Sadāparibhūta
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...
, Never Disparaging Bodhisattva, (Ch: 常不輕菩薩 cháng bù qīng púsà; Jp: Jōfukyō Bosatsu) appears in
Lotus Sutra
The ''Lotus Sūtra'' (Sanskrit: ''Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram'', ''Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma'', zh, p=Fǎhuá jīng, l=Dharma Flower Sutra) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. ...
Chapter 20 which describes the practices of Bodhisattva Never Disparaging, who lived in the
Middle Period of the Law (Ch: 像法 xiàng fă) of the
Buddha
Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),*
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was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist legends, he was ...
Awesome Sound King (Ch: 威音王如來 Wēi yīn wáng rúlái). He persevered in the face of persecution for the sake of the correct teaching, and finally attained
Buddhahood
In Buddhism, Buddha (, which in classic Indo-Aryan languages, Indic languages means "awakened one") is a title for those who are Enlightenment in Buddhism, spiritually awake or enlightened, and have thus attained the Buddhist paths to liberat ...
. Bodhisattva Never Disparaging was
Shakyamuni Buddha in one of his past lifetimes.
Etymology
The name of Sadāparibhūta is thought to mean never despising (Skt. sadā-aparibhūta: always, not despising). However it can also be translated as sadā-paribhūta: always despised.
According to Hurvitz, "It is possible that the name is a false sanskritization of a Prakrit form going back to sadāparibhavitā, nom. s. of sadāparibhavitr, hence ever disgracing or never disgracing, of which, of course, the former is not possible."
Anesaki attributes this more popular choice of translation to
Kumārajīva
Kumārajīva (Sanskrit: कुमारजीव; , 344–413 CE) was a bhikkhu, Buddhist monk, scholar, missionary and translator from Kucha (present-day Aksu City, Aksu Prefecture, Xinjiang, China). Kumārajīva is seen as one of the great ...
.
The story of Sadāparibhūta
In chapter 20 of the Lotus Sutra,
Shakyamuni Buddha explains that those who despise or abuse the followers of the Lotus Sutra's teaching, will have to face negative
karmic consequences. People who preserve the Lotus teaching will however be able to purify their faculty of the eye, ear, nose, tongue, body, and mind. In order to explain this again, the Buddha tells a story about a previous life (
avadana
Avadāna (Sanskrit; Pali: '' Apadāna'') is the name given to a type of Buddhist literature correlating past lives' virtuous deeds to subsequent lives' events.
Richard Salomon described them as "stories, usually narrated by the Buddha, that ...
) when he was a
Bodhisattva
In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...
called Sadāparibhūta.
Sadāparibhūta did not study or explain
sutra
''Sutra'' ()Monier Williams, ''Sanskrit English Dictionary'', Oxford University Press, Entry fo''sutra'' page 1241 in Indian literary traditions refers to an aphorism or a collection of aphorisms in the form of a manual or, more broadly, a ...
s but he paid homage to all Buddhist monks, nuns or lay followers he met and predicted that they all would become Buddhas. Some Buddhists questioned Sadāparibhūta's authority to make such a prediction of future Buddhahood and got angry. When they attacked him with sticks or stones he shouted from a distance, "I do not despise you. You are not despised, for you all perform bodhisattva practice and you are to become buddhas." Before he died he heard the Lotus Sutra and was able to purify the six senses. After an inconceivable number of
rebirths he had accumulated great merit and attained the
perfect enlightenment of a Buddha.
See also
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Mahayana
Mahāyāna ( ; , , ; ) is a term for a broad group of Buddhist traditions, Buddhist texts#Mahāyāna texts, texts, Buddhist philosophy, philosophies, and practices developed in ancient India ( onwards). It is considered one of the three main ex ...
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Nichiren Buddhism
Nichiren Buddhism (), also known as ''Hokkeshū'' (, meaning ''Lotus Sect''), is a branch of Mahayana Buddhism based on the teachings of the 13th-century Japanese Buddhist priest Nichiren (1222–1282) and is one of the Kamakura period school ...
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Tiantai
Tiantai or T'ien-t'ai () is an East Asian Buddhist school of Mahāyāna Buddhism that developed in 6th-century China. Drawing from earlier Mahāyāna sources such as Madhyamaka, founded by Nāgārjuna, who is traditionally regarded as the f ...
Notes
References
Sources
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Watson, Burton (tr.)
The Lotus Sutra and Its Opening and Closing Chapters Tokyo: Soka Gakkai 2009.
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Bibliography
* Murano, Senchu (1967)
An Outline of the ''Lotus Sūtra'' Contemporary Religions in Japan 8/1, 61-63
* Shinjo Suguro, Nichiren Buddhist International Center, trans. (1998): ''Introduction to the Lotus Sutra'', Fremont, Calif.: Jain Publishing Company.
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External links
translated from Sanskrit by
Hendrik Kern
Bodhisattvas
Nichiren Buddhism
{{Mahayana-stub