Post 6/?
Tangential notes. On alien Buddhacharita translator's unnecessary assumptions.
Another difference between the Dasharatha Jataka and Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita that is worth mentioning - but for other reasons - is that Ashvaghosha doesn't mention Bharata coming to plead with Rama. Of course, this is likely because there is no equivalent in Buddha's case to make the comparison to, whereas 2 courtiers (one purohit and a minister) did come to see the Buddha and could hence be somewhat paralleled with Vasishtha and Vamadeva - who are mentioned together in Valmeeki - coming to see Rama.
The reason I mention Bharata nevertheless is because the English translator - an alien working for some christian mission, although the work is published by the (IIRC Jain) "Motilal Banarsidass" publishers who seem to have assumed it to be reliable - makes it a point to draw attention to the absence of any mention of Bharata coming to see Rama in Ashvaghosha's selected reminiscences from the Ramayanam. This is one of a few points in the parts of the translation which I've seen that I want to draw attention to. The translator has a tendency to assume that Ashvaghosha is original and earlier and authoritative and that any divergence must be later interpolations by Hindus.
The christo-translator (who betrayed traces of being anti-Hindu not anti-Buddhist, though nothing out of the ordinary for a christian) claimed that the whole part where Bharata comes to visit Rama in Valmeeki Ramayanam must have been a post-Ashvaghosha 'sentimental' embellishment by Hindus. 1. Except this very feature is noticeably there even in the pathetic plagiarism seen in Dasharatha Jataka, and 2. as I said, it seems far more likely that Ashvaghosha left out this detail (as he did others) since it was irrelevant to the simile he was constructing which had to parallel to older courtiers sent by Buddha's dad rather than a brother of Buddha pleading. 3. Further, the translator admits that the mention of Bharata etc coming to plead with Rama is already there in MBH's summary of the same:
* See fullbooks.com/The-Mahabharata-of-Krishna-Dwaipayana-Vyasax17067.html
There is no reason for Hindus - who have remained consistent in this aspect between the two Hindoo epics - to get their own stuff wrong. By any sane assessment, the assumption should be that the Hindu version IS the standard version and any deviations are by the others, who are of course far more likely to get things mixed up (like Buddhism did with Shibi when they tried to clone him for Buddhism) or to miss out mentioning key details, etc. The comparison should be to the standards set by Hindoo religion (doubly so where these are internally consistent) rather than expecting Hindoo texts to conform to any Buddhist/Jain (or, more recently, christian/dravoodian) deviations.
There were three other curious conclusions by the christo translator that come to mind.
He declared that some other translators of Buddhacharita - Indians presumably, Hindu possibly, since he projected amnesia of the Vedam on to them - had misinterpreted seer son of Urvashi as Agastya instead of VasiShTha. Well, maybe it was Bauddhified 'Hindus' because even I know that Vasishtha like Agastya is of Urvashi and both Mitra-Varuna (which is why he is named after the latter). For some reason the translator thinks that Ashvaghosha's Hindu contemporaries must share the supposed 'amnesia' of 20th century Indian translators, which is why the translator commends Ashvaghosha's recollection of the Vedic reference to the Vedic Rishi Vasishtha as a son of urvashi (which, by the way shows quite tellingly that the Rama that Ashvaghosha was hoping to compare Buddha to is the Vedic Rama of the Valmeeki Ramayana - the one who had Vasishtha for guru/vadyar - a.o.t. the cloned Rama of the Dasharatha Jataka). But Ashvaghosha's ability to know this detail need not be surprising - and it's good that he didn't forget this bit from his once-Hindu upbringing - because he *was* a Brahmana before he let Buddhists evangelise and convert him.
The final criticism of Hindus by the translator that I wanted to harp on - :harp: :harp: - is that he claimed that the Valmeeki Ramayanam makes no mention of *Vamadeva* accompanying Bharata and Vasishtha et al, and that only Mahabharata knew of this; that Valmeeki Ramayanam had only rare mentions of Vamadeva otherwise; that Ashvaghosa's reference to a purohit and minister visiting Buddha and sent by his father and who were used in a simile that mentioned the seer son of Urvashi (Vasishtha) and Vamadeva, required that Vamadeva be a minister since Vasishtha was a known purohit being a Rishi besides. He insinuates that for the simile to make literal sense, this would mean that the MBh and Ramayanam are confused in having Vamadeva as a vedabrahmana too. Another charge levelled is that because Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita did not pillage from other Valmeeki kandas than the Ayodhyakandam, that Ashvaghosha was unfamiliar with the other kandas and that this moreover implies (how?) that the other kandas did not exist in their current form or at all at Ashvaghosha's time.
Except:
- As already argued, the Valmeeki Ramayanam does mention Vamadeva with Vasishtha et al by name together (at least in the Pattabhishekam section, and also introduces both together in the Balakanda as being the 2 vadyars of Dasharatha, see excerpt below). Further, the section of the Valmeeki Ramayanam where Bharata, as well as Vasishtha and Jabali and everyone go to plead with Rama, already mentions Vamadeva implicitly.
valmikiramayan.net/bala_7_sans.html
Note the last line of "other ministers also" implies that the 2 previously mentioned "vedic scholars" (Ritviks) Vasishtha and Vamadeva were also counted as ministers, not just as Ritviks and Rishis, though this was a notable feature of theirs.
- Because Vamadeva-specific dialogue with Rama - and that of many others besides - is not presented, whereas Vasishtha, Jabali and of course Bharata and Rishis-en-force get chapters to themselves, there's no need to have mentioned Vamadeva explicitly. But the bit where all from Ayodhya take their leave of Rama at the end does indicate that Vamadeva was in the company: the gurus and ministers and subjects of Ayodhya are mentioned.
- Just as the translator admits that Ashvaghosha clearly pillaged from the Valmeeki Ramayanam, he should have proposed that Ashvaghosha got the explicit mention of Vamadeva's presence from MBh, or at least inferred it (sensibly) from the Valmeeki Ramayanam. No other assumptions are even necessary.
- The MBh and Valmeeki Ramayanam can and should be taken as authorities for in what capacity Vamadeva serves his king - i.e. as a Ritvik like Vasishtha, though also as a minister. Ashvaghosha cannot be the authority on this (and certainly not the translator's inference about what Ashvaghosha *sh/would* have meant to make the simile hold strongly). Here is the relevant Buddhacharita line in translation:
There is no reason to force the issue that Vamadeva must be *only* a 'counsellor' to parallel the counsellor of Suddhodhana. The entire phrase could merely be a reference to two venerable persons in Suddhodhana's court going up to Shakyamuni Buddha, just as the 2 venerable personages of Vasishtha and Vamadeva approached Rama. Besides, the fact that the latter two are both Ritviks in the Valmeeki Ramayanam, does not deny their inclusion as ministers/counsellors of Dasharatha too, which they were: as per the same balakanda verse that introduces them together. (Also, Vashishtha for instance was IIRC advising Dasharatha to let a very young Rama and Lakshmana go with Vishvamitra to protect his yaagam, as the latter had requested.)
And just like Ashvaghosha does away with mention of Bharata in Buddhacharita, whereas a Bharata clone was every much present in the Buddhist plagiarism called Dasharatha Jataka (which lifted this practically wholesale from the Valmeeki Ramayanam), we need not assume that Ashvaghosha is giving us all the details. Even in the worst-case scenario where Ashvaghosha had meant the simile to hold literally and restrict Vamadeva to "only a counsellor, never a purohit", it can simply be argued that Ashvaghosha got it wrong, as the MBh still mentions Vasishtha, Vamadeva along with "other brahmanas", while Valmeeki has both of them - along with other famous Vedic Rishis - conducting the Patthaabhishekam:
valmikiramayan.net/yuddha/sarga128/yuddhaitrans128.htm
- The fact that Ashvaghosha does not refer to sections beyond Ayodhyakanda from the Valmeeki does not imply that he was unfamiliar with those other Kaandas (though, he being a convert to Buddhism, he could have grown amnesiac of his ancestral heathenism, as even Bauddhified 'Hindus' do today). Ashvaghosha not referencing them certainly does not imply that several or even all the other sections to Valmeeki Ramayanam did not exist then. As already argued, Ashvaghosha is likely to have poached from the section of the Valmeeki that was most similar (in his mind) to some aspect of Buddha's life - the part where he became a renunciate and people pleaded with him to return and he refused them. The other sections from The Ramayanam (i.e. the Valmeeki=Hindoo Ramayanam) may not have been deemed relevant to the story that Ashvaghosha wanted to tell in his Buddhacharita - since Sita's abduction and war with Ravana don't have echoes in Buddha's life - and so Ashvaghosha is not likely to have (and therefore didn't) plagiarise from them.
- Further, there aren't *that* many references to Rama (Ramayana) in the Buddhacharita, so it's not a large enough pool to draw drastic conclusions from about the state of the Valmeeki Ramayanam as at that time, as the alien translator had attempted to do.
Tangential notes. On alien Buddhacharita translator's unnecessary assumptions.
Another difference between the Dasharatha Jataka and Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita that is worth mentioning - but for other reasons - is that Ashvaghosha doesn't mention Bharata coming to plead with Rama. Of course, this is likely because there is no equivalent in Buddha's case to make the comparison to, whereas 2 courtiers (one purohit and a minister) did come to see the Buddha and could hence be somewhat paralleled with Vasishtha and Vamadeva - who are mentioned together in Valmeeki - coming to see Rama.
The reason I mention Bharata nevertheless is because the English translator - an alien working for some christian mission, although the work is published by the (IIRC Jain) "Motilal Banarsidass" publishers who seem to have assumed it to be reliable - makes it a point to draw attention to the absence of any mention of Bharata coming to see Rama in Ashvaghosha's selected reminiscences from the Ramayanam. This is one of a few points in the parts of the translation which I've seen that I want to draw attention to. The translator has a tendency to assume that Ashvaghosha is original and earlier and authoritative and that any divergence must be later interpolations by Hindus.
The christo-translator (who betrayed traces of being anti-Hindu not anti-Buddhist, though nothing out of the ordinary for a christian) claimed that the whole part where Bharata comes to visit Rama in Valmeeki Ramayanam must have been a post-Ashvaghosha 'sentimental' embellishment by Hindus. 1. Except this very feature is noticeably there even in the pathetic plagiarism seen in Dasharatha Jataka, and 2. as I said, it seems far more likely that Ashvaghosha left out this detail (as he did others) since it was irrelevant to the simile he was constructing which had to parallel to older courtiers sent by Buddha's dad rather than a brother of Buddha pleading. 3. Further, the translator admits that the mention of Bharata etc coming to plead with Rama is already there in MBH's summary of the same:
* See fullbooks.com/The-Mahabharata-of-Krishna-Dwaipayana-Vyasax17067.html
Quote:Thereupon the virtuous Bharata [...] And having proved his innocence before all the subjects of that realm he [Bharata] set out in the wake of Rama, desiring to bring him back. And placing Kausalya and Sumitra and Kaikeyi in the vehicles at the van of his train, he proceeded with a heavy heart, in company with Satrughna. And he was accompanied by Vasishtha and Vamadeva, and other Brahmanas by thousands and by the people of the cities and the provinces, desiring to bring back Rama. And he saw Rama with Lakshmana, living on the mountains of Chitrakuta with bow in hand and decked with the ornaments of ascetics. Bharata, however, was dismissed by Rama, who was determined to act according to the words of his father. And returning, Bharata ruled at Nandigrama, keeping before him, his brother's wooden sandals. And Rama fearing a repetition of intrusion by the people of Ayodhya, entered into the great forest towards the asylum of Sarabhanga. And having paid his respects to Sarabhanga, he entered the forest of Dandaka and took up his abode on the banks of beautiful river Godavari.
There is no reason for Hindus - who have remained consistent in this aspect between the two Hindoo epics - to get their own stuff wrong. By any sane assessment, the assumption should be that the Hindu version IS the standard version and any deviations are by the others, who are of course far more likely to get things mixed up (like Buddhism did with Shibi when they tried to clone him for Buddhism) or to miss out mentioning key details, etc. The comparison should be to the standards set by Hindoo religion (doubly so where these are internally consistent) rather than expecting Hindoo texts to conform to any Buddhist/Jain (or, more recently, christian/dravoodian) deviations.
There were three other curious conclusions by the christo translator that come to mind.
He declared that some other translators of Buddhacharita - Indians presumably, Hindu possibly, since he projected amnesia of the Vedam on to them - had misinterpreted seer son of Urvashi as Agastya instead of VasiShTha. Well, maybe it was Bauddhified 'Hindus' because even I know that Vasishtha like Agastya is of Urvashi and both Mitra-Varuna (which is why he is named after the latter). For some reason the translator thinks that Ashvaghosha's Hindu contemporaries must share the supposed 'amnesia' of 20th century Indian translators, which is why the translator commends Ashvaghosha's recollection of the Vedic reference to the Vedic Rishi Vasishtha as a son of urvashi (which, by the way shows quite tellingly that the Rama that Ashvaghosha was hoping to compare Buddha to is the Vedic Rama of the Valmeeki Ramayana - the one who had Vasishtha for guru/vadyar - a.o.t. the cloned Rama of the Dasharatha Jataka). But Ashvaghosha's ability to know this detail need not be surprising - and it's good that he didn't forget this bit from his once-Hindu upbringing - because he *was* a Brahmana before he let Buddhists evangelise and convert him.
The final criticism of Hindus by the translator that I wanted to harp on - :harp: :harp: - is that he claimed that the Valmeeki Ramayanam makes no mention of *Vamadeva* accompanying Bharata and Vasishtha et al, and that only Mahabharata knew of this; that Valmeeki Ramayanam had only rare mentions of Vamadeva otherwise; that Ashvaghosa's reference to a purohit and minister visiting Buddha and sent by his father and who were used in a simile that mentioned the seer son of Urvashi (Vasishtha) and Vamadeva, required that Vamadeva be a minister since Vasishtha was a known purohit being a Rishi besides. He insinuates that for the simile to make literal sense, this would mean that the MBh and Ramayanam are confused in having Vamadeva as a vedabrahmana too. Another charge levelled is that because Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita did not pillage from other Valmeeki kandas than the Ayodhyakandam, that Ashvaghosha was unfamiliar with the other kandas and that this moreover implies (how?) that the other kandas did not exist in their current form or at all at Ashvaghosha's time.
Except:
- As already argued, the Valmeeki Ramayanam does mention Vamadeva with Vasishtha et al by name together (at least in the Pattabhishekam section, and also introduces both together in the Balakanda as being the 2 vadyars of Dasharatha, see excerpt below). Further, the section of the Valmeeki Ramayanam where Bharata, as well as Vasishtha and Jabali and everyone go to plead with Rama, already mentions Vamadeva implicitly.
valmikiramayan.net/bala_7_sans.html
Quote:2. tasya = that, mahaatmanaH = great soul Dasaratha, IkshvakoH = who was born in Ikswaku dynasty, amaatyaa = (had) ministers, guNaiH = (who were) virtuous, mantraJNaH cha = could weigh the pros and cons of a problem, iN^gitaJNaH = could read the minds of others, nityam = (and) always, rataH = devoted to, priya hite = the welfare of their beloved master.
That renowned king Dasaratha had eight ministers who were pure at heart and always immersed in the affairs of the king and the kingdom.
3. ashhTau babhuuvuH = there were eight, amaatyaaH = ministers, shuchayaH = (who were) pure at heart, nityashah = always, anuraktaaH cha = immersed in, raaja kR^ityeshhu = king's affairs, tasya = to that king Dasaratha, viirasya = who was courageous, yashasvinaH = (and) who was renowned.
There were eight ministers for the Emperor Dasaratha namely, [1] Dhristi [2] Jayantha [3] Vijaya [4] Sidhaardha [5] Arthasaadhaka [6] Ashoka [7] Mantrapaala and the 8th one is Sumantra.
4. aastaam = there were, dvou = two, R^itvijou = Vedic scholars, R^ishi+sattamou = saints of eminence, vasishhtaH = (named) Vashishta, vaamadevaaH cha = and Vamadeva, abhimatau = (who were) dearer to, tasyaa = him (Dasaratha), tathaa = and, apare = (there were) some other, mantriNashcha = ministers also.
There were two Vedic scholars Vasishta and Vamadeva, who were eminent saints and who were dearer to the king. There were some other ministers also in the king's court.
Note the last line of "other ministers also" implies that the 2 previously mentioned "vedic scholars" (Ritviks) Vasishtha and Vamadeva were also counted as ministers, not just as Ritviks and Rishis, though this was a notable feature of theirs.
- Because Vamadeva-specific dialogue with Rama - and that of many others besides - is not presented, whereas Vasishtha, Jabali and of course Bharata and Rishis-en-force get chapters to themselves, there's no need to have mentioned Vamadeva explicitly. But the bit where all from Ayodhya take their leave of Rama at the end does indicate that Vamadeva was in the company: the gurus and ministers and subjects of Ayodhya are mentioned.
- Just as the translator admits that Ashvaghosha clearly pillaged from the Valmeeki Ramayanam, he should have proposed that Ashvaghosha got the explicit mention of Vamadeva's presence from MBh, or at least inferred it (sensibly) from the Valmeeki Ramayanam. No other assumptions are even necessary.
- The MBh and Valmeeki Ramayanam can and should be taken as authorities for in what capacity Vamadeva serves his king - i.e. as a Ritvik like Vasishtha, though also as a minister. Ashvaghosha cannot be the authority on this (and certainly not the translator's inference about what Ashvaghosha *sh/would* have meant to make the simile hold strongly). Here is the relevant Buddhacharita line in translation:
Quote:Then leaving the chariot3 the purohita [of Suddhodhana, Buddha's father], accompanied by the counsellor, went up to him [Buddha]ï¼Åas the seer, the son of UrvasI [Vasishtha], accompanied by Vamadeva, approached Rama when he was in the forest.
There is no reason to force the issue that Vamadeva must be *only* a 'counsellor' to parallel the counsellor of Suddhodhana. The entire phrase could merely be a reference to two venerable persons in Suddhodhana's court going up to Shakyamuni Buddha, just as the 2 venerable personages of Vasishtha and Vamadeva approached Rama. Besides, the fact that the latter two are both Ritviks in the Valmeeki Ramayanam, does not deny their inclusion as ministers/counsellors of Dasharatha too, which they were: as per the same balakanda verse that introduces them together. (Also, Vashishtha for instance was IIRC advising Dasharatha to let a very young Rama and Lakshmana go with Vishvamitra to protect his yaagam, as the latter had requested.)
And just like Ashvaghosha does away with mention of Bharata in Buddhacharita, whereas a Bharata clone was every much present in the Buddhist plagiarism called Dasharatha Jataka (which lifted this practically wholesale from the Valmeeki Ramayanam), we need not assume that Ashvaghosha is giving us all the details. Even in the worst-case scenario where Ashvaghosha had meant the simile to hold literally and restrict Vamadeva to "only a counsellor, never a purohit", it can simply be argued that Ashvaghosha got it wrong, as the MBh still mentions Vasishtha, Vamadeva along with "other brahmanas", while Valmeeki has both of them - along with other famous Vedic Rishis - conducting the Patthaabhishekam:
valmikiramayan.net/yuddha/sarga128/yuddhaitrans128.htm
Quote:60-61. vasiShThaH= Vasishta; vaamadevashcha= Vamadeva; jaabaaliH= Jabali; atha= and; kaashyapaH= Kashyapa; kaatyaayanaH= kaatyayana; suyajJNaH= Suyyagna; gautmaH= Gautama; tathaa= and; vijayaH= vijaya; abhyaShinchan= consecrated; nara vyaaghram= Rama, the tiger among men; prasannena= with clear; sugandhena= and fragrant; salilena= water; vasavaH iva= as the eight Vasus;* (consecrated) sahasraakSham= the thousand-eyed; vaasavam= Indra the lord of celestials.It is usually Vedabrahmanas who tend to conduct Patthabhishekams. That means that Valmeeki's Yuddhakandam is consistent with its Balakandam.
Vasishta, Vamadeva, Kashyapa, Katyayana, Suyajna, Gautama and Vijaya consecrated Rama the tiger among men, with clear and fragrant water, as the eight Vasus*
- The fact that Ashvaghosha does not refer to sections beyond Ayodhyakanda from the Valmeeki does not imply that he was unfamiliar with those other Kaandas (though, he being a convert to Buddhism, he could have grown amnesiac of his ancestral heathenism, as even Bauddhified 'Hindus' do today). Ashvaghosha not referencing them certainly does not imply that several or even all the other sections to Valmeeki Ramayanam did not exist then. As already argued, Ashvaghosha is likely to have poached from the section of the Valmeeki that was most similar (in his mind) to some aspect of Buddha's life - the part where he became a renunciate and people pleaded with him to return and he refused them. The other sections from The Ramayanam (i.e. the Valmeeki=Hindoo Ramayanam) may not have been deemed relevant to the story that Ashvaghosha wanted to tell in his Buddhacharita - since Sita's abduction and war with Ravana don't have echoes in Buddha's life - and so Ashvaghosha is not likely to have (and therefore didn't) plagiarise from them.
- Further, there aren't *that* many references to Rama (Ramayana) in the Buddhacharita, so it's not a large enough pool to draw drastic conclusions from about the state of the Valmeeki Ramayanam as at that time, as the alien translator had attempted to do.