Bliss beyond All Limit: On the Apabhraṃśa Dohā in Tantric Buddhist Texts

Jackson Barkley Stephenson

doi:10.3390/rel12110927

Abstract

The Apabhraṃśa dohā is a literary medium from Indian antiquity, with early examples appearing in Kālidāsa’s plays around the 5th century and continuing in later Hindi-language Jain and Bhakti works in the early modern period. However, it was within Tantric Buddhist texts and traditions that the dohā truly came into its own as a literary genre. Particularly within the “Yoginī Tantra” strata of the Tantric Buddhist canon, Apabhraṃśa dohās appear in notable and formulaic ways, used within ritual contexts and other significant junctures, signaling the underexamined use of this literary form and its language of composition. This paper examines the use of dohās attributed to the mahāsiddha Saraha as they are used in the Hevajra Tantra, the Buddhakapāla Tantra, and some associated texts. In doing so, this paper demonstrates that as a literary genre, Apabhraṃśa dohās perform a similar function to mantras and dhāraṇīs, but are unique in their attention to phonology and discursive meaning. By examining the uses of these dohās during particular moments of Tantric Buddhist ritual syntax, this paper will then reflect on the later trajectory of these verses after the death of institutional Buddhism in India, and the reasons for their survival.

Highlights

Scholars have long remarked on the presence of Apabhram. śa verses within TantricBuddhist texts, and yet their use has been undertheorized
This paper examines the use of dohās attributed to the mahāsiddha Saraha as they are used in the Hevajra Tantra, the Buddhakapāla Tantra, and some associated texts
Their use has been undertheorized. They are usually glossed as examples of twilight language (Skt: sandhyā-bhās.a), and while this explanation is not incorrect, it is inadequate. This is made especially clear in the Hevajra Tantra, which contains an extended discourse on twilight language that consists entirely of esoteric meanings of specific Sanskrit words, without any Apabhram

Summary

Introduction

Their use has been undertheorized. They are usually glossed (or rather explained away) as examples of twilight language (Skt: sandhyā-bhās.a), and while this explanation is not incorrect, it is inadequate. To use the language of Bakhtin, each dohā comprises a single independent utterance, whereas caryā verses are explicitly subsections of larger utterances.16 When one disentangles these two canons in this way, the continuities between Tantric Buddhist dohās and the later dohās composed by Nāth Siddhas and Nirgun.ıbhaktas come into sharp relief, and the Śaurasenı Apabhram. For Foucault, the author function serves as a literary device to demarcate a special mode of discourse above and beyond everyday speech, with particular value within a given culture or society.18 Using this lens, the dohās of Saraha are not the words of a historical personage, but rather a bounded set of utterances “authorized” within a particular cultural context. As we will see below, within the universe of Tantric Buddhism, the dohās of Saraha are mobilized in distinct ways

Saraha’s Dohās in Hevajra Literature

Saraha’s Dohās within the Buddhakapāla Tantra

On the Uses of Dohās

Language and Social Topography