Sunday Times 2
Justice betrayed in the past Bak Poya falls tomorrow
View(s):By Mervyn Samarakoon
Attakatha turns a virtual tapestry of the colourful society on the Indian subcontinent when it portrays in vivid detail the scoundrel and the saint, the fool and the wise, the crooked and the straight that dotted its vast landscape over two and a half millennia ago. More importantly the arahants have thereby executed their sacred task of defining Buddha’s counsel to the world at large with absolute finesse. The dialect employed is pure symphony.
The arahants have executed their sacred task of defining Buddha’s counsel to the world at large with absolute finesse
First of the nerve-wracking examples on the topic above is the case of uttara samanera the novice monk as recorded in Theragatha Attakatha. Striving for nirvana in the presence of numerous Buddhas in the extremely cloudy past, his account proper begins from the era of Sumedha Buddha many millions of years ago when he was a thrishula (trident) bearing ascetic with iddhi powers capable of travelling through the air. After a most remarkable encounter he had with Sumedha Buddha during one such travel of his, he began his long journey of rebirths flitting between human and deva worlds until he made his appearance in an aristocratic brahmin family in Rajagaha city in the time of our Gautama Buddha.
In adulthood at Rajagaha he reached the world’s apex in the mastery of Veda, in aristocratic countenance, youthful looks and praiseworthy conduct, whereupon Vassakara the chief minister of Magadha country proposed his daughter in marriage to him. The young man bent on renouncing lay life declined the proposal. Meeting Ven. Sariputta from time to time, developing faith in the teaching, he became a novice and an assistant to the great bhikkhu.
Once when Ven. Sariputta fell ill the samanera went in search of some medicine and broke journey near a lake to freshen himself when a tunnel-digging thief who was being pursued by the king’s men deposited his loot in the samanera’s bowl and escaped. The samanera was apprehended, trussed up and brought before the Chief Minister Vassakara who by then was discharging judicial duties by royal decree. The samanera was recognized by Vassakara who was still harbouring a grudge for his offer being repudiated and being ordained with ‘heretical prudes’. There wasn’t a semblance of a trial, no leading of evidence or calling for defence, just imposition of the final punishment known to man – death by impalement.
Buddha observing that the samanera was of adequate maturity in wisdom, proceeded to the execution ground and placed on the samanera’s head his radiating palm with delicately youthful elongated fingers adorned with moving, glistening jewel-like fingernails – Attakatha. He said “Uttara, this is a previous kamma of yours which you have to bear with equanimity” and delivered a sermon compatible with his frame of mind. Overcome with boundless joy upon the touch of the Blessed One’s palm as if anointed with the bliss of nirvana he turned towards insight meditation as exhorted by the great being to shatter every known bondage on earth with simultaneous acquisition of the six supernormal powers.
Ascending from the spike he was impaled on, he performed a miracle in the sky through compassion towards the mystified onlookers. When his condition got aggravated the bhikkhus present questioned him as to how he was able to concentrate on his meditation overcoming such horrible pain. Came a reply as possible only by an Arahant, “Friends, the minor suffering I underwent to accomplish this singular achievement is negligible in comparison to the horror I experienced in samsara”.
The canon makes no mention of Vassakara’s fate, but it does of many others of his ilk. The deviant judge who figures in Petavattu is one. King Bimbisara observed sil six days a month, a practice followed by many of his countrymen. He was in the habit of inquiring from his visitors whether they too observed sil. Amongst them was a presiding judge possessed by vicious qualities resorting to bribery and crookery. Fearful of the king, he said he too observed sil. Away from king’s company he confided in a friend that he lied to the king, whereupon the friend told him that he could still observe the eight precepts for the balance half-day-”Ardha Uposatha.”
Accepting his friend’s advice, he went home and refrained from having dinner that night. Severe intestinal problems that erupted caused his death and he was born as a “vimana peta”, the inconceivable alliance of heaven and hell, god by day and devil by night. Mere observance of the eight rules of abstinence begot him a celestial palace with a thousand goddesses, for dishonest dispensation of justice and backbiting he claws flesh off his own back at night and devours it. Arahant Narada thero descending from Gijjakuta rock observed the peta and engaged in a most moving dialogue with him where he pleads with the venerable monk that the world be told of his pathetic plight so men wouldn’t ever commit the mistakes he made. “Yama”, king of the infernal world too is a vimana peta.
Far more grotesque is the tragedy in Kumbandha Sutta of Lakkhana Sangyutta concerning a macabre creature of the ghost realm with the ability to traverse through the air. Arahant Maha Moggallana thero observes him with the divine eye while descending from the Gijjekuta mountain along with Arahant Lakkhana thero. Paranormal existence of ghosts is beyond the scope of the naked eye.
This particular peta had a scrotum the size of an enormous pot on account of his past kamma of receiving bribes at a secret location and disentitling legitimate owners of their property in venal hearings over which he presided. Unbearable fines were imposed on litigants, hence the hideous organ which he carries on his shoulder while travelling and uses as a seat to sit on. He is relentlessly pursued by eagles and crows, themselves demonic creatures who rip and tear at it to be eaten as food while the ghost screams in pain. Description by the venerable bhikkhu of other subhuman beings is equally appalling. The karmic actions of them all were accounted for by the blessed one on the experience of the venerable monk being made known to him.
Foregoing was a narrative of those who dispensed justice with a hidden hand. Does the judge who condemns a man to death, the president of the country who confirms it and the executioner who carries out the order accumulate adverse karmic influence on their deeds? They do, since volition (cetana) of them all was to do away with a life, though sheathed in a legal framework. Such frameworks bear minimally upon the universal law of kamma regardless of the convict’s guilt or innocence. However, a feeling of sympathy at the time towards the condemned man would deflect the severity of their deeds to some extent, again a question of cetana. See Bhodhiraja Kumara Attakatha of Majjima nikaya. Destiny makes one a king who acquires good kamma for saving his subjects from annihilation by the enemy and acquires bad kamma by annihilating the enemy. Field of kamma as that of the world is infinite, declared the Buddha.
There simply exists no dimension of the human entity that lay unexplored in his limitless wisdom. The prompt and pointed reply of the blessed one to Ananda thero’s query why a woman is not fit to sit in judgment over others, to engage in trade and to visit ‘Kamboja’ as appears in the sutta by the same name in Anguttara nikaya offers a glimpse of the quintessence of enlightenment in its finest form. In the backdrop of this astounding disclosure stands the splendid bhikkkuni order with its glittering array of Arahant bhikkhunis, a hallmark of immaculacy for the world to revere. For instance, personal expressions of awe and amazement of a royal princess, later bhikkhuni Sumedha immediately upon her reaching Arahanthood accompanied by higher powers are pure gems of a great heritage. Therigatha in itself is a work of art.
Again, Buddha makes the profound utterance to Ananda thero that with women gaining admission to the Buddhist order, the pristine Dhamma of chaste life will only last five hundred years which otherwise would have endured for a thousand years. He invokes three striking similes for the purpose, the households with few men and more women that stand at the mercy of prowling burglars, fields of prime rice affected by weed and sugar cane that goes to ruin with the setting in of blight. “Ananda, just as a man might build a dam so the water of a great lake would not overflow, I have imposed on bhikkhunis eight rules of respect not to be transgressed at the cost of their lives” -Gothami sutta. Anguttara nikaya. The irony of this strange juxtaposition within womanhood, discernible from the summit of wisdom is a phenomenon that has always eluded worldly intelligence.
On the subject of jurisprudence, vinaya pitaka is a unique treatise, a vast repertoire of rules of conduct, graded violations of those rules with attendant repercussions and remedial actions to be adopted where applicable. On many an occasion it transcends man-made law on vital issues in decisive ways. Patricide for instance is pure and simple murder under penal law of the land but not so in the flawless doctrine where it entails monstrous repercussions. An extraordinary extension of the concept is that the gravity of the offence does not abate in the absence of the assailant’s knowledge the victim was his own father. So is an offence committed against a liberated saint.
Numerous are instances in vinaya and Abhidhamma chapters where specific laws, the inventions of man are completely overwhelmed by generic rules of the unseen world. Combined with sutta pitaka the great philosophy assumes the undisputed stance as saviour of mankind until the next spell of total darkness settles in.