Ajātaśatru is famous in Buddhist literature for having killed his father, Bimbisāra, in order to come to the throne. This study traces the development of this story in Indian, Chinese and Japanese sources, from canonical Mainstream Buddhism to the modern era. Over the course of that long history, this story was transformed many times, a process that culminated in perhaps the most startling transformation of all – the elaboration of the modern psychoanalytic theory of a psychological complex named after Ajātaśatru by Kosawa Heisaku and Okonogi Keigo (the "Ajase Complex"), and the attendant reinvention of Ajātaśatru as "Ajase". Particular attention is given in this study to connecting transformations in the Ajātaśatru narrative to features of the cultural context at two key junctures in its history – in China in the fifth and sixth centuries, and in modern Japan. The study is also presented as an attempt to model ways of using narrative materials as windows into the historical Buddhist worlds they traveled through, and that shaped them. Another dimension of the study that should be of particular interests to Buddhologists is the links between certain texts in Buddhist literature revealed by the narrative and its transformations, particularly among members of a group of texts related to the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra. More generally, the book should be relevant to readers in Buddhist Studies, medieval Chinese studies, Japanese cultural studies, and psychoanalytic theory and its history.
目次
Acknowledgements i Abbreviations iii
CHAPTER ONE Introduction: How an Ancient Indian Patricide Usurper Turned into a Modern Japanese Mummy's boy 1
CHAPTER Two Ajātaśatru in India: The Drama Begins to Take Shape 6 2.1 The kaleidoscopic range of the Ajātaśatru narrative complex 8 2.2 The many faces of the Indian Ajātaśatru: Analysis 18 2.3 Conclusion: A volatile start to a history of ferment 32
CHAPTER THREE Between India and China: The Mahāparinirvāna and Contemplation sūtras 33 3.1 Festering boils, miraculous cure, and the salvation of the damned: The Mahayana Mahāparinirvāna sūtra 33 3.2 The patricide turns matricidal: The Contemplation sūtra 33 3.3 Conclusion: Two radically new stories 47
CHAPTER FOUR The Making of the Chinese Ajātaśatru 48 4.1 Piggybacking on popular hosts 50 4.2 The Chinese development of Buddhist ideologies of kingship 51 4.3 The rise of Buddhist confession 53 4.4 Buddhist adaptations of filial piety 55 4.5 "The decline of the Dharma" 56 4.6 The motif of sickness and healing 59 4.7 Conclusion: New Ajātaśatru narratives as the mirror of an age 61
CHAPTER FIVE Chasing the White Rabbit: New Twists on Ajatasatru in Medieval China 62 5.1 "Broken Finger": Ajātaśatru gets a new name 62 5.2 The Zhaoming pusa jing and the mysterious white rabbit 63 5.3 Shandao's story: Curiouser and curiouser 74 5.4 Conclusion: An almost forgotten chapter in the history of Ajātaśatru 76
CHAPTER SIX Shinran and the "Rootless Faith": Ajātaśatru in Kamakura Japan 77
CHAPTER SEVEN Ajātaśatru Meets Snow White: Between Shiran and Japanese Modernity 83
CHAPTER EIGHT Ajātaśatru Meets Freud: Kosawa and Okonogi's "Ajase" 88 8.1 The discovery of Kosawa's unacknowledged sources 88 8.2 Patricide effaced: Kosawa and Okonogi's Ajase narratives 96 8.3 Conclusion: The obscure and convoluted genealogy of an Asian challenge to Freud 103
CHAPTER NINE The Making of the Japanese "Ajase" 105 9.1 The nationalist use of Buddhist ideas 106 9.2 Nihoniinron 108 9.3 Women, reproduction and birth control 111 9.4 Debates about the universality or cultural relativity of the Oedipus Complex 114 9,5 The globalisation of Buddhist ideas and academic Buddhological knowledge 118 9.6 "Privatisation", metaphoricisation, medicalization 119 9.7 The character of Ajase as a creature of modern Japanese theatre 121 9.8 Repression 123 9.9 Conclusion: Ajase narratives as the mirror of an age 125
CHAPTER TEN Conclusions: How Stories Have Been Told in Buddhist History, and What We Can Learn from Them 127 10.1 Summary: The epic story of a story 127 10.2 Directions for further research 133 10.3 Stories as evidence for the history of Buddhist ideas 134 10.4 Lessons from modern developments for the history of Buddhist ideas 135 10.5 Through a glass darkly: From particulars, towards universals 136
APPENDIX 1 Primary sources of the Ajātaśatru narrative 138 1. Canonical Pali texts 138 2. Later Pali sources 138 3. Chinese sources 139 4. Sanskrit MSV 141 5. Jaina texts 142
APPENDIX 2 Further exploits of Ajātaśatru in other texts 143
APPENDIX 3 The many names of Ajātaśatru 147
APPENDIX 4 The Mahāparinirvāna sütra and the Malasarvasativada vinaya: Hidden links between India and China 160
APPENDIX 5 The close affinity of the Mahāparinirvāna sūtra with the *Ekottarikâgama 164
APPENDIX 6 A cluster of stories as further evidence of links between MPNS and Sarvâstivāda sources 167
