Indian Antiquary Vol 21

SR No.: 032513
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Richard Carnac Temple
Publisher: Swati Publications
Publication Year: 1984
Total Pages: 430
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 390

366
THE INDIAN ANTIQUARY.
[DECEMBER, 1892.
i. e. “ With the race of Virûpaksha I keep friendship, and friendship with the race of Erâpatha; with the race of Chhabbyâputta I keep friendship, and with the race of Krisha and Götamaka. (2) With the footless I keep friendship, and friendship with the twofooted; with the four-footed I keep friendship, and friendship with the many-footed. (3) Let not the footless harm me, nor barm me the two-footed; let not the four-footed harm me, nor harm me the many-footed. (4) All that exist, all that live, all that will live hereafter, one and all, may they experience the good things, may none of them fall into sin."
Buddha explained to them that by the first verse they would establish friendship with the four Någarajas and their races, and by the second, with snakes and fishes, men and birds, elephants, horses and all other quadrapeds, scorpions, centipedes and other multipedes, and thus they would become proof against being bitten or injured by any of them. The third would serve them as a request, by reason of that friendship, to be saved from all danger from those different classes of beings. The fourth would show their feeling of goodwill to all creatures.
He then proceeded to explain how all anfety (paritta) was ultimately to be ascribed to the transcendent power of the three gems, Buddha, Dharma and Sangha, and concluded by teaching them the following hymn :
"My safety is secured, my protection is secured! Let all creatures leave me in peace! So I will praise the Blessed One;
I will praise all that through him are saved!" In this manner the company of Rishis found protection ; and thenceforward, by the virtue of the charm taught by the Bodhisattva, the snakes left them in peace. The Bodhisattva himself in due time went to heaven.
The incident related in tho Játaka book is clearly the same as that narrated in our Manuscript. But what is there given in the form of a Játaka, an incident from a former existence of Buddha, is here related as an Avadana, an incident from his last existence. There the monk (Svati) is represented as dead, and the spell as having been given on a long-past occasion. Here Svâti is represented as only being near death, and as going to be saved by the spell given on that very occasion. The spell, moreover, is here given in a very expanded form. To the first verse of the spell in the Jalaka correspond ten verses (1-10) in our MS.; to the second and third verses there, correspond five verses (11-15) here, while the fourth verse there, corresponds to the sixteenth verse here.
Some portions of the spell in our Manuscript look very much like direct translations from the Pali. Our verses 126, 13, 14a and 16 are Sanskrit versions of verses 2, 3, 4 in the Játaka. Verse 13a has actually preserved, in hissi, a fragment of the original Pali. But the different wording of verse 16a would seem to show that the Sanskțit version in our Manuscript is based on a Páli recension different from that contained in the Southern Buddhist Játaka book.
Other Pali fragments are scattered, here and there, through the whole of our Sansksit version; thus we have karðhi on A. Ib2 and téli on f. 11166. Thia would seem to indicate that the Northern Buddhism possessed an original Pali recension co-extensive with the Sanskrit recension in our Manuscript.
To my mind, the transformation of the story from a Játaka to an Aradâna form, as well as its expansion in the latter form, is an evidence of the story in this form being of a later age than that in the Jataka book. This in itself is an evidence of the genuineness and the antiquity of the story in the Játaka form as preserved by the Southern Buddhists of Ceylon.
APPENDIX III.
The Mahamayuri Spell. I was at first disposed to suggest that this spell may have reccived its name Mahd-máyuri from the fact, that some part of the peafowl (mayiru) was used along with it. As a matter of