, taught them the value of gifts.



The story was related in reference to Pasenadis Asadisadana. On the seventh day of the almsgiving the king gave all kinds of requisites and asked the Buddha to preach a thanksgiving sermon, but the Buddha left without doing so. The next day, on being questioned by the king, he explained his reasons for this (For details see Asadisadana). The king, greatly pleased with the Buddhas explanation, gave him an outer robe of Siveyyaka cloth worth one thousand. When the monks started commenting on how tireless the king was in giving, the Buddha related to them the old story, in which Ananda is identified with Sivaka, the physician, and Anuruddha with Sakka (J.iv.401-12; of. CypA.52f).



The Sivirajacariya is included in the Cariyapitaka (Cyp.i.8; the story is also given with variant details in the Avadanasataka i.183-6). It forms the topic of one of the dilemmas of the Milinda Panha. Mil.p.119f.

And it gets worse: because it's not merely a case of Buddhists* plagiarising from Hindu religion and then bauddhifying it, but a case of Buddhists bauddifying what they *badly* plagiarised - aka the usual case of Bad Copying by the late, missionary Indic religions, as revealed by comparing with the mention of the Hindu Shibi and Alarka in the Ramayanam:

[*Though the Jataka itself has Buddha getting the pre-existing tradition wrong (again), since the error is placed into Buddha's mouth: he's accused of narrating it.]



valmikiramayan.net/ayodhya/sarga12/ayodhya_12_prose.bak

Then, that fierce Kaikeyi again spoke these fiercer words to Dasaratha, who was burning with sorrow and was wailing as aforesaid, who had fallen unconscious and was tossing about as he was filled with grief, and was praying again and again for being speedily borne across the sea of grief.: "Oh, Valiant king! Having given boons, if you repent again and again how can you proclaim piety on this earth? Oh, knower of what is right! When many royal saints assemble and converse with you , what will be your reply? Can you say a wrong was done to Kaikeyi, on whose grace I am living now and who protected me earlier? Oh, King! You having granted boons indeed today, now talk in another way, creating blemish on other kings.When there was a dispute between a hawk and a pigeon (who were no other than Indra the ruler of gods ,and the god of fire respectively), the ruler of Sibis* gave away his own flesh to the bird and king Alarka** by parting with his eyes, attained to the highest destiny.



* Ruler of Sibi: We are told in our scriptures how in order to put the large -heartedness of the king to a test, Indra(the ruler of gods)and Agni (the god of fire) once appeared in his court in the disguise of a hawk and a pigeon. Being chased by the hawk, the pigeon which sought the king’s protection, descended into his lap. The hawk which closely followed it, demanded it back from the king, contending that the bird had been allotted to it as its food by providence and the king had no right to rob it of its quarry. The king, however was not prepared to forsake the fugitive on any account and agreed to part with his own flesh in order to indemnify the hawk. The hawk however out weighed the king's flesh every time he chopped it from his body till at last he ascended the scale himself and thus offered himself in exchange for the pigeon. **Alarka=The royal sage Alarka parted with his own eyes in order to implement a boon granted by him to a blind Brahmana who asked for the king's eyes in order to have his own eyesight restored.The ocean, having given a promise, never crosses its limits. Therefore, bearing in mind the previous occurrences, do not violate the pledge given by you to me Oh, the evil-minded ! By giving up righteousness and by installing Rama in the kingdom, you want to enjoy life with Kausalya forever".

(The uses of asterisks in this blockquote are as in original and not of my insertion. My only modification is adding the blue highlighting.)



Note from the above how Buddhism (or Buddha, since he's the one whom the posthumous Jatakas have recounting the Bauddhified story) has conflated the two Hindu accounts - i.e. typical case of bad copying by the nastikas, since - see blue bit above - it was King Alarka who gave his eyes to a brahmin, and King Shibi who gave of his flesh to Indra disguised as a hawk [and then Shibi was of course rewarded by Indra and the other Gods for his altruism]. Buddhism, desperately rewriting Shibi as a Bodhisatva to Bauddhify the ancestral religion to which the account belongs, confused the two accounts into one: the Bauddhified clone king Shibi now gave his eyes to an Indra disguised as brahmin and who requested it. And thus another Jataka was born: "This is the TRUE account of Buddha's multiple past lives." Oh yeah, *sure* it was. Never mind that it is the mangled version of the traditional accounts of Hindus' Vedic ancestors who'd never heard of Buddhism because it didn't exist yet back then (and who certainly wouldn't have converted into it). And anyone who believes that Shibi (etc) got reborn as Buddha should really convert to Buddhism already. After all, Shibi et al are only former lives of the Buddha in *Buddhism*.



People will continue to lecture how "Buddha taught the Vedic religion onlee" and how "Buddha is a Vedaj~nA and Vedantaj~nA" etc etc and will point also to how he (Buddhism) retreaded so many narratives of Vedic tradition. [badly] Except he couldn't even get the Shibi narrative straight, among others. (<- And which implies...)



The thing that Buddhism has managed to preserve - sort of - was the fact that the original, Hindu Shibi became an ascetic, as retold in the MBh quoted on this page:

valmikiramayan.net/ayodhya/sarga58/ayodhya_58_frame.htm

“Oh, charioteer! Tell me where Rama sat, slept and took food. By hearing these things, I shall survive, as Yayati survived in the company of saints.”



Comment: King Yayati, when doomed to fall from heaven requested Indra to cast his lot with saints. He was accordingly sent down to a spot on the earth, where four ascetics- Astaka Pratardana, Vasuman and King Sibi had been practicing austerities, and had discourse with them- Mahabharata, Adi Parva.

(Though Buddhism is likely to have taught a backprojected Buddhist asceticism for their Bauddhified clone Shibi instead. Like Jainism, in its late texts, backprojected an alleged Jain ascetic [teerthankara] brother onto Hindus' Vedic ancestor Sagara. Etc.)





The narratives of Shibi and the other king - Alarka - clearly must have been familiar and old in the time of Ramayana and MBh, that they just get namedropped in the first (since everyone is expected to know the details already and of why Kaikeyi invoking them for comparison is relevant) and Shibi's narrative moreover gets a revisit in the MBh.



As an aside: The early date assigned to the core part of a lot of the Jatakas starts making more sense when one realises that that early date actually refers to the Buddhist appropriation and Bauddhicisation of far more ancient, long-standing and originally (excusively) Hindu narratives.



Interestingly, unless I'm missing it, the MW dictionary doesn't even bother to list the Bauddhified character:

1 zibi m. (also written %{zivi}) N. of a R2ishi (having the patr. Aus3i1nara and supposed author of RV. x , 179) Anukr. ; of a king (renowned for his liberality and unselfishness , and said to have saved Agni transformed into a dove from Indra transformed into a hawk by offering an equal quantity of his own flesh weighed in a balance) MBh. Hariv. Pur. ; (pl.) a people descended from S3ibi MBh. Hariv. VarBr2S. ; N. of a son of Indra MBh. ; of Indra in the fourth Manv-antara (v.l. %{zikhin}) VP. ; of a son of Manu Ca1kshusha BhP. ; of a Daitya (son of Sam2hra1da) MBh. ; a king of the S3ibis VarBr2S. ; a beast of prey L. ; the birch tree (= %{bhUrja}) L. ; Typha Angustifolia L.

And now for general supportive data of what is not a claim, but a known fact:



h-net.msu.edu/cgi-bin/logbrowse.pl?trx=vx&list=h-buddhism&month=0802&week=b&msg=snBC2kjuKk4vCzu7tYLdpQ&user=&pw=

From: Naomi Appleton <naomi.appleton@orinst.ox.ac.uk>

List Editor: H-Buddhism <h-buddhism@JJ.EM-NET.NE.JP>

Editor's Subject: Re: QUERY>Mundane Wisdom in Early Buddhism (Appleton)

Author's Subject: QUERY>Mundane Wisdom in Early Buddhism (Holba)

Date Written: Tue, 12 Feb 2008

Date Posted: Wed, 12 Feb 2008 08:00:04 -0500



Jiri Holba wrote:



> It seems to me that only the Dhammapada or some Jatakas can be called

> by "mundane wisdom" and used for some illustration of it in early

> Buddhism.



> Are there some studies or articles about the Dhammapada or some other

> Buddhist texts which can be useful for my task?



It is very difficult to tell if the _jataka_s of the _Jatakatthavannana_

qualify as sources of "Buddhist mundane wisdom" -- many scholars have

treated them as non-Buddhist (because of pre-Buddhist origins, parallels

with other folklore, and lack of clear Buddhist content), and yet the

text itself states that _jataka_s are illustrative of the path to

buddhahood (and you can't get much less mundane than that). The

situation only gets more complicated when you start to look at other

collections. The diversity of the stories and texts has been a real

obstacle to work on the ideology of _jataka_s (including any ethical

content) [...]

Maybe part of that can be explained by the fact that in inculturating on pre-Buddhist Hindu materials, Buddhism wasn't always aiming to impart Buddhism so much as to Bauddhify all previous popular narratives known to the laity. That is, to Bauddhicise their (perceptions of their) past in order to Bauddhicise them. Appropriation (Bauddhicising) for the purpose of appropriation (missionising).



The Jatakas may be one of the 3 cornerstones of Buddhism (of Theravada at least), but that doesn't make the content originally - or even specifically - Buddhist wherever this is derived, as so much of it apparently is.



Modern new-agey Indians of Hindu origins will invariably declare that everything Hindoo immediately belongs to Buddhisms and Jainisms etc; backprojected in time too: as having "always equally belonged to them". (And that is often the beginning of the problem: as some other Hindu narratives that got included in the Bauddhified Jatakas and other texts on Buddhas have been - or should I say: are still being - used to inculturate on Hindus [and on others].)





Anyway, the point was that one wonders whether the Jataka concerning the hare was also originally a Hindu narrative, and whether Buddhism merely managed to overshadow the original. Also considering that:

- even the nature of the hare's sacrifice - giving everything to a needy visiting stranger - is in several respects reminiscent of the weasel (?) incident in the MBh, who IIRC witnessed the sacrifice of a brahmana family that all went without food in order to give theirs to a stranger, and which weasel then felt that IIRC Yudhisthira's massive yagnya compared less favourably to the family's sacrifice (i.e. danam/austerity=yagnya), since the 'leftovers' from the king's yagnya could not make the other half of the weasel's pelt match the gold of the first half which had been coloured by the family's yagnya.

- And Indran testing the magnanimity and righteousness/worthiness of characters [often incognito] is a very Vedic, Hindu recurrence/pattern. (Indra is said to have been interested in gaging/revealing the extent of the famed justness and benevolence of Shibi. Likewise, the Jataka has Shakra interested in testing/gaging the sincerity of the the animals' resolution. The Hindu God appearing incognito as the dog that accompanies Yudhisthira on the way to swarga is part of the test for his uprightness. Indra and other Hindu Gods are described as likewise having tested others in ancient Hindu narratives.)

- Plus Buddhism isn't famous for much that is original, and is rather famous for taking the stuff belonging to local heathen religions and Bauddhifying this.





This next page is taken from the description of the book "Dharma Rain" by the [western?] Buddhist "Shambhala Publications". But it does not clarify the particular case I'm wondering about:



webcache.googleusercontent.com/search?q=cache:BNWjiyZTEt8J:http://www.calameo.com/books/000039257563f4ebe2496%2B%22

Two Jataka tales, from a popular genre with pre-Buddhist origins, depict the Buddha-to-be in his previous lives. In one, a lowly clump of grass saves a tree from a carpenter’s axe; in the other, a rabbit sacrifices himself as food for a poor traveler, throwing his body onto a fire ‘‘as joyfully as a bird drops into a bed of lotuses. ’’ In manifesting their compassion, both the grass and the rabbit are on their way to becoming Buddha.

It would be rather meaningful research, for a change - especially compared to the ocean of delusional insipidity out there that is passed around as scholarship - to see Indians investigating in detail which prominent so-called "Buddhist" narratives are in fact pre-Buddhist, Vedic=non-Buddhist in origin. Similar for Jainism.



It is high time Hindus did such a thing. Everyone else has encroached on Hindu religio-history (and are still very much using this as a means to encroach on Hindu sacred sites and Hindus). So, in order to shut up the compulsive-inculturationists, Hindus should at least delve into the details of what is long known to be true, such as, e.g.

the fact that the Buddhist Jatakas of India are frequently just Bauddhified pre-Buddhist (i.e. Hindu) narratives.



And as a beneficial side-effect, such research could help other heathenisms against a similar strain experienced under the revived Bauddhifying onslaught.