Transitoriness and Transformations 91varnashrama dharma. Though the Bodhisattva is most often a noble,
Brahman or merchant-farmer, he is often also of lower births. For
example, he is born as a drummer (#59; numbers refer to the accepted
number of the Jatakas; see Jatakas1985), a conch-blower (#60), a
doctor specialising in snake-bites (#69), a gardener (#70), an acrobat
(#116), a stone-cutter (#137), a potter (#178), the ‘lowest caste’
(#179), a wage-earning poor man (#201), an acrobat-beggar (#212),
an elephant trainer (#231), a musician (#243), a forester (#265), a
‘pariah’ (#309), a smith (#387), a poor wage earner (#390), a potter
(#408), a poor wage-earner (#418), a master mariner (#463), a carpen-
ter (#466), and a Candala (#474, 497, 498). In none of these stories
is there a hint that the ‘low’ birth is due to some sins committed in a
past life. Generally, the varying states and statuses of human existence
are not seen as too different; if there is ‘punishment’ for past sins it
is expressed in particular misfortunes not related with social status.
In fact, it is existence as a human being, of whatever class or ‘caste’,
that uniquely offers the opportunity for choice and freedom, denied
even to birth as a ‘god’ or ‘demon’. Rewards and punishment are
thus explained not so much in terms of birth as a human of low or
high status, but most often in terms of spending ages in heavens or
hells, with the latter often luridly described. This indicates that as far
as most people were concerned, it was the promise/threat of future
heavens and hells which was important as the foundation for a
morality of righteousness.
Second, the Jatakas show the degree to which the notion of ‘God’
as a supreme divinity was absent from the consciousness of most
Indians of the time. There are of course devas,‘gods,’ just as there are
rakshasas, asuras, yakkhasand yakkhis(‘goblins, ogres, fairies’), who
are slightly superior but still bound beings, subject to the wheel of
birth and death. The most widely referred to of these is Sakka, the
‘king of the gods’. While he rules over a beautiful and luxurious
heaven, he is in fact nothing other than a status to which particularly
good individuals may be reborn. He is prompted (by his ‘throne
becoming hot’) to act in many cases; he fears lest he lose his position;
and the Bodhisattva is many times born, for a period, as Sakka. There
is no hint in this either of the transcendent creator God of the west-
ern tradition or the all-pervasive Brahma of Brahmanical philosophy.
Third, both the ongoing conflict with Brahmanism and respect
for Brahmans is shown in the Jatakas. There is some ambiguity; for
instance characters go often to Takkasila (Taxila) where the learningThe fact that the existing texts available to us are in a certain
language (for example Pali or Sanskrit) does not prove that their
originals were in the same language. Further, the lack of sources
from vernacular literature has created a huge gap in information
about popular Buddhism and the way in which large sections of
people of the time reacted to the Buddha’s teachings.
Popular Buddhism: The Jatakas,
Stupas and Statues
There is, however, one major source that is not derived from the
monastic tradition and which suggests how the masses of people
understood Buddhism: the Jataka stories. These stories were drawn
from local vernaculars and local folklore and were translated into
Pali. While the dates are, as with most of the literature, difficult to
fix, the gathas(songs) may be the oldest, but the stories of the past
(the prose commentary) are equally old and are normally attributed
to the pre-Mauryan period, though they occasionally reflect Mauryan
or even Satavahana conditions. The introduction to the stories them-
selves give further stories about the Buddha and his time; these again
are assumed to be of a later date. The short, simple Jatakas of the collec-
tion are the earliest, the longer ones are of a later period while those
dealing with Candalas are considered later additions (Rhys Davids
1917: 189–209; Sharma 1958: 91–93). Here we will deal only with
the ‘religious’ aspects of the stories; some of their social implications
will be considered in Chapter 5.
First, of course, these are ‘birth’ stories, centering around the
former births of Gotama and his closest companions and supporters
(Ananda, Sariputta, Gotama’s wife and mother, to name only a
few) and one enemy (Devadatta) since stories often require a villain.
In doing so they rely on the karma/rebirth frame. Its use shows the
degree to which some immutable ‘self’ is indeed assumed; that is,
transmigration appears to be an inevitable accompaniment of the
frame. Not only are specific people or personalities identified as
having undergone previous births; situations and event-types are
repeated, and character traits seem often to hold through a whole
round of births.
Still, the karma/rebirth frame used in the stories is strikingly
different from the reward–punishment calculus of the Brahmanic
90 Buddhism in India