Sunday, July 3, 2011

Footprints In The Dust II


However, with him moving around a lot, it was not always possible to know where he was at any one time. In the beautiful Parayana Vagga of the Sutta Nipata we read of the sixteen disciples of the ascetic Bavari setting out for northern India in the hope of meeting the Buddha. First they heard that he was at Savatthi and ‘wearing matted hair and dressed in deer skin’ they headed there. They went through Kosambi and Saketa and arrived in Savatthi only to find that he had left some time previously. They followed his route through Setavya, Kapilavatthu, Kusinara, Pava and Vesali finally catching up with him at the Pasanaka Shrine, (Barabar Hills north of Gaya) ‘and like a thirsty man going for cool water, like merchants going for profit, like a heat exhausted man going for shade, they quickly ascended the mountain’ (Sn.1014).
There were undoubtedly as many languages and dialects spoken in the Buddha’s India as there are today and this would have created special problems for him. Theravada tradition asserts that the Buddha spoke Pali although there is no mention in the Tripitaka of what language he spoke. Like merchants, diplomats and others whose professions meant frequent travel in different regions it is very likely that apart from his mother tongue, which would have been a dialect of Kosala, he was probably fluent in several other languages as well.
In the Aranavibhanga Sutta he says that insisting on using one’s own dialect in an area where another is spoken can only cause confusion and conflict. ‘It has been said, “One should not stake too much on the local language...” How does one do this? In different regions they might call the same thing a pati, a patta, a vittha, a serava, a dharopa, a pona, a hana or a pisila (these are all different words for a bowl or dish). So whatever they call it in one region, one uses that word thinking ,“It seems this person is referring to that object”, and one uses that word accordingly’ These are the words of someone familiar with a range of languages and dialects and who was very open and practical about language.
The Buddha was equally open about regional customs as well. Once when he found some monks spending too much time bathing and playing in the water he made a rule that they should only bathe once a month. Later some monks who had been staying in an outlying region where people found their infrequent bathing revolting (not surprisingly) reported this to the Buddha and he allowed them to bathe more often to accord with the customs of that region. Once again this is the kind of thing one would expect of the urbane well-travelled individual. Whatever the Buddha was he was not parochial and no doubt his travels made him even more urbane and open-minded.
For a map showing the Buddha’s last journey see


Barry said...

Thank you for your generosity in writing these posts about the Buddha's life.

They remind me of the Buddha's great generosity, which was not just a feeling but a steady course of action measured in distance and teachings.

In the Korean Zen tradition, the temple rules say, "Great shout, great echo. Small shout, small echo." The Buddha's shout was enormous and it is still heard many centuries later. Incredible!

Thanks again for your effort!

Dharma Apprentice said...

Thanks Bhante for this v nice write-up. If only we had a time machine and can go back in time to meet the Buddha in person!