Buddhist Homiletics on Grief

Péter-Dániel Szántó

doi:10.1163/15728536-06403001

Abstract

Abstract The study first introduces a hitherto completely unstudied anonymous work, for which I reconstruct the title *Saddharmaparikathā. This substantial text is a Buddhist homiletician’s guidebook with sample sermons in Sanskrit on a rich variety of topics. I argue that it dates from the 5th century and that it was possibly authored in a Saṃmatīya environment. I first discuss the unique manuscript transmitting the text, the structure and contents of the work, what information it can provide for the tradition of preaching and its importance for Buddhist studies. In the second half, I provide a sample chapter ‘On Grief’ with an annotated translation.

Highlights

The *Saddharmaparikathā or “Sermons on the True Law” is a Buddhist homiletician’s guidebook composed probably around the 5th century ce
The artefact was discovered for modern scholarship by Rāhula Sāṅkṛtyāyana (1893–1963) and Dge ’dun chos ’phel (1903–1951) in 1934, during a somewhat hurried visit to Spos khang monastery in Gtsang province
The famous Indian scholar was able to study it for a short time during a subsequent trip, enough for a brief scholarly report, which was published in 1938.2 This is what he says in the introductory part of the said report: In my second trip to Tibet, I visited the monastery of Pökhang [i.e., Spos khang] where I saw three bundles of Sanskrit mss. in which I noticed an important work by the great poet Aśvaghôṣa

Summary

Introduction

The *Saddharmaparikathā or “Sermons on the True Law” is a Buddhist homiletician’s guidebook composed probably around the 5th century ce. The manuscript in question ( Ms) was kept in Tibetan custody for possibly as long as nine centuries, but it was apparently never translated or even engaged with until modern times. Last time, [i.e., on his third journey to Tibet] I tried my best to visit Pökhang, but I could not go. When the three volumes were brought, I found that one was Tridaṇḍamālā by Aśvaghôsha with a separate work named Parikathā by a later author.

Sāṅkṛtyāyana 1938

Kano 2016

Findings

33 See the forthcoming article “The Benefit of Cooperation