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ABSTRACT
In contrast with Chinese literary tradition and Confucianism, there was a multitude of animals and birds in the Jātaka stories, which had yet to be researched as a reference point of Confucianism. Because of Buddhism’s opposition to the use of animals as a sacrifice, its rejection of consuming animal meat, and because animals were considered as a state of the former existence of Śākyamuni Buddha, Buddhist literature gives ample room to animal images as full-fledged main characters and moral agents. A careful analysis of the use of herbivores such as deer, turtles, wild geese, and monkeys as a narrative device in the Jātaka stories demonstrates that personified animals served as a source of inspiration for humans. Turning animals into articulate moral agents render them no longer the object of human sympathy as in Confucianism nor metaphors in philosophical Daoism, but intellectually equal and ethically superior to humans. The Buddhist idea of cherishing all sentient beings was not merely based on compassion but also an egalitarian perspective that acknowledges animals’ subjectivity as autonomous emotional-moral agents. This unique dimension of Buddhism complemented the Confucian anthropocentric worldview and enriched Chinese literature and art.
KEYWORDS:
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Notes
1. Chapple, ‘Animals and Environment in the Buddhist Birth Stories’, 134.
2. Studies on the role of some devices such as ‘meal’ and ‘interior monologue’ in Western ligature and the Biblical parables can be found in Sellew, ‘Interior Monologue’; and LeBlanc, ‘Dinner with Chichikov’.
3. For the place of imagination, empathy, and sub-ethics in the texts of Theravāda Buddhism which have animals as protagonists, see Hallisey and Hansen, ‘Narrative, Sub-Ethics, and the Moral Life’. But I want to take it further to point out that the influence of this part of Indian folk/Buddhist culture on China’s Mahayana Buddhism also cannot be neglected.
4. Müller, ‘Editor’s Preface’, xv.
5. Easwaran, trans., The Upanishads, 303. Forest is frequently referred to in the Dhammapada.
6. Huang, ‘“Bianwen”: A Genre of Chinese Literature with Indian Influence’, 291.
7. Müller, trans, The Sacred Books of the Buddhists/Vol. 1. The Gâtakamâlâ: or Garland of Birth-Stories, 40.
8. Sellew, ‘Interior Monologue’, 240–241.
9. Pusa bensheng man lun juan, T no.160, 0338.03c.
10. Sterckx, ‘Animal to Edible’, 53; Zheng, ‘Animals as Wonders’, 219.
11. Concrete descriptions can be found in the Book of Rites. See Legge, trans., The Book of Rites, 130–132.
12. Baynes, trans., The I-Ching or Book of Changes, 156–157.
13. Müller, trans., The Sacred Books of the Buddhists/Vol. 1. The Gâtakamâlâ: or Garland of Birth-Stories, 40. The Chinese programmatic-ritualist attitude toward animals can be traced back to the Shang dynasty which laid the ideological foundation for Confucian ritualism via Zhou dynasty ritual of ancestor worship. See Elvin, The Retreat of The Elephants, 31 and Wu, An Anthropological Inquiry into Confucianism, 9–10; 25–26.
14. Easwaran, trans., The Upanishads, 187.
15. Müller, trans., The Sacred Books of the Buddhists/Vol. 1. The Gâtakamâlâ: or Garland of Birth-Stories, 97.
16. Wu, An Anthropological Inquiry into Confucianism, 34.
17. Anderson and Raphals, ‘Daoism and Animals’, 279, 281.
18. Easwaran, trans., The Dhammapada, 115.
19. Wu, An Anthropological Inquiry into Confucianism, 36–38.
20. Ben-Amos, ‘Jewish Folk Literature’, 164.
21. For the treatment of sacrificial animals and meat as royal property in Pre-Qin China, see Yates, ‘Slavery in Early China’, 296.
22. Müller, trans., The Sacred Books of the Buddhists/Vol. 1. The Gâtakamâlâ: or Garland of Birth-Stories, 187.
23. Ibid., 192.
24. Ibid., 225.
25. Ivanhoe and Van Norden, eds., Readings in Classical Chinese Philosophy, 298–300.
26. Müller, trans., The Sacred Books of the Buddhists/Vol. 1. The Gâtakamâlâ: or Garland of Birth-Stories, 326.
27. Mair, ‘Buddhism and the Rise of the Written Vernacular in East Asia’, 713, 738.
28. Ibid., 240.
29. Ibid., 242.
30. Ibid., 236.
31. In The Dhammapada, there is also a lamentation that ‘In this dark world, few can see. Like birds that free themselves from the net, only a few find their way to heaven.’ See Easwaran trans., The Dhammapada, 162.
32. Liudu ji jing, T no. 152, 3: 32.22b.
33. Tang, Han Wei liang Jin Nanbei chao Fojiao shi, 52, 131, 135. In the Sui shu 隋書 [A History of the Sui Dynasty], compiled in the Tang dynasty, the authors emphasised that Kang Senghui was very respected by Sun Quan 孫權, the King of the Wu State. Kang Senghui’s experience and his translation of sūtras in the Wu Kingdom was recorded in detail in Gaoseng zhuan, 14–18. This version was edited and annotated by Tang Yongtong in 1962–1963 but Tang’s Han Wei liang Jin Nanbei chao Fojiao shi completed in 1938 perhaps did not pay adequate attention to Kang Senghui’s contribution to translation.
34. Wu, ‘Buddhist Elements in Early Chinese Art’, 274.
35. Fo shuo jiuselu jing, T no. 181, 3: 453.18c.
36. ‘Donghua jiuse lu zaixian Dunhuang bihua luwang bensheng’.
37. Liudu ji jing, T no. 152, 3: 32.26c.
38. While the Taishō Tripiṭaka indicated that the text was written during the Later Han period (25–220), with the translator’s name missing, contemporary Chinese scholars assert that the Da fangbian fo baoen jing was not a ‘translation’ but rather a Chinese rewriting and compilation that emerged after the Eastern Jin period or in the fifth century. See Fang Yixin, Gao Lieguo, ‘Cong Fojiao ciyu kaobian Da fangbian fo baoen jing de shidai’.
39. Da fangbian fo baoen jing, T no. 156, 3: 148.1a.
40. For late Qing dynasty scholars’ research on this ritual, see Wu, ‘Zheng Zhen and the Rise of Evidential Research in Late Qing Northern Guizhou’, 158.
41. Elvin, The Retreat of the Elephants, 309.
42. Cao, ed., Wei Jin Nanbei chao shi xuanping, 28, 72.
43. Shuihu zhuan, 829.
44. Lu, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 28.
45. Liu, ed., Shanhai jing, 124. The only mention of a personified animal was the Jingwei 精衛 bird who had been the reincarnation of the youngest daughter of the legendary Yandi Emperor named nüwa 女娲. Since this princess was drowned in East Sea, the reincarnated Jingwei bird kept filling the sea with wood pieces and stones.
46. Lu, A Brief History of Chinese Fiction, 47.
47. Soushen ji, 186–87. For a speaking dog’s prediction about famine, see ibid., 190–191.
48. Ibid., 442–444.
49. Ibid., 251–253.
50. Ditter, Choo, and Allen, eds., Tales from Tang Dynasty China, 92.
51. Da Tang xiyu ji, 193.
52. Da fangbian fo baoen jing, T no. 156, 3: 140.13c.
53. Zabaozang jing, T no. 203, 4: 453.1b.
54. Da Tang xiyu ji, 206–207.
55. Ibid., 325–3 26.
56. The Monkey King image that bore a similarity with the main character in the Journey to the West had appeared in the Liudu ji jing where the king of 500 macaques, a former existence of the Buddha, could speak human language and showed outstanding leadership in trying to collect fruits in a year of draught. After being captured by a human king, the monkey’s noble mind moved him and made him reflect on his own benevolence and merits as a ruler. See Liudu ji jing, T no. 152, 3: 32.b17.
57. Lu, ‘Qianyan’, 1.
58. Pietz, ‘Person’, 195.
59. Brose, Xuanzang, 47.
60. Lu, ‘Chihua man tiji’, 458. The contemporary English translator of the tales pointed out that two of the tales in the sūtra have corresponding stories in La Fontaine’s fables and in the Arabian Nights. See Kazuaki, ‘Foreword’, 14. It is likely that the Arabian Nights originated partially from the Jātaka. Another translator of the stories points out that the book’s Chinese title Chi Huaman literally means ‘a garland of follies’ or ‘a collection of the stories of fools’. See Fung, ‘Translator’s Preface’, 11.
61. Gross, ‘Population, Consumption, and the Environment’, 412.
62. Davids, Early Buddhism, 83.
63. Swanson, In Search of Clarity, 76.
64. Thich Nhat Hanh, The Other Shore, 101.
65. Tang, Sui Tang Fojiao shigao, 1.