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6.4
Conclusion
6 ANALYSIS
More generally, the thoughts in the chosen section of Vasunandin's poem concern the attitude towards dying. We might assume that Vasunandin intends to persuade the reader that "self-purification" is a process which depends on the minute control of one's thought and action. But, the reflection on individual welfare cannot be separated from the reflection on nature 320 For sure, there are certain ideological pretexts which should be taken to account when reading and discussing Vasunandin's Sr (57ff.).
There is the paradigma of anthropomorphism, especially when regarding the ideas of autonomy and heteronomy of creatures. There is the paradigma of compassion that embraces life as a whole. Besides, we find in this text few hints regarding the subject-status of women (related to the eco-feministic debate); another theorem is concerned with the sentience of animals, plants and microorganisms. Vasunandin teaches that the layman should spare life and cultivate compassion, especially with regard to the five-sensed beings. He should not kill, steal, or earn his living by gambling. He is content with his own wife. Compassion is regarded as an ornament of true insight. Vasunandin holds that the layman should observe special dietary rules, by which he also practises the virtue of "giving of fearlessness" to other beings (abhaya-dāna), i.e. giving up occupational hunting, slaughter to fulfill religious ambitions, searching for honey, etc. By vivid illustration our author tries to persuade the reader that self-knowledge is the key to enlightment.521 Vasunandin suggests that the layman should act with self-restraint.322 Self
320 We find some striking parallels to Vasunandin's vivid depiction of post-mortem "purgation" in the narrative passages in the Pāli Catu-dvāra-Jātaka (439). A merchant's son who has been disobedient and cruel is condemned to suffer in the city of Yama. At the end of a long journey he substitutes a creature in suffering which supports a razor-wheel. The being in suffering utters groaning sounds (pari-devana-sadda). But in the state of illusion Mittavindaka mistakes this sound for a sweet song (madhura-gita-sadda). In this context it is noteworthy mentioning Kehren's (1998) translation of Buddhist eschatological poems from a Chinese collection of Wang Fanzhi found in Dunhuang (8th century CE). In this poems we find the depiction of post-mortem journeys, related numerical patterns, and a "Geography of Death". Emphasis is placed on sound, too. Kehren maintains that those poems might have had a fixed place in the life of men and were sometimes accompanied by visual material, i.e. painted scrolls or wall paintings in the Buddhist caves. But, even in the Appendix of Plato's Politeia, which is credited to the 5th century BCE, related numerical patterns appear. The motif of "shrieking souls" occurs, although no visual adaptions of this legend have come down to us.
321 In Buddhism we find several metaphysical traditions based on self-knowledge. Some early concepts are associated with the term pañña-vimutti ("emancipation by knowledge") or samadhi. For the Buddhist patterns see for instance the introductory essay in Eimer 2006 and Eimer 2006:76ff. For the developments of Buddhist strings of thought in Central Asia and China cf. Buswell 1989:3, 186ff. See Bruhn 2003:69 for parallels with Manichaeism.
322 In Sr (193) appears the compound tava-samjama: "self-discipline and selfmortification". Virtues such as compassion, self-mortification, forebearance, and purity of mind, are clearly associated with the rules of the mendicants. We could assume that in origin they stand related to the "cares" (samitis). See Bollée 1977:129. Schubring
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