327 LESSON 26 07 2011 Vijaya Sutta Sister
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Reservation Day on 26-07-2011- Buddhist Pilgrimage- Four Places of Principal
Miracles-Objects of Interest-Sankasia, Place of Descent from Heaven
Vijaya Sutta: Sister Vijaya
translated from the Pali by
Thanissaro Bhikkhu
Alternate translation: Bodhi
At
Savatthi. Then, early in the morning, Vijaya the nun put on her robes and,
taking her bowl & outer robe, went into Savatthi for alms. When she had
gone for alms in Savatthi and had returned from her alms round, after her meal
she went to the Grove of the Blind to spend the day. Having gone deep into the
Grove of the Blind, she sat down at the foot of a tree for the day’s abiding.
Then Mara
the Evil One, wanting to arouse fear, horripilation, & terror in her,
wanting to make her fall away from concentration, approached her &
addressed her in verse:
You, a beautiful young woman. I, a young man. Come, my
lady, let’s enjoy ourselves to the music of a five-piece band.
Then the
thought occurred to Vijaya the nun: “Now who has recited this verse โ a
human being or a non-human one?” Then it occurred to her: “This is
Mara the Evil One, who has recited this verse wanting to arouse fear,
horripilation, & terror in me, wanting to make me fall away from
concentration.”
Then,
having understood that “This is Mara the Evil One,” she replied to
him in verses:
Lovely sights, sounds, smells, tastes, & tactile
sensations I leave to you, Mara. I have no need for them. I’m disgusted,
ashamed of this putrid body โ disintegrating, dissolving. Sensual craving is
rooted out. Beings who have come to form, & those with a share in the
formless, & the peaceful attainments: their darkness is completely
destroyed.
Then Mara
the Evil One โ sad & dejected at realizing, “Vijaya the nun knows
me” โ vanished right there.
Sn
5.6; also Sn 4.9 (quoted in The
Mind Like Fire Unbound, chapter III).
Four Places of Principal Miracles
Buddhist
Pilgrimage
2. Sankasia, Place of Descent from Heaven
3, 16, 25, 26
2.1 How to reach there
Sankasia is
located in the village of Sankisa-Basantapur in
district
of Farrukhabad,
Uttar Pradesh. From Agra, Sankasia is 175km via
the
Firozabad-Shikohabad-Mainpuri-Bewar-Pakhna route
2.1 Religious Significance
According to Dhammapada Commentary XIV, 2, after the
Buddha
had completed
the rains-retreat in Tavatimsa Heaven,
he informed
Sakka Devaraja
of his intention to return to earth. Thereupon, Sakka
created three
ladders; one of gold, one of jewels and one of silver,
the tops of
which rested on the summit of Mt. Sumeru and the feet of
which rested
against the gate of the city of Sankasia. On the right
side was the
golden ladder for devas,
on the left side was the silver
ladder for Brahma and his train, and in the
middle was the jewelled
ladder for the
Buddha. As the Buddha descended upon the jewelled
ladder, devas and Brahmas honored him by accompanying
him on
each side. With
this retinue the Buddha descended and set foot on
earth at the
gate of the city of Sankasia. Because of this miraculous
event, which
was witnessed by a great multitude, Sankasia became
an important
Buddhist shrine and several stupas and
viharas were
erected there.
2.3 Historical Background
5, 16, 27
King Asoka
visited Sankasia as part of his itinerary of pilgrimage in
249 BC.
According to Fa Hsien, Asoka built a shrine over the spot
where the
Buddha set foot on earth. Behind the shrine, he raised a
stone column
18.3 m high with a lion capital on top and on its four
sides, placed
Buddha images.
Fa Hsien
reported that there were about a thousand monks and nuns
who all
received their food from the common store, and belonged,
some to the
greater vehicle and some of the lesser one. He spent one
vassa in Sankasia and described the
presence of many Buddhist
structures and
monasteries including a sangharama containing
600-
700 monks. When
Hsรผan Tsang arrived in 636 AD, there were four
sangharamas with about 1000 priests of
the Sammitiya sect. To the
east of the
city 20 li or so, he saw the great sangharama of
beautiful
construction,
wherein lived 100 monks and religious laymen. He
also saw the
Asoka column 21 m high with carved figures on the
four sides and
around it, and mentioned the presence of some stupas.
Other than
these accounts of the Chinese pilgrims, the history of
Sankasia
remained blank for the next 1200 years until Cunningham
identified it
with the village of Sankisa-Basantapur in
Farrukhabad
District of
Uttar Pradesh. The present site of Sankasia is situated on
a high mound
and there is a chain of other mounds spread outside
the village.
These mounds have yielded numerous silver and copper
punch marked
coins during excavations, mostly tribal coins of the
Panchala kings
and copper coins of the Kushan rulers. Large bricks
measuring 28 cm
by 15 cm bearing Brahmi inscriptions of 2nd
century BC were
also discovered.
2.4 The Pristine Environment of Sankasia
Today Sankasia
is the one of the most remote and undeveloped
Buddhist
shrines in India, a far cry from the Buddhaโs time when it
was called
โCity of Sankasiaโ. When Indiaโs Prime Minister Nehru
was asked by
some Japanese visitors in 1961, which was the poorest
Buddhist shrine
in India, he promptly replied: โSankasia!โ The
situation has
improved slightly since Ms Mayawati,
a Buddhist
laywoman became
Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh in May 2007
again after a
brief term in 2002-03. Now the roads are getting better
and a new hotel
is being built to accommodate tourists in Sankasia.
The author
first visited Sankasia ten years ago. Impressed by its
pristine environment, he decided to lead
Malaysian pilgrims there
every
pilgrimage despite initial objections from certain members. In
the beginning,
the trip would take the whole day and we would leave
Sankasia by
evening and travel to Kanpur or Lucknow arriving at the
hotel well
after midnight. When the pilgrimsโ hostel in the Burmese
Temple was
completed in 2004, Sayadaw U 5anda invited
us to
stay overnight
there instead of leaving in the evening. It proved to be
very pleasant
as we got the opportunity to know Sayadaw U Nanda
and benefit
from his vast knowledge of the history of Sankasia. Now
more pilgrims
will get to know the rich heritage of Sankasia.
2.5 Objects of Interest
5, 16, 27
a) Broken Asoka Column with Elephant Capital
The Elephant
Capital that once surmounted the Asoka column is an
important relic
of the 3rd century
BC. It is kept in a fenced up
pavilion.
Nearby under a tree, is a small shrine with a standing
image of Lord
Buddha, flanked by Brahma and Sakka to depict the
Buddhaโs
descent from Heaven.
b) Site where the Buddha Descended from Heaven
About 20 metres
to the south of the Asokan pillar is a high mound
composed of
solid brickwork, which was once a Buddhist structure.
This mound is 6
metres high and 49 metres in diameter at its base.
Cunningham
identified it with the position of the three flights of
ladders by
which the Buddha descended from Heaven attended by
Brahma and
Sakka. According to Hsรผan Tsang, when the ladders by
which the
Buddha descended from Heaven had disappeared, the
neighbouring
princes built up new triple stairs of bricks and chased
stones
ornamented with jewels on the ancient foundation (three
ladders)
resembling the old ones. There was a vihara on
the
foundation and
close by its side was a stone column 21m high,
which was
erected by Asoka-raja. After the disappearance of
Buddhism from
India, the vihara probably
followed the same fate of
many other
Buddhist establishments and fell into ruins. On top of the
foundation now
is a small shrine dedicated to a Hindu goddess
Bisari Devi,
built by a Hindu priest who has taken over the place
sometime ago.
This Hindu shrine on top of a Buddhist structure is a
bone of
contention between the Buddhists and Hindus in Sankasia.
According to
the Press Trust of India News, during the Pavarana in
November 2001, at least 18 people including three policemen were
injured in
clashes involving people from the two communities
during a
religious procession in Sankasia. The trouble began when
the Hindus
started to attack a group of Buddhists in the Dhamma
Yatra (religious procession) who
were chanting for the return of the
site to
Buddhists. The Buddhists and Hindus have always been at
loggerheads
over the issue of the possession of Bisari Devi temple.
During the past
three years, the tussle has often assumed violent
overtones.
Because of this incident, the Government has banned the
yearly
procession around the Buddhist pilgrimage site at Sankasia.
When the author
visited Sankasia in November 2003, the brickworks
around the
mound had fallen off due to heavy rains during the last
monsoon,
revealing the bare earth (Plate 31) According to Sayadaw
U 5anda, the resident monk of the
Burmese vihara, this event
may
turn out to be
a blessing for Buddhists because there are plans by the
Archaeological
Survey of India (ASI) to carry out excavations of
this ancient
Buddhist site and develop it for more pilgrims to visit
Sankasia. It
will be interesting to see what ancient relics will be
unearthed by
the archaeologistโs spade. For a long time, Sankasia
has been
by-passed by most present-day pilgrims in spite of its
religious
significance and the fact that it was an important shrine to
the great
pilgrims of the past like Asoka, Fa Hsien and Hsรผan Tsang.
d) Burmese and Sri Lankan Viharas
The first
Buddhist monk to reside in Sankasia was the Late Ven.
Vijaya Soma from Sri Lanka who
established a school there. It is
indeed
heartening to see two Buddhist monasteries now in Sankasia
Four
Places of Principal Miracles ย 133
in spite of its
remote location. The Burmese monastery was opened
in the year
2000 while the Sri Lankan monastery was built a few
years earlier.
Pilgrims visiting Sankasia should visit these
monasteries to
pay their respects to the bhikkhus,
whose presence
have enhanced
the sanctity of this rural environment. They will be
able to obtain
more information about the history of Sankasia from
the monks who
have lived there for many years.
2.6 Buddhist Population around Sankasia
According to Sayadaw U 5anda, the resident monk of the
Burmese
vihara, when Lord Buddha descended
from Heaven at the gate of
Sankasia city
after his 7th Vassa (about 2600 years ago) a group of
Sakyan nobles
came to witness the miracle and settled in Sankasia.
After Vidhadabu attacked Kapilavatthu and
massacred the Sakyans,
many escaped to
India and became immigrants of Sankasia (5ote
11). Today there are over one quarter million of
their descendants
living in the
districts around Sankasia. Every year during Pavarana
on the
full-moon day of October a great congregation of local
Buddhists
gather at Sankasia to commemorate this important event.
In the early 5th century AD when Fa Hsien was at Sankasia, he heard
of a dispute
between the Brahmins and the Sramanas (Bhikkhus)
over land
rights in Sankasia. According to him, the
latter were losing
the argument.
Then both sides took an oath that if the place did
indeed belong
to the Sramanas,
there should be some supernatural
proof of it.
When these words had been spoken, the stone lion on top
of the nearby
Asoka pillar gave a great roar. Witnessing this, their
opponents were
frightened, bowed to the decision, and withdrew.
Eventually the
Brahmins appeared to have succeeded in ousting the
Buddhists from
their lands, because by the time of Hsรผan Tsangโs
visit, he
reported: โThere were only
four viharas with about one
thousand monks of the Sammitiya School. There were ten Deva
temples, where sectarians of all beliefs lived. They all honour
and
sacrifice to Mahesvara.โ
So it is very
likely that at some early period, perhaps before Hsรผan
Tsangโs visit,
the Buddhists of Sankasia, many of which were
immigrant
Sakyans deserted their native place and settled in the
surrounding
villages. Many of them join the October full-moon
celebration as
another traditional festival of their ancestors. They are
ignorant of
their historical ties with the Buddhism. Sayadaw U
Nanda, who is
fluent in Hindi, has started a Sunday school to
educate the
younger generation about their roots by teaching them
the history of
their ancestral religion.
Note 11: Immigration of Sakyans to India
During
Vidudabhaโs attack of Kapilavatthu, many Sakyans fled
south, avoiding
Kosala country, to Sankasia (in
Uttar Pradesh)
where an
earlier group of their countrymen had settled after
witnessing the
Buddhaโs Descent from Heaven. This new group of
refugees
increased the Sakyan population in Sankasia significantly.
However, these
Sakyans were not the only ones who had moved out
of
Kapilavatthu. According to the Mahavamsa viii, 18, soothsayers
had foretold
the future destruction of Kapilavatthu to Sakka
Pandu,
a cousin of the
Buddha and son of Amitodana.
With a group of
followers, he
went to another tract of land on the further side of the
Ganges and
founded a city there and ruled as king. He had seven
sons and one
daughter named Baddhakaccana. She
later married
the Pandyan
prince Panduvasdeva who
succeeded his uncle King
Vijaya to the throne of Sri Lanka.
Another famous
Sakyan was Devi, the first wife
of King Asoka and
mother of Ven. Mahinda and Ven. Sanghamitta. Asoka married
her when he was
the viceroy of Ujjayini (Ujjain). She was a devotee
of the Buddha
and a descendant of a Sakyan family who migrated to
Vedisa after escaping the
destruction of Kapilavatthu by Vidudabha
Awakeness
Practices
All 84,000
Khandas As Found in the Pali Suttas
|
Traditionally |
The discourses of Buddha are divided into 84,000, as to separate
addresses. The division includes all that was spoken by Buddha.โI received from
Buddha,โ said Ananda, โ82,000 Khandas, and
from the priests 2000; these are 84,000 Khandas maintained by me.โ They
are divided into 275,250, as to the stanzas of the original text, and into
361,550, as to the stanzas of the commentary. All the discourses including both
those of Buddha and those of the commentator, are divided into 2,547 banawanas, containing 737,000
stanzas, and 29,368,000 separate letters.
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Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar , Indian scholar,
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I.
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