73
REFLECTIONS ON THE
MAHESVARA SUBJUGATION MYTH
Indic materials, Sa-skya-pa apologetics, and the
birth of Heruka *Ronald M. DavidsonSource: Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 14, 2 (1991 ): 197-235.
Perhaps one of the least examined topics in Buddhism is the utilization of myth
in service of clerical values. Myth, of course, is intimately connected with all the
varieties of praxis, yet to read many descriptive analyses of the Buddhist dispen-
sation, the nonspecialist might rapidly come to the conclusion that Buddhism
has few concerns outside of doctrine. This impression is reinforced by both the
Eurocentric proclivity to see religion in doxographical terms and by the modem
Buddhist apologia-especially prevalent in the Theravada world-that Bud-
dhism is in reality not a religion but a philosophy. Buddhist specialists have fre-
quently been seduced by either the Judeo-Christian models, which continue to
exert influence in the quest for underlying unity in religious phenomena, or by
the modem Buddhist desire to appear outside the pale of the set of behaviors
subsumed under the term "religion." Thus, the exploration of Buddhist myth-
along with ritual and other forms of activity-has taken a back seat to doctrinal
formulations, many of which are recast in a twentieth century philosophical
diction that can be quite misleading in its implication of set and setting.
Myth, in fact, has been and continues to be extraordinarily important to Bud-
dhists. Yet the mythic functions are not precisely those found in the Near
Eastern religions-Judaism, Christianity, or Islam. Specifically, the ideology of
an encapsulated temporal sequence, involving a definite creation event, a closed
revelation, and an approaching millennium, are all foreign to Buddhist mythic
processes, which verify an open-ended spatio-temporal system wherein all phe-
nomena continually participate in the expression of truth. In general, Buddhist
myth does not reveal a cosmology of creation and judgement, with all the atten-
dent personality issues of creator and soul. Instead, it seeks to focus the attention
of the audience on paradigms exemplifying the potential for immanent rectifica-
tion, irrespective of eschatology. Thus, as may be seen in most institutional