mother-love and mother-grief south asian buddhist variations on a theme - ohnuma

FSR, Inc.

Mother-Love and Mother-Grief: South Asian Buddhist Variations on a ThemeAuthor(s): Reiko OhnumaSource: Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion, Vol. 23, No. 1 (Spring, 2007), pp. 95-116Published by: Indiana University Press on behalf of FSR, Inc.Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/20487889 .Accessed: 20/05/2011 09:06

Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use, available at .http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp. JSTOR's Terms and Conditions of Use provides, in part, that unlessyou have obtained prior permission, you may not download an entire issue of a journal or multiple copies of articles, and youmay use content in the JSTOR archive only for your personal, non-commercial use.

Please contact the publisher regarding any further use of this work. Publisher contact information may be obtained at .http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupress. .

Each copy of any part of a JSTOR transmission must contain the same copyright notice that appears on the screen or printedpage of such transmission.

JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range ofcontent in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new formsof scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].

Indiana University Press and FSR, Inc. are collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access toJournal of Feminist Studies in Religion.

http://www.jstor.org

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupress

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=fsr

http://www.jstor.org/stable/20487889?origin=JSTOR-pdf

http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp

http://www.jstor.org/action/showPublisher?publisherCode=iupress

JFSR 23.1 (2007) 95-116

MOTHER-LOVE AND MOTHER-GRIEF

South Asian Buddhist Variations on a Theme

Reiko Ohnuma

In this article, Ohnuma examines maternal love and maternal grief in premodern South Asian Buddhist texts and discusses the manner in which patriarchal religious traditions negotiate both symbols. Inasmuch as South Asian Buddhism constitutes a dominant, patriarchal tradition, Ohnuma shows how it ambiva lently accommodates the particularity of a mother's love for her own children. On the one hand, canonical Buddhist texts exalt mother-love as a paradigmatic symbol for the universal love and compassion of Buddhas and bodhisattvas. On the other hand, mother-love is also condemned as a manifestation of selfish at tachment, as exemplified in the suffering of the grieving mother, who is disparaged in Buddhist texts as antithetical to the spiri tual goals of dispassion, detachment, and overcoming suffering. Thus, while mother-love as a symbol is exalted, mother-love as an actual entity is ultimately devalued and undermined. Ohnuma concludes the article by focusing on the Buddhist goddess HIarlti and suggests that this tradition might represent Buddhism's at tempt to incorporate lower-level folk traditions that were per haps more compatible with mother-love.

In an article that appeared in this journal a decade ago, Susan Starr Sered observed that child death is "an extremely salient theme in the religious lives of many women."' Sered cited several cross-cultural examples, suggesting that

1 Susan Starr Sered, "Mother Love, Child Death, and Religious Innovation," Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion 12 (1996): 5-23. The same ideas are also treated in Sered's Priestess,

Mother, Sacred Sister: Religions Dominated by Women (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996),

89-101.

96 Journal of Feminist Studies in Religion

because women are often more heavily immersed and invested in the raising of children than are men, "the death of a child tends to have a greater impact upon women." This leads not only to more profound and prolonged grieving but also to a greater confrontation with compelling, existential questions, which can lead such women to greater religious involvement. One persistent pattern of this involvement, moreover, is that many women become dissatisfied with the inter pretations of child death offered by the dominant, patriarchal religions of the cultures in which they live, and instead become leaders and members of various alternative religious traditions dominated by women, such as the zar spirit pos session cults of North and East Africa, nineteenth-century American Spiritual ism, or the spirit cults of Northern Thailand. In contrast to male-dominated traditions, these traditions offer the possibility of reestablishing contact with deceased children, thereby denying the finality of death and its severance of the mother-child bond. This is why, Sered speculates, child death is so strongly correlated not only with greater religious involvement for women but often also with their involvement in alternative, female-dominated traditions.2

As Sered further points out, however, it is precisely this emphasis upon specific, interpersonal relationships that has caused such women-dominated traditions to be interpreted by scholars in terms of "magic" or "superstition," rather than in terms of "religion." For conceptual models prevalent since the time of James Frazer's Golden Bough have convinced us that whereas religion addresses ultimate concerns (such as death) in abstract and transcendent terms, magic is associated only with the private, personal, and particular. Thus, be reaved mothers who show concern "for particular dead babies and not for dead babies in the abstract" engage in magic rather than religion. As a feminist, how ever, Sered resists models that automatically value the abstract over the specific (and men over women), challenging scholars "to see the link between child death and women's religion for what it really is-an expression of the primacy of love and care, and a legitimate existential grappling with what is surely one of the most incomprehensible facets of human experience."3

This article explores Sered's ideas in relation to premodern South Asian Buddhist literature preserved in Sanskrit, Pali, and Chinese translation. In par ticular, I address the following questions: To what extent is South Asian Bud dhism able to accommodate the mother's love for her own, particular children? Is mother-love compatible with the highest Buddhist ideals or does it stand in opposition? Correspondingly, how do premodern South Asian Buddhist texts depict the bereaved mother in grief? Must the mother's particular grief over one specific dead baby be eradicated in favor of a concern for "dead babies in the abstract" in order to conform to Buddhist ideals? Or do these texts ac commodate such particularistic grief and recognize it as a legitimate basis for

2 Sered, "Mother Love," 5-8.

3 Ibid., 20-23.

Ohnuma: Mother-Love and Mother-Grief 97

developing valued Buddhist qualities such as empathy, love, and compassion? Finally, is there any evidence of Buddhism, as a dominant, patriarchal tradition, struggling to accommodate various "lower" forms of religion-such as women's religion, folk religion, or local, popular traditions-that were perhaps more compatible with mother-love?

Mother-Love in South Asian Buddhist Texts

Mother-love is a potent, reocurring symbol in South Asian Buddhist litera ture.4 Buddhist literature often idealizes mother-love as the purest, most com passionate, and most self-sacrificing type of love possible-far more intense, for example, than father-love. Mother-love thus serves, in many contexts, as the most appropriate metaphor for the love and compassion that a Buddha or bodhisattva radiates outward toward all beings; in countless Buddhist texts, we learn that Buddhas and bodhisattvas love all beings "just as a mother loves her only son." Ordinary monks engaging in the meditation on loving-kindness to ward all beings-a standard Buddhist meditation-are likewise instructed to imitate the love a mother has for her only son. A classic instance of this meta phorical use of mother-love appears in a chapter devoted to loving-kindness from the Sutta Nipata, an early Buddhist text from the Theravadin Pali canon. "Just as a mother would protect with her life her own son, her only son, so one should cultivate an unbounded mind toward all beings, and loving-kindness to ward all the world."5

Despite the positive valuation, however, closer consideration of this pas sage reveals that mother-love is a two-sided symbol that both succeeds and fails at the same time. On the one hand, the particularity of mother-love is what makes it such an appropriate symbol for the Buddhist virtue of loving-kindness. The Buddha's loving-kindness for all beings is often compared not simply to the mother's love for her children, in general, but more specifically, to the mother's love for "her own son, her only son." Because sons (in premodern South Asia) were more highly valued than daughters, and because an only child was more

4 For general evaluations of motherhood and Buddhism, see I. B. Horner, Women under

Primitive Buddhism (1930; reprint, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1989), 1-18; Susan Mur

cott, The First Buddhist Women (Berkeley: Parallax Press, 1991), 74-91; Diana Y. Paul, Women in

Buddhism, 2nd ed. (Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1985), 60-73; and

Rita M. Gross, Buddhism after Patriarchy (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), 232-40. For a fuller discussion of Gross, see Kay Koppedrayer's review article in this issue. Al

though Koppedrayer's focus is significantly different than mine, there are many fruitful areas of

connection between us. To mention only one: The creative engagement with the Buddhist tradi

tion displayed by the Western feminist Buddhist theologians that constitute Koppedrayer's focus

is only made possible, I believe, by the ambivalence and multivalence of gender symbolism already inherent in premodern South Asian Buddhist texts, which is one of my major concerns here.

5 Sutta Nip?ta, vv. 149-50, in The Group of Discourses (Sutta-Nip?ta), trans. K. R. Norman

(1984; reprint, Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1996), 1:25.


highly valued than one of many children, it was only the mother's love for "her own son, her only son" that reached the intensity that allowed it serve as an ap propriate symbol for the Buddha's love.

On the other hand, however, it is this same particularity that ultimately distinguishes mother-love from the Buddha's love and turns them into polar op posites. For while mother-love is depicted as particular to one's own child alone and not extending to anyone else, the Buddha's love is universal and extends, with equal intensity, to all living beings. There is thus a stark contrast between one person and all beings, between one's own child and everyone else, between particular and universal love. Mother-love may serve positively as a symbol for the Buddha's love, but mother-love, as an actual entity, is ultimately undercut and devalued.

In fact, when mother-love is considered not as a symbol, but as an actual entity, it is often condemned in Buddhist texts as being a potent manifestation of desire, attachment, and clinging-all negative emotions in Buddhism that keep one bound within the realm of samsara. This sharply distinguishes it from the Buddha's love, which, despite its intensity, is said to be practiced with per fect dispassion, detachment, and equanimity toward all-or those qualities that lead one to nirvana. Because mother-love is directed toward someone particular to the mother alone, it is, by definition, the result of selfish attachment. The mother's love for her own child alone is just a reflection of her constant grasping after "I," "me," and "mine"-the same delusional belief in a permanent self that binds humans to the realm of birth and death. In contrast, because the Buddha's love is directed equally toward all living beings, it, by definition, reflects the Buddha's superior insight into the absolute truth of no-self. As an especially pernicious form of attachment, then, mother-love is inconsistent not only with the universal compassion of the Buddha but also with the perfect detachment of the arhat (one who has attained the goal of nirvana).

Ambivalent depictions of mother-love in several different Buddhist texts illustrate these ideas. In an ancient Hindu ritual text known as the Baudhayana Srautasutra, there is a brief story in which a man named Rtuparna, father of several sons, angers the deity Indra.6 His punishment is being transformed into a woman, and as a woman, she becomes the mother of several more sons. Indra then kills all the sons, but later decides to resurrect some of them. Forced to choose whether to restore the sons she fathered or those she mothered, Rtuparna chooses the latter, and the text itself concludes, "Therefore it is said, sons are dearer to a woman." Mother-love is greater than father-love, even when the same person is both mother and father.

Now let us consider the Buddhist version of this story, as it occurs in the Dhammapadatthakathd, a fifth-century-C.E. commentary on the early Pali ca

6 Baudhayana Srautasutra 18.13, in The Baudhayana Srautasutra, trans, and ed. C. G. Ka

shikar (New Delhi: Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts, 2003), 3:1187.


nonical text, the Dhammapada. In this telling, Sorreya, the father of two sons, suddenly transforms into a woman through the negative karmic consequences of a lustful thought. As a woman, she gives birth to two more sons, but after repenting for her sin, she is restored to manhood. Upon hearing Sorreya's story, people ask him which sons he loves the most, to which he replies, "I have the stronger affection for the pair of sons of which I am the mother."7 As in the Hindu version, the Buddhist story presents mother-love as more intense than father-love. But it does not end there. Sorreya becomes a Buddhist monk, with draws into meditative solitude, quickly attains nirvana, and becomes an arhat. And from then on, whenever people ask him which sons he loves the most, he answers, "My affections are set on no one." At the end of the story, the Buddha, commenting on Sorreya's attainment of arhatship, pronounces verse 43 of the Dhammapada: "Neither father nor mother, nor any other kindred, can confer greater benefit than does the well-directed mind."8

The Buddhist adaptation of the Hindu story is subtle, but striking. Gone is the positive evaluation of mother-love, replaced by a more ambivalent message: mother-love is greater and more intense than father-love, but this intensity only moves mother-love that much further away than father-love from the perfect detachment of the arhat, whose "affections are set on no one." This subtle con demnation of mother-love is further underscored by the fact that Sorreya's initial transformation into a mother was the negative karmic consequence of a lustful thought, while his retransformation into a father was the positive karmic conse quence of repenting for that thought. As manifested by his lesser attachment to his children, the father is closer to being an arhat than the mother. Finally, the Buddha himself enunciates the larger point of the story: When it comes to at taining nirvana, personal, familial bonds such as that between mother and child are useless. Only a well-directed mind matters.

The idea that mother-love is intense yet ineffective, whereas father-love is detached and thus superior, can also be found in a parable from a Sanskrit

Mahayana suitra.9 An only, beloved son falls into a terrible cesspit, and his mother is so overcome with grief and sorrow that she never thinks of entering the cess pit to save him. It is only the father, with his superior detachment, who refrains from grieving, calmly assesses the situation, and succeeds in rescuing the boy. From the perspective of this Mahayana text, the father stands for the Mahayana bodhisattva, who loves all beings in a detached and therefore effective man ner, whereas the mother stands for the inferior, Hinayana disciple, lacking the

7 Dhammapadatthakatha 3.9, in Buddhist Legends, trans. Eugene Watson Burlingame

(1929; reprint, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1999), 2:23-28. 8 Dhammapada, v. 43, in Dhammapada, trans. Harischandra Kaviratna (Pasadena, CA:

Theosophical University Press, 1980), 19. 9 Alex Wayman, "The Position of Women in Buddhism," Studia Missionalia 40 (1991):

269. The simile comes from the S?garamatipariprcch?, as quoted in the Ratnagotravibh?ga

Mah?y?nottaratantras?stra.


necessary detachment. The simile works because of its assumption that mother love is ineffective because of its association with desire, attachment, and grief.

The implication of the above passage might be that one who attains nir vana can be compared to a mother who has lost a particular love for her own children. This is precisely what we find in another extended metaphor, this one taken from the Visuddhimagga, a systematic treatise on the Buddhist path com posed in Pali by the great fifth-century-c.E. Theravadin scholar Buddhaghosa. At a very advanced stage on the path to nirvana, Buddhaghosa says that the Buddhist practitioner observes the way in which all phenomena of the past, present, and future are constantly arising and then disappearing in a terrify ing ephemeral flow of existence. Buddhaghosa then compares the meditator's reflection on past, present, and future phenomena to a mother accompanying her three sons to execution. Having seen her eldest son's head cut off and see ing that her middle son's head is being cut off, she forsakes any attachment to her youngest son, thinking, "This one also will be just like them." According to Buddhaghosa,

Therein the woman's seeing the head of her eldest son cut off is like the meditator's discerning the cessation of past phenomena. Her seeing the head of the middle son being cut off is like his discerning the cessation of present phenomena. Her forsaking of attachment for the youngest son saying, "This one also will be just like them" is like his discerning the cessation of future phenomena: "Phenomena that are coming to birth in future will also break up."' (

Thus, the ordinary mother who loves her children becomes a symbol of de lusion, while the mother who turns her back on motherhood and forsakes all mother-love becomes a symbol of enlightenment. The potency of mother-love as a symbol here is further underscored by the second simile Buddhaghosa of fers for the same scenario-that of a woman who gives birth to eleven sons, the first nine of them stillborn, the tenth one dying in her arms, and the eleventh one still in her womb. "Seeing that the nine had been stillborn and that the tenth was dying, she forsook attachment for the one in her womb: 'This also will be just like them.' "'" Here, the physical imagery of pregnancy, stillbirth, and a baby dying in his mother's arms effectively captures the dramatic shift from bondage to enlightenment, mother-love to maternal detachment.

However, in another section of the Visuddhimagga, ambiguity toward mother-love reappears. In a section on the four "immeasurables" (highly valued emotional states that the disciple is supposed to cultivate toward others in medi tation), Buddhaghosa uses mother-love as the most appropriate metaphor for

10 Pe Maung Tin, trans., The Path of Purity, Being a Translation of Buddhaghosa's Visud

dhimagga (1923-1931; reprint, London: Pali Text Society, 1975), 788-89. I have adapted Tin's

translation by replacing "complexes" with "phenomena." 11

Ibid., 789.


such states.'2 Loving-kindness is the desire to do good for others, compassion is the desire to remove misfortune from others, sympathetic joy is the desire to rejoice in others' happiness, and equanimity is the desire to treat all beings equally. To cultivate each of these four states, Buddhaghosa instructs the medi tator to imitate the mother's attitude toward a baby son, a sick son, an adoles cent son, and an adult son who manages his own affairs. Thus loving-kindness reflects a mother's nourishment and care for her baby son, compassion reflects a mother's desire to cure her sick son, sympathetic joy reflects a mother's rejoicing in the successes of her adolescent son, and equanimity is a mother's ability not to be overly anxious about her adult son.

What is intriguing about Buddhaghosa's metaphor, however, is that in spite of its obviously positive depiction of mother-love, the same tension discussed above persists between the particularistic love of the mother and the universal love so highly valued in Buddhism. For within the schema of the four immea surables, equanimity is the highest state. In fact, each of the other three states is supposed to be cultivated until they themselves reach the state of equanimity in other words, until they extend evenly to all beings without exception. And yet it is precisely the universality inherent in equanimity that stands in contrast to the mother's love for her own child alone. Thus, on the one hand, mother-love is the most appropriate metaphor for positive qualities such as loving-kindness and compassion; on the other hand, the only way to extend this metaphor to the most highly valued state of detached equanimity is to cite the example of a mother who has no anxiety about an adult son managing his own affairs-argu ably the weakest and most attenuated form of mother-love.

As these examples illustrate, South Asian Buddhist texts depict an ambiva lent treatment of mother-love, wherein mother-love is both compared to the Buddha's love for all beings (or the Buddhist meditator's cultivation of loving kindness) and depicted as ineffectual and ultimately selfish in nature, keeping one bound within the realm of samsara. Rather than condemning Buddhism for its failure to idealize mother-love consistently, we should recognize that this ambivalence is directly related to the Buddhist tradition's willingness to allow women to pursue roles other than that of the idealized mother. It may indicate a Buddhist willingness to view women as individualized human beings, rather than as the embodiments of an idealized maternal function. Buddhism resists the tendency to fetishize or sanctify motherhood, thereby leaving open other possibilities for women to pursue. Nevertheless, a tendency remains to polarize motherhood as either the very best or the very worst. This tendency has inter esting implications for the depiction of the mother in grief.

12 Ibid., 369.


Grieving Mothers

Perhaps the core teaching of the Buddhist tradition is that suffering is om nipresent, that it originates in desire or attachment, and that the primary goal of the Buddhist path is to eliminate suffering by eliminating attachment. This is the basic rationale behind the Buddhist call to world-renunciation. The monk or nun renounces all components of an ordinary, worldly life (such as sexual activity, familial relationships, and material possessions) not because they are in herently "sinful" but because they foster desire and attachment. By minimizing and eventually removing all such attachments, the monk or nun also eradicates suffering and attains nirvana.

If mother-love is the most pernicious form of attachment that keeps humans bound within the realm of samsara, and if all attachment inevitably leads to suf fering, then it stands to reason that the mother who has lost her child to death would serve as the most potent manifestation of suffering possible. Thus, in Buddhist texts, the anguish of the bereaved mother who loses her child (particu larly in infancy or childhood) constitutes an especially dramatic illustration-an iconic symbol-of the omnipresent suffering that envelops all unenlightened beings within samsara. From the Buddhist point of view, moreover, there is nothing noble or beneficial about such suffering. In fact, Buddhism holds that a modicum of happiness and comfort are essential for making any progress in overcoming suffering; those who are mired too deeply within suffering (such as animals or hell-beings) lack the presence of mind that makes spiritual prog ress possible. In this sense, the grieving mother shares the spiritual status of lowly creatures such as animals. Buddhist literature is full of bereaved mothers whose intense suffering drives them to madness, and the madness of the griev ing mother is consistently used as an example of the kind of mindless distraction that prohibits spiritual advancement. Thus the Mahaprajnapdramitd Sdstra cites the famous bereaved mother Kisa Gotami as such an example of "madness caused by grief"'3; the Abhidharmakosabhdsya places another mother, Vasisthii, in a similar context14; and the Kalpandmanditika, in the course of listing a se ries of contrasting pairs (such as rich and poor, virtuous and wicked), opposes Vasistha, "whose heart was maddened by the loss of her child," to the venerable monk Revata "and others who rejoice in practicing samadhi."'5 The hysterical, grieving mother is thus the very opposite of the mindful and dispassionate Bud dhist monk.

In one suitra, this opposition is depicted in a particularly poignant manner. An eight-year-old Buddhist novice who has attained nirvana and can recall his

13 Etienne Lamotte, trans., Le Trait? de la Grande Vertu de Sagesse de Nagarjuna (Louvain: Bureaux du Museon, 1944-1980), 1:488.

14 Louis de La Vall?e Poussin, trans., L'Abhidharmakosabh?sya de Vasubandhu, 2nd ed.

(1923-1931; reprint, Brussels: Institut belge des hautes ?tudes chinoises, 1971), 3:126. 15 E. Huber, trans., Asvaghosa S?tr?lamk?ra (Paris: Ernest Leroux, 1908), 205.


previous lives remembers four different mothers who grieved over his death in infancy, as well as his current mother, who is grieving over his renunciation of the world (a kind of "social death," as it were).'6 He describes these five sorrow ful mothers "who, day and night, lament and grieve for me, constantly saying to themselves: 'Son, I will never forget you.'" Rather than recalling only their grief, however, he also emphasizes the manner in which the intensity of their grief prevents them from attaining liberation, and he contrasts these helpless, grieving mothers with himself-a mere eight-year-old boy.

Because I have renounced the world, I have left my parents to seek the path.... I have the care of my teacher and have accepted the discipline in the Buddhist sutras. Now, because I am liberated, I remember my five mothers who were unable to be free because they grieved over me. I vow that they all will finally end [their griefl. People in the world grieve for each other in their minds. When there is no rest [from grief and other attachments], the body is only reborn.... The bliss of Nirvana is what my teacher has explained.'7

Thus, the grieving mother is contrasted with the mindful monk, and the mater nal love that is spiritually impotent (for both mother and son) is contrasted with the spiritual guidance of the Buddhist teacher, which effectively leads his young disciple to nirvana.

The mother in grief thus stands as a potent symbol of intense suffering a heightened version of the suffering that entraps all deluded beings within samsara, and a suffering whose intensity generally prevents the mother from making spiritual progress. Nevertheless, if given the proper resources-that is, the Buddhist teachings themselves and the charisma of the one who delivers them-even a mother overcome by hysterical grief can eventually attain nir vana. Once again, the negative depiction of the grieving mother may be rooted in the tradition's willingness to give such a mother a possible life beyond her motherhood. The Buddhist tradition thus expresses both a profound recogni tion of the suffering involved in losing children and the real possibility of mov ing beyond such suffering.

In fact, this is a consistent theme throughout the Theri-gdtha, an impor tant Pali collection of seventy-three poems, which is believed to be the only Indian Buddhist work written by women, nuns of the earliest Buddhist com munity. When read in conjunction with Dhammapala's sixth-century commen tary (which provides the traditional background stories that contextualize each poem), we see that five of the poems exhibit a similar pattern. A mother loses her child to death and goes insane with grief. She then encounters the Bud

16 Wu mu tzu ching (T. 555), now extant only in Chinese. See Paul, Women in Buddhism, 68-70.

17 Ibid., 69-70.


dha (or one of his disciples), whose teaching allows her to regain control of her senses, whereupon she becomes a Buddhist nun and goes on to attain nirvana. Two of these poems, in fact, are attributed to Kisa GotamY and Vasitthi (the Pali equivalent to Vasistha), the two bereaved mothers mentioned above, both of whom eventually attained nirvana. Two more poems are attributed to two fur ther bereaved mothers, UbbirT and Patacara, while the fifth poem is attributed collectively to a group of five hundred grieving mothers whom Patacara con verted directly.'8 In these five poems, we witness the dramatic transformation of a hysterical, grief-stricken, suffering mother into a calm, dispassionate, fully liberated Buddhist nun.

What I am interested in emphasizing is exactly how this transformation oc curs-and here, we can return to some of Sered's insights. If Buddhism can be described as one of the dominant, patriarchal traditions (mentioned by Sered) that tends to speak of ultimate concerns (such as death) in wholly abstract and universal terms, then we might speculate that Buddhist canonical scriptures could not accommodate the mother's continuing need to love and grieve for her own, particular child. From this perspective, the only spiritually successful griev ing mother would be she whose particularistic grief over one specific dead baby has been eradicated in favor of a concern for "dead babies in the abstract"-in other words, one whose maternal grief has been properly universalized into a general understanding of the inevitability of death, impermanence, and suffer ing. This is, indeed, precisely what we find: narratives from the Theiigdthd in which grieving mothers become nuns and then arhats consistently emphasize this movement from the particular to the universal, from the personal emotion of grief to an impersonal and analytical understanding of the duhkha (suffering) that characterizes the entire universe. This transformation is made possible, however, only through erasure of the dead child's identity, permanent severance of the mother-child bond, and eradication of a woman's maternal status. The violence inherent in this move is symbolically suggested, perhaps, by the fact that she becomes a nun-one who renounces all familial relationships, no lon ger engages in sexual intercourse that might lead to the birth of more children, and is androgynous even in her physical appearance. This transformation, in other words, makes motherhood incompatible with the highest Buddhist ideals and represents the wholesale assimilation of women and their concerns into a dominant, patriarchal tradition.

This movement from particularistic grief to universal ideals and the violence inflicted upon motherhood in the process appear repeatedly in the TherTgdtha.

18 For Kisa Gotami, see Therigatha, vv. 213-23, in The Commentary on the Verses of the

Theris, trans. William Pruitt (1998; reprint Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1999), 222-32. For V?sitthl, see Ther?g?th?, vv. 133-38 (ibid., 162-64). For Ubbir?, see Ther?g?th?, vv. 51-53 (ibid., 73-77). For Pat?c?r?, see Ther?g?th?, vv. 112-16 (ibid., 143-54). For the five hundred nuns, see Ther?g?th?, vv. 127-32 (ibid., 159-62).


Ubbir-, for example, is a privileged and beautiful woman who becomes the wife of a king and gives birth to a daughter named Jiva. When her daughter dies sud denly, the grief-stricken Ubbiri visits the cemetery every day, crying and lament ing for her lost child. She only comes to her senses when the Buddha confronts her in the cemetery and tells her that within her previous lives, "eighty-four thousand [daughters], all with the name Jiva, have been burned in this funeral fire," and asks, "Which of these do you grieve for?"'9 By placing one particular dead daughter named Jiva within the context of an endless series of eighty-four thousand dead daughters named Jiva, the Buddha forces Ubbiri to universalize her grief, and it is this that finally brings her to her senses. Moreover, since the name jTha means "living being," in a larger sense, Ubbiri's particularistic grief over one specific "Jiva" has been transformed into a detached appreciation for the impermanence of all jmvas.20 She describes this transformation, moreover, with the sharp imagery of a dart being plucked from her heart: "Truly he has plucked out my dart, hard to see, nestling in my heart, he has thrust away that grief for my daughter."'21 The dart represents not only maternal grief, however, but also maternal love-and it is only by eradicating this love "without remain der" that Ubbiri has been saved.22

Patacara is another woman driven mad by her grief-caused, in this case, by a particularly horrific sequence of events that results in the deaths of her husband, two young sons, parents, and brother, all in quick succession. Wander ing the streets naked and babbling incoherently, with people throwing rubbish and dirt on her in contempt, Patacara encounters the Buddha, who once again restores a grieving mother's senses with words that place particular grief within a universal context. "Just as you are now producing tears because of the death of your sons and so on, so too in continued existences without beginning or end, the tear[s] that have poured forth because of the death of sons and so on are greater than the water of the four great oceans."23 Here, a single woman's tears are lost within an enormous ocean of water. Other versions of the story use similar water imagery. In one, Patacara, in the midst of a tremendous rainstorm, believes that the rain is falling on her alone; she says to a man she meets on the

road, "I am the only person the rain fell on all night long."24 In another version, she asks the man, "Did that rain fall elsewhere too or did it rain just for me?"25

19 Ther?g?th?, v. 51 (ibid., 74).

20 K. R. Norman, trans., The Elders' Verses II: Therigatha (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1995),

72-73. 21

Therigatha, vv. 52-53, in Commentary on the Verses of the Ther?s, 76-77. 22

Ibid., 77. 23

Ibid., 147. 24

Dhammapadatthakath?, in Buddhist Legends, 2:253. 25 From the Sinhalese Saddharmaratn?valiya, in Portraits of Buddhist Women: Stories

from the Saddharmaratn?valiya, trans. Ranjini Obeyesekere (Albany: SUNY Press, 2001), 129.

106 Journal of Feminiist Studies in Religion

What Pat-ac-ara learns, of course, is that the rain of suffering she has experienced falls on all living beings without exception.

Later in life, after becoming a Buddhist nun, Patacara succeeds in attaining arhatship in an experience that once again involves water and further demon strates the universalization of her grief. While washing her feet with a pot of water, she notices that the individual trickles reach different lengths-just as living beings might die in youth, middle age, or old age. She thinks to herself, "Just as this water is subject to the phenomenon of destruction and to the phe nomenon of disappearance, so too are the life-forming elements for beings."26 The abstract and disembodied language in this enlightened statement contrasts starkly with the more personal words she uttered while grieving. "Both my sons are dead. My husband is dead on the road. My mother and father and brother are being burnt on a single funeral pyre."27 Clearly, the specific identities of her sons, husband, and parents have been replaced by a detached analysis of "life-forming elements" that come to destruction in youth, middle age, or old age. Her family has become an abstraction, and her own status as a mother disappears.

Having undergone this transformation herself, Patacara then helps other bereaved mothers to do the same. The Therigdtha (and its commentary) tells us of a nameless group of five hundred women, all of whom were overcome with grief after the deaths of their children and all of whom were brought to their senses by a stark series of verses Patacara uttered that encouraged the mothers to view their dead children with detachment and indifference.

You cry, "My son," for the one whose way you do not know,

neither his coming nor his going ... But you do not grieve for him whose way you know, whether coming or going, for such is the nature of living creatures. Unasked, he came from there. Unpermitted, he went from here ... He went from here by one [road]. He will go from there by another ... As he came, so he went. What lamentation is there in that?28

In his commentary, Dhammapala explains the significance of these enigmatic verses. Within the context of the endless cycle of death and rebirth, "mother" and "son" are nothing more than strangers meeting upon a road; therefore, for the mother to grieve for a son as if he had some special relationship to her is

26 Pruitt, Commentary on the Verses of the Thems, 153.

27 Ibid., 146.

28 Ther?g?th?, vv. 127-30 (ibid., 159-60).


nothing more than "complete selfishness."29 Dhammapala thns seeks to place the particular and the universal in proper relationship. Within the cosmological context of death and rebirth, everyone is just a stranger passing through. Only by learning to see their sons in such a detached manner are the five hundred women saved, once again describing this transformation as having had a "dart plucked out" from their hearts.30

It is the famous story of "Kisa Gotami and the Mustard Seed," perhaps, that most concretely depicts the bereaved mother's necessary transition from particularistic grief to universal understanding. In this story, the young mother Kisa Gotami goes mad after the death of her infant son, carrying the corpse from door to door, asking for medicine to cure him. A wise old man, recogniz ing that only the Buddha "knows the medicine for her," tells Kisa Gotami to ask the Buddha for help. When she does, the Buddha says he will give her such medicine, but only after she brings him some white mustard seed from a house hold that has never experienced death. Predictably, Kisa Gotami can find no such place. We see her wandering from house to house-first desperately and then resignedly-as a physical representation of the process by which her grief gradually universalizes into an analytical understanding of the omnipresence of death and suffering. Kisa Gotami finally comes to her senses, lays her son's corpse down in the cemetery, and goes to the Buddha to be ordained as a nun. She then speaks a verse that explicitly demonstrates her transition from the particular to the universal. "This is not the doctrine for a village, the doctrine of a town, nor the doctrine of a family. This is the Doctrine for the whole world of [men] and devas: all of this is impermanent."'3' As in the previous stories, Kisa Gotaml's realization is depicted as having "my dart cut out, my burden laid down."32 Another version of her story from the Pali Dhamnapadatthakathd explains, "as she was thinking thus, her heart, which had been soft with love for her son, grew hard."33 Much like the others, Kisa Gotami comes to embody the highest Buddhist ideal only by renouncing her own motherhood.

In all of these stories, the Buddhist tradition expresses concern for the life experiences of young women, sympathy for the grieving mother, and a belief in the ability of such women to transcend their suffering and realize their po tential beyond the function of motherhood. Nevertheless, within these stories, mother-love opposes the idealized state of enlightened detachment, and the particularistic love of the mother constitutes the opposite of the universal com passion that Buddhism espouses. Although loving all beings with equal particu

29 Ibid., 160.

30 Ther?g?th?, vv. 131-32 (ibid., 160).

31 Ibid., 223-24.

32 Theng?th?,v. 223 (ibid., 226).

33 H. C. Norman, ed., The Commentary on the Dhammapada (1906-1915; reprint, London:

Pali Text Society, 1970), 2:274.


larity might be an alternative way of articulating the Buddhist ideal, this is not found in the poems of the grieving mothers. Their love for their children does not extend to include all beings; instead, it is wholly eradicated. Kisa Gotami's love for her son does not grow to encompass other beings; instead, her heart must "grow hard."

I will end with the story of Vasitth-i because it is slightly different from the previous four accounts and perhaps begins to suggest another alternative. The Pali tradition surrounding the figure of Vasitthi is somewhat confused. Within the Therigdtha and its commentary, Vasitthi is described as a young woman who loses her only son to death and then spends three years wandering the streets naked and disheveled, dwelling on rubbish heaps and in cemeteries. She too comes to her senses upon encountering the Buddha and later becomes a nun and attains arhatship, but the teaching that brings her around remains unexplained. Elsewhere in the Therigdthd, however, a woman who seems to be equivalent to Vasitthi except that she has lost seven children rather than one, is briefly described as having aided a grief-stricken man named Sujata get over the death of his son.34

Certain Sanskrit and Chinese sources bring together the Pali fragments into a single, coherent tradition.35 Here, Vasistha (as she is usually known in Sanskrit) is a mother who loses six children in a row, goes insane, and then regains her sanity through an encounter with the Buddha, who shows her the inevitability of death and suffering. At this point, she becomes a laywoman (rather than a nun), and later gives birth to a seventh child, who also dies in infancy. This time, however, her enlightened understanding of reality eliminates her grief. Her husband, Sujata, himself overcome by grief, is surprised by his wife's detachment, but after hearing her explanation about the omnipresence of suffering, he becomes a Buddhist monk and attains arhatship, whereupon Vasistha and her surviving daughter do likewise.

None of these sources provides much detail about what the Buddha taught Vasistha, and none displays the typical movement from the particular to the universal. Nevertheless, the story itself, I believe, has a distinctive point to make that differentiates it from the four stories above. For in contrast to those ac counts, in which grieving mothers universalize their grief in a way that com pletely eradicates their status as mothers (which is further embodied by their becoming nuns), Vasistha's story offers us the example of a grieving mother whose grief is universalized but who also continues to be a mother, giving birth to another child. More important than just her continuing biological mother hood, however, is the role she then plays in relation to her husband and surviv

34 Therig?th?, vv. 312-37, is a poem attributed to the nun Sundar?, who is the daughter of the

grief-stricken man Suj?ta (in Pruitt, Commentary on the Verses of the Ther?s, 288-98). 35 Hubert Durt, "The Vicissitudes of V?sitthl/V?sisth?," Journal of the International College

for Advanced Buddhist Studies 4 (2001): 27-47.


ing daughter. Having learned to overcome her own grief by universalizing it, she then serves as an important model for them, teaching Buddhist doctrine to her husband and encouraging her daughter to renounce the world (along with her self). Here, it is her husband, in fact, who goes mad from grief and can only be brought to his senses by his wife's wisdom. The story thus suggests that not only can the grieving mother universalize her grief and still continue to be a mother who shows special concern for her own family but also that this concern is now spiritual in nature, superior to and more effective than the concern she showed before. The worldly mother can develop into a spiritual mother, using her own experience with grief to help lead the rest of her family to nirvana (through the mother's nurturing and educative role). Motherhood is thus compatible with arhatship and mother-love can serve as a foundation for the spiritual love of Buddhas, bodhisattvas, and arhats, rather than its strongest impediment.

The story itself makes none of this explicit. Nevertheless, this interpreta tion raises a number of questions. Are there other Buddhist traditions in which maternal love and maternal grief directed toward one's own, particular children are more fully accommodated than in the Therigdtha? And do such traditions betray any evidence of Buddhism, as a dominant, patriarchal tradition, strug gling to accommodate various "lower" forms of religion-perhaps those that were particularly appealing to women?

Accommodation of Mother-Love in the Story and Cult of Hariti

A prominent Buddhist tradition relevant to these questions is that surround ing the figure of Hariti, who has left many traces upon Indian Buddhist texts, art, and cultic practices.36 The fullest version of her story exists in the Chinese translation of the Miulasarvdstivdda Vinaya.37 Here, Hdriti is a yaksinr (female demon) who lives in the city of Rajagrha. She is married to the male demon Panicika, and together they have five hundred sons, the youngest of whom is Priyafikara, his mother's favorite. Although Hdriiti comes from a family of virtu ous and benevolent demons, because of "a criminal vow formed in a previous existence," she engages in the habit of stealing and devouring all of Rajagrha's human children. As more of their children die, the people of Rajagrha finally

36 The fullest discussion of H?r?t? is N. Peri, "H?r?t?, la m?re-de-d?mons," Bulletin de l'Ecole

Fran?ais d'Extr?me-Orient 17 (1917): 1-102. For other discussions, see J. D. Dhirasekera, "H?r?t?

and P?ncika: An Early Buddhist Legend of Many Lands," in Malalasekera Commemoration

Volume, ed. O. H. deA. Wijesekera (Colombo: Malalasekera Commemoration Volume Committee,

1976), 61-70; Ram Nath Misra, Yaksha Cult and Iconography (New Delhi: Munshiram Manohar

lal, 1981), 73-80; and Richard S. Cohen, "N?ga, Yaksin?, Buddha: Local Deities and Local Bud

dhism at Ajanta," History of Religions 37, no. 4 (1998): 360-400, esp. 380-91. 37

[M?lasarv?stiv?da] Vinayaksudrakavastu (Gen pen shuo i ch'ieh yu pu p'i na y eh tsa

shih, T. 1451). This account has been translated into French in Peri, "H?r?t?, la m?re-de-d?mons,"

3-15, from which I have drawn the quotations below.

110 Journal of Femiinist Studies in Religion

turn to the Buddha for help. He responds by hiding Priyankara under his beg ging bowl when Hariti leaves her abode. When HartTi returns and cannot find her youngest child, she is overwhelmed with grief. "Beating her breast, shed ding tears of sorrow, her lips and mouth dry and burning, her spirit troubled and lost, her heart torn by suffering," she searches the entire kingdom but cannot find him. She rips off her clothes, lets her hair fly loose, and then searches the four quarters of the universe, the heavens, and the hells. She finally ends up at the abode of the god Vaisravana, who takes pity on her miserable condition and tells her to go to the Buddha, for only he can restore her son.

Up to this point, the story bears a striking resemblance to those of the TheTgdtha. Once again, a mother loses her child and is plunged into grief. Much like Patacara and Vasitthi, she rips off her clothes and lets her hair fly loose, and much like Kisa Gotam1, she is finally led to the Buddha. The Buddha, moreover, once again brings the bereaved mother to her senses by encourag ing her to universalize her grief (though in less doctrinal terms than is found in the Therigatha). "Hariti," he says, "because you no longer see one of your five hundred sons, you experience such suffering; so what will be the suffering of those whose only child you take and devour?" When she admits that their suffering must be even greater than her own, he replies, "Harditi, you know well now the suffering of being separated from what one loves. Why, then, do you eat the children of others?" In another version of the story, the Buddha further points out that "others love their children, just as you do," and they "go along the streets and lament just like you."38 Once she understands the inher ent connection between her own, particular grief and the suffering of other mothers, Hariti promises to give up her child-snatching ways. Like the nuns of the TherTgdtha, Harfiti succeeds in universalizing her grief and is spiritually transformed in the process.

The remainder of Hariti's story, however, takes a significantly different turn from the grieving mother narratives of the Therigdtha. For once Hariti tran sitions from particularistic grief to universal insight, the Buddha restores her beloved son to her, and she becomes a loving mother once more, a laywoman rather than a celibate nun. Still concerned for her children, she asks the Bud dha how she will feed her five hundred children if they can no longer devour human babies. The Buddha strikes a bargain with her, wherein he promises Harfiti that Buddhist monks will make daily food offerings to her and her chil dren if she agrees to protect all Buddhist monasteries from harm and to allow childless parents to reproduce. The ritual cult of HarIti described in these texts does, indeed, seem to have existed throughout India, for the Chinese pilgrim 1-ching (who traveled throughout the subcontinent in the late seventh century C.E.) tells us that "the image of Hariti is found either in the porch or in a corner

38 Peri, "Hariti, la m?re-de-d?mons," 18-19. The text in question (extant only in Chinese) is

the Kuei tzu mu ching (T 1262).


of the dining-hall of all Indian monasteries," and "every day an abundant offer ing of food is made before this image."39 Surviving shrines to HarTti have been found at various Buddhist sites, with Hariti generally depicted as a benevolent mother-figure holding a baby in her arms with several more around her knees.

The HarTti tradition presents a complicated negotiation between the par ticularistic love of the mother and the universal ideals espoused by the Buddhist tradition. On the one hand, Hatrit's grief over her own child must be universal ized into an analytical appreciation of suffering in order for her to become a good Buddhist (rather than a cannibalistic demon). On the other hand, once this occurs, her child is returned and her motherhood restored. Henceforth, she manifests the Buddhist ideal of universal compassion by giving children to other women and allowing them to experience maternal love, while still continuing to love and protect her own children. Also significant here is the complicated interdependence between HarIti and the Buddhist Samgha. The Samgha is full of those who have rejected all familial ties, yet they depend for their health and safety upon Hdrift's protective mothering. Hdrtil's maternal love for her own children thus becomes the foundation not only for her protection of other mothers and their children but also for the protection of those who embody Buddhism's highest and most universal ideals. Moreover, the protection she grants now extends beyond the worldly limits of maternal love, for in some texts, she is even referred to as "a great bodhisattva," one who leads "male demons and female demons en masse, along with their male and female descendants" to the Buddhist teachings, although not at the expense of her own motherhood.40

Within this complicated negotiation, moreover, the detached and passion less monks also take on a traditionally maternal role. They feed Harit-'s children every day and educate her sons.41 Renunciant monks thus assume the traditional nourishing and educative functions of the mother, just as Hariti embodies the universal compassion and insight of Buddhist monks. The concept of "moth erhood" broadens to encompass those besides a mother's own children (with out compromising her special love for them), while those who are not mothers themselves can "mother" society at large. Thus the line between particularistic mother-love and universal Buddhist values such as detachment or compassion is blurred-something indicated, in visual terms, by depictions of Hariti in her

most motherly aspect located within the Buddhist monastic compound itself.

39 J. Takakusu, trans., A Record of the Buddhist Religion as Practised in India and the Malaya

Archipelago (A.D. 671-695) (1896; reprint, New Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal, 1998), 37. 40

Peri, "Har?t?, la m?re-de-d?mons," 32, 30. The second statement is found in Fo pen hsing

ching (T. 193), which is extant only in Chinese. 41 The text tells us that when the other demons harass her, Har?t? gives her sons to the Samgha

temporarily for safekeeping, whereupon the women of R?jagrha do likewise. Richard Cohen

("N?ga, Yaksin?, Buddha," 387n57) sees this as "a myth that charters Buddhist monasteries to act

as schools"?a function fulfilled by the Samgha both in India and in many contemporary Buddhist

cultures.


This willingness to accommodate mother-love characteristic of the tradi tions surrounding Haritii finds perhaps its most intriguing expression in the

Maha-ma-ya- Sutra, a text that focuses upon the figure of Maya, the Buddha's bio logical mother.42 It is a well-established tradition that the Buddha once spent an entire monsoon season in the Trayastrims'a heaven, where his mother had been reborn as a deity, to teach her the dharma. In one passage from the Mahdmdya Suitra, Maya (as a deity in heaven) praises her son for his compassion for all beings and for Hdrfiti. She relates Hdrfiti's story in verse, then admonishes her son:

Just as this Mother-of-demons, because she loved her own son, extended [her love] to other men, and finally stopped killing forever, I ask you, 0 Venerable One of Great Pity, that you do the same now. Through your compassion for the mother who gave birth

to you, extend [this compassion] to all other beings; I ask you to open in haste the right path, and cause all to hear and receive it.

In this intriguing passage, Maya praises and celebrates Hariti's particularistic love for her son precisely because this love became the basis for the love and protection she now showers upon all beings. Even more startling, she then asks the Buddha to follow Hariti's example by basing his compassion for all living be ings on his own love for his mother (and his mother's love for him). In this text,

Maya thus states explicitly that mother-love is the foundation for the Buddha's love, not its very opposite. Intensifying this statement is the fact that throughout her entire monologue, Maya is reputedly breastfeeding the fully grown Buddha; in fact, even though he is supposed to be absent from the earth for only one monsoon season, the Mahdmdya- Suitra describes this period of time as "eons without number during which he drank no other milk than from her." Perhaps in no other passage that I am aware of is mother-love so fully accommodated and so seamlessly integrated with the highest of Buddhist ideals.

What might account historically for such accommodation? Here, we might consider the probable origins of HarTti and return to some of Sered's insights about the differences between dominant, patriarchal religions and alternative religious traditions (such as those popular among women) in dealing with the mother-child bond. Several scholars have recognized that Hdrift must originally have been a goddess of smallpox or some other childhood disease-one of the

42 Mo ho mo yeh ching (T 383), now extant only in Chinese and most likely a Chinese apocry

phal s?tra. The passage concerning H?r?t? has been translated in Peri, "H?r?t?, la m?re-de-d?mons," 30-31, from which I have drawn the quotations given below.


many disease goddesses existing throughout South Asian religious history and still worshipped on the subcontinent today, particularly at the village level.43

Worshippers treat such goddesses ambivalently. On the one hand, they afflict children with illness and cause them to die; on the other hand, if properly wor shipped and appeased, they can also spare sick children and return them to life, as well as granting children to those who are childless. In modern Hindu ism today, the cults surrounding such goddesses are generally not the "women dominated religions" that constitute Sered's particular focus; nevertheless, since they frequently focus on children's health, they do appeal to young mothers.

Moreover, such cults do generally belong to the "little" tradition of Hinduism, rather than the "great" or "Sanskritic" or pan-Indic tradition, with each indi vidual goddess having a primarily local identity.

Hdr1ti's story, then, demonstrates the complicated process by which Bud dhism, as an elite and translocal ideology, appropriates a local, popular cult and brings it under Buddhism's control.44 Thus, the fearful goddess Hariti is "con verted" to Buddhism; under the influence of Buddhist teachings, Hariti's posi tive, child-granting functions can continue, while her negative, child-snatching qualities abate. This is appealing to the surrounding public, of course, but it is also beneficial to the Buddhist Samgha, for sacrificial offerings once made di rectly to HarTti are now redirected (as alms food) toward the Buddhist Samgha. Hariti's shrine thus earns a place within the Buddhist monastic compound, yet Hariti herself is clearly subordinated to the Buddha and his monks. In this way, Buddhism roots itself within the local landscape, while Hariti's traditional wor shippers can continue uninterrupted in their devotion.

This process of appropriating popular, local cults is typical of the Bud dhist tradition and does not apply to Hariti alone; indeed, as Buddhism moved throughout India, we find evidence of a similar process occurring in connec tion with a multitude of different demons, serpent deities, and other divine creatures.45 Two features, however, distinguish Hariti from the rest. In the first place, although Hariti may have originated as a purely local figure-perhaps native to the area around Rajagrha-it is clear that her character changes once

43 For this claim in relation to Har?t?, see the several citations given in John Strong, The

Legend and Cult ofUpagupta (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1992), 303n67. See also

Ram Nath Misra's discussion (Yaksha Cult and Iconography, 73-80), which provides abundant

information about child-devouring goddesses similar to Har?t? in Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain texts.

For an introduction to such goddesses as they exist in contemporary Hinduism, see Richard L.

Brubaker, "The Untamed Goddesses of Village India," in The Book of the Goddess, Past and Pres

ent, ed. Carl Olson (New York: Crossroad, 1983), 145-60; and David Kinsley, Hindu Goddesses

(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 1986), 197-211. 44 In relation to Har?t?, this process is most fully elucidated in Cohen, "N?ga, Yaksin?,

Buddha." 45 For a thorough examination of this process as it occurred within India, see Robert Decar

oli, Haunting the Buddha: Indian Popular Religions and the Formation of Buddhism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2004).

114 Journal of Feminiist Studies in Religion

the Buddha commands H-art-i's installation in all Buddhist monasteries through out India. As Richard Cohen has pointed out, Har-iti became "a portable local deity, a ready-made, institutionalized, translocal basis for localization."46 We can thus view Hairiti as a paradigmatic model for Buddhism's struggle to appropriate popular forms of religion.

It is from this perspective that the second distinctive feature of Har-iti's story becomes particularly interesting-that is, its emphasis upon the themes of maternal love and maternal grief. Only HarCitl's story develops these themes at length, seeming to recall the grieving mothers of the Theiigdtha. It is in structive, in fact, to compare Hariti's story to a similar story (from the Sanskrit

Mfilasarvastivdda Vinaya) involving a demon named Gardabha.47 Gardabha was in the habit of devouring the children of Mathura. When the people of Mathura ask the Buddha for help, the Buddha commands Gardabha to stop eating the children, which Gardabha promises to do only if the citizens of Mathura con struct a Buddhist monastery and dedicate it in his name. Once again, we have a child-devouring demon, his "taming" by the Buddha, and a bargain struck be tween the demon and the affected citizens-but gone are all of the themes that the story of Har-iti is so concerned to develop. No attention is paid to the griev ing parents of Mathura, the Buddha employs no ruse to cause the demon to grieve over a child, and there is no realization of the connection between one's own suffering and that of others, no restoration of the child taken away, and no promise that the demon will henceforth bring children to others. It is against the background of the story of Gardabha (and many other demon-taming stories that could be cited) that the distinctiveness of Hiri-ti's story comes to the fore.

What I am suggesting, in other words, is that the story of Hiriti- is con cerned not merely with asserting Buddhism's dominance over various "lower" forms of religion but that it is particularly concerned with facing head-on one of the most fundamental conflicts between itself and those lower forms: the intensity of the love between mother and child, the mother's continuing need to love and grieve over her own, particular children, and the possibility that this love might be seen as a legitimate basis for cultivating more transcendent and universal Buddhist ideals. And what I further suggest, following Sered, is that this willing accommodation of mother-love is directed, perhaps first and foremost, to an audience of women, offering women a more palatable model of female religious involvement than the asexualized and de-mothered nuns of the The rfgdtha, and thus avoiding the potential loss of women to smaller, more woman-centered forms of religion.

Historically, there is little evidence for this latter suggestion concerning Hariti-'s particular appeal for women. I content myself, therefore, with citing only a single, suggestive example. At the back of Cave 2 at the Buddhist site of

46 Cohen, "N?ga, Yaksin?, Buddha," 383.

47 This short account has been translated in Decaroli, Haunting the Buddha, 39.


Ajanta, a central shrine is dedicated to the Buddha, flanked by two subsidiary shrines, one containing images of Hrifti and her husband, Paficika.48 This is a reflection of HdrYti's ambiguous status. On the one hand, she is enshrined within the monastic dwelling; on the other hand, she is subordinate to the Buddha. The sculpted image of HFIriti itself, however, is also flanked on both sides by two painted murals. In the mural on the right are women and their children bringing offerings to Harfiti, placing them before her, and paying homage at her feet. In the mural on the left, Hariti herself appears with two of her children. Her right hand holds another child but is also forming the varada mudrd, or symbolic gesture of gift giving, while her left hand is forming the srz mudrd, or symbolic gesture of wealth and good fortune.49 The mural on the right thus de picts a ritual dedicated to Hariti, while the mural on the left depicts its hoped for result-the gift of children and other good blessings.

It is striking to me that these murals focus solely on female devotees and seem to reflect, first and foremost, maternal concerns. In fact, these murals seem to depict what Sered might describe as a typical example of "women's religion"-in other words, a cultic complex in which women practitioners domi nate, in which women are free to express their concern for their children, and in which the deity responds by protecting their children's health or granting children to the childless. The particularistic "women's" concerns embodied within these paintings are made subordinate, however, to the sculpted image of Hart-i-who might be described as mediating between the particular and the universal-while Hariti herself is subordinated to the transcendent Buddha. The physical layout of the cave is thus a spatial illustration of how such a "wom en's cult" might be related to the dominant, patriarchal tradition of Buddhism.

If we consider, then, the women depicted in these murals, the figure of Hariti herself, and the nuns of the Therigdthd, perhaps we can see that Bud dhism in India offered to mothers a variety of different avenues for reconciling their commitment to universal Buddhist ideals with the intensity and partiality of their love for their own children. It is the very multiplicity of these avenues in fact that contributes to Buddhism's enormous ambivalence toward mother-love. For no religious tradition-even the most dominant or most patriarchal-is ever monolithic and uniform in its messages. Ultimately, I believe, Buddhist monastic authors in India did indeed recognize and take seriously the enormous power of both maternal love and maternal grief.

"Don't Cry, Children, I Am Listening to the Dharma"

I conclude by returning to the figure of Hariti and a reappearing theme connected to her in several different texts that most poignantly captures the

48 See the discussion of this shrine in Cohen, "Naga, Yaksini, Buddha," 380-91. 49

Ibid., 389-90.


complexity of the issues raised by the mother's fierce love for her children.511 In several different Pali, Sanskrit, and Chinese texts, a demon called variously "Harfti," "mother of Priyafikara," "mother of Punarvasu," or simply "mother of demons"-all of which can be loosely identified with HdrTti herself-tries to lis ten as the Buddha or one of his disciples preaches the dharma, but is disturbed by the crying of her two children. She shushes her children, telling them that she wishes to hear the dharma, and further promises them that once she has benefited from the dharma, she will cause them to benefit, too. "You, Uttara," she says in the Mahdprajnaparamita Sdstra, "don't cry; don't cry any longer, Punarvasu. I am listening to the Dharma; when I have obtained the way, you will surely obtain it too."'5'

Though HLirti-'s exact words vary from one version to another, they always follow the same twofold sequence of first quieting her children so she can hear the dharma, and then holding out the possibility that they might be enlightened, too, perhaps through their own mother's encouragement. Harfifi's response to the situation, in other words, always displays the double-sided nature of moth erhood. On the one hand, children monopolize a mother's attention, distract her from other concerns, and drain her of life and energy. Thus, in a sfitra from the (Chinese) Samyuktdgana, she is very much the harried mother frustrated by the limitations her children impose: "At this moment, I want to hear the dharma; you, you must be quiet!"52 On the other hand, however, she truly loves her children and does not leave them behind. And in this, she is akin to the Bud dha himself. The mother's love for her children and her natural inclination to want whatever is best for them constitute perhaps the paradigmatic and original model for the Buddhist belief that only one who teaches others out of compas sion really qualifies as a fully enlightened Buddha. Thus, in the Mahdvibhds d Sastra, she says to her children: "When I have seen the truths, I will cause you to see them too"53 -and what could be a more Buddha-like statement than that? As full of attachment and clinging as she might be, moreover, the mother's words here are also fully effective, for her children do stop crying and begin lis tening to the dharma. "Excellent!" they say to their mother, "We too are happy to listen to the dharma"-whereupon their mother responds with delight, "Mar velous! What intelligent children!" She then concludes with an utterance of joy that seems to celebrate the possibility of both her freedom from all forms of bondage and her eternal tie to her children. "You, Punarvasu, and you, Uttara, my daughter, give rise to joy along with me; I have seen the noble truths!"54

50 For a discussion of this theme and translations of the relevant passages, see Peri, "Hanti, la

m?re-de-d?mons," 32-38. 51

Ibid., 34. 52

Ibid., 35 (Tsa a han ching, T. 99). 53

Ibid., 32 (A p'i ta mo p'i p'o sha lun, T. 1545). 54

Ibid., 35-36 (A p'i ta mo p'i p'o sha lun, T. 1545).

mother-love and mother-grief south asian buddhist variations on a theme - ohnuma

Documents