While the story of the Magadhan king Ajātaśatru’s seeking the Buddha’s advice on attacking the Vṛjis is well known and much studied, rather less known and little studied are stories of his war or conflict with the Vṛjis embedded in Indian Buddhist monastic law codes. This paper explores these lesser-known stories of Ajātaśatru’s warfare, primarily focusing on their function as narrative frames for monastic rules or exceptions (anāpatti) that have no necessary relation to war. It investigates the rationale behind Indian Buddhist jurists’ utilization of these stories to account for monastic legislation, and discusses the perceptions of war reflected therein. Moreover, the paper shows that Indian Buddhist jurists of different sects or schools do not seem to have shared the same stance on predicting warfare, some arguably more ambivalent than others, especially when a prediction proves wrong and is thus liable to shake the laity’s faith and/or harm the mutual trust between monks themselves.
目次
Abstract 293 1 Introduction 294 2 Ajātaśatru’s Warfare and Maudgalyāyana’s Non-transgression of the Fourth Pārājika 299 3 The 59th Pāyattikā/Pāyantikā Rule in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinayavibhaṅga 315 4 The 103rd Pāyattikā Rule in the Chinese Translation of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Bhikṣuṇīvibhaṅga and Its Tibetan Counterpart 319 5 Concluding Remarks 331 Acknowledgments 333 Abbreviations 334 References 335
