I just finished translating the Cariyapitaka, one of the latest books in the Pali canon, and I’m just going to quickly jot down a few thoughts before I go off on retreat. I’ve only got less than an hour so please forgive the rushedness!
I translated this mostly on a whim, just to see what it would be like. It’s a short book. I knew it wouldn’t have the most exciting content, but it’s been a long time since I read it and I was surprised at just how odd it is.
Odd how? Well, the basic idea is pretty straightforward. It selects a number of Jataka stories and retells them in a consistent verse style. The aim is to illustrate the Bodhisatta’s practice of the pāramīs “perfections”, i.e. good qualities that he built up over many lives.
Now, the doctrine of the pāramīs is not found in the early texts, and in fact the whole idea contradicts what the Buddha said about his own practice. He explicitly says that it was not the practice in past lives that led to awakening, and attributes it solely to his development of the eightfold path in this life. But I’m not going to do a history of this change here.
The first odd thing is that the Cariyapitaka relies on the Jataka stories, not the verses. Why is this odd? because in the Pali tradition, the stories are regarded as commentary. That means that in principle they should date 500 years after the close of the canon. Yet a canonical book takes them as source material. Now, TW Rhys Davids long ago showed that the canonical Jataka verses often make no sense without the stories. And he showed that the stories are sometimes depicted in early architecture at Sanchi, which dates from a similar period as the Cariyapitaka. So this isn’t a revolutionary thing, but it is still striking how the canonical text relies on the commentary. The stories must have been handed down in the tradition long before they were redacted in the form we have them today.
I haven’t studied the details, but it seems that generally the Cariyapitaka always agrees with the Jataka stories, implying they had changed little. I think there was one case I noticed a different detail.
More odd than this, it is quite common that the Cariyapitaka omits details of the stories that are required for them to make sense. For example, in one story it says, “then I paid the brahmin”. But no brahmin has been mentioned or any reason for paying him. Only in the Jataka do we learn that prior to these events, the Bodhisatta had met a brahmin on the road who had sung some verses for him, and he promised to pay him when he could.
Such incidents—and they are not few—call into question the purpose of the book. It can’t be to replace the Jataka, because it is incomplete without it. It must have been told to people who were already assumed to know the Jatakas; or perhaps it was meant to be spoken by a teacher who would explain the details.
In one case, the story is so attenuated that it is difficult to even identify the Jataka properly.
Still odder, it doesn’t even illustrate all of the paramis. Missing are the perfections of patience (or acceptance, khanti), wisdom, and energy. And it’s not that they were added later to the list, for they are included in the concluding verses: there’s just no stories for them. Nor were the stories misplaced, for the uddāna at the end lists only the extant characters. It seems odd, especially since there is no shortage of Jatakas to use.
I kind of feel like it’s an unfinished work. It feels careless. The language is uninspired and uninteresting, lacking the variety in form, imagery and meter you find in say the Suttanipāta. And the teachings are plodding and preachy, lacking the weirdness and charm of the Jatakas. I often felt bored when translating, and I know it’s projection, but I couldn’t help but wonder whether the author felt the same way. Again, purely speculating, but it feels to me like the work of an old monk, so used to lecturing and moralizing that the spark of creativity was long gone. Maybe he wanted to summarize some stories, but age was encroaching and duties were calling. And in the end, the work adds little to what is elsewhere anyway. Perhaps he set it aside, but his students rescued it. The same thing happened with Laurence Mill’s translation of the Suttanipāta: it was begun in old age and contained sparks of his old fire, but ultimately was unfinished and uneven.
In some cases the ethics are problematic, too. I was especially struck when the King of Fish didn’t want to just escape from the crows that were eating the fish: he wanted the crows to suffer like they had. Seem gratuitous. Of course the Jataka stories are often pre- or non-Buddhist, and they are meant to depict the progress of an imperfect being. So there’s no problem with them including some dodgy things; it’s just when they are eulogized as the path the awakening.
As one final point of oddness, the text concludes by saying that it is called the Buddapadāna (“Legends of the Buddha”) which makes it a counterpart to the Therapadāna and Therī-apadāna. I wonder why they didn’t just use that name?
I kept my eye out for interesting details of mythology, which are often hidden in the background of Jataka stories. There were a few instances of Frazerian substitute sacrifice and the like.
But one thing I did notice was the text has two “dark hermits”, Kaṇhadīpayana (Dark Light) (cp31) and Suvaṇṇasāma (Gold Black) (cp33). Both their names echo the dark/light dichotomy also found in Kaṇhasiri of snp3.11. They are both hermits with exotic and mystical powers. I should look more into the Jatakas for these!
There are those who take such books as the word of the Buddha. I think this is a mistake: the Buddha was much more interesting than this. Clearly the book dates from several centuries after the Buddha.
In modern times, there are others who say we shouldn’t judge ancient works, that we are just imposing our prejudices if we speak of the decline of Buddhism. I wonder if such folks have studied this work? It seems so obvious: everything about it is just … not great. It’s not that it adds to what the Buddha taught that bothers me. It’s that it does so artlessly.