Devadatta
Encyclopedia
Buddhism
Buddhism is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha . The Buddha lived and taught in the northeastern Indian subcontinent some time between the 6th and 4th...
monk, cousin and brother-in-law of Gautama Siddārtha, the Śākyamuni Buddha, and brother of Ānanda
Ananda
Ānanda was one of the principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...
, a principal student of the Buddha. Devadatta is said to have parted from the Buddha's following with 500 other monks to form their own Sangha, most of whom are said to have been Shakya clan relatives of both Devadatta and Siddhartha.
Devadatta in the Jātakas
Devadatta is villainized in some TheravādaTheravada
Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...
sources. Such stories occur primarily in the Jātakas, a collection of folktales about the lives of Buddha, which were written centuries after his death and originate in various nations. In these stories, Devadatta is set up as the opponent of the Buddha. The Jaataka tales are not part of the Tripitaka, the orthodox Buddhist canon, and are not taught as part of orthodox doctrine. Conflicts presented in the tales are not found in the earliest Buddhist canon redactions, and were not included in the first or second Sangha conferences that were held to determine the orthodox doctrine of Buddhism. Orthodox reference to the supposed conflict originate in the Thera pitaka within the Majjhima Nikaaya, but Devadatta is not referred to by name within these sutras.
Devadatta in the Mahāsanghika sources
In the Mahāsanghika sources, Devadatta is portrayed as a devoted and purist monk. Those of the Mahāsanghika formed the majority of the Buddhist Sangha at the time when SthaviravādaSthaviravada
Sthaviravāda literally "Teaching Of The Elders", was one of the early Buddhist schools. It was one of the two main movements in early Buddhism that arose from the Great Schism in pre-sectarian Buddhism, the other being that of the Mahāsāṃghika school....
monks proposed changes to the Vinaya
Vinaya
The Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or sangha, based in the canonical texts called Vinaya Pitaka. The teachings of the Buddha, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: 'Dharma' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline...
, or monastic rules.
The original Vinaya Pitaka sutras record Devadatta as an earnest monk who wishes the Sangha to keep to a rigorous purity and not mingle deeply with mundane matters. There are several sutras in the Mahjjima Nikāya of Theravāda schools which are said to be negative commentaries on Devadatta, but only one which actually cites a conflict by name, which was in the forum of a public debate on determining monastic rules. None of texts in the Buddhist canon corroborate the violent accusations found in the folk tales about Buddha's life.
Siddhārtha Gautama is recorded in the Mahāparinirvana sutra, Discourse of the Great Decease to have died after violating two of the monastic rules which Devadatta is recorded to have insisted on retaining, and which Gautama rejected: eating meat and accepting invitations to private households. Devadatta and his followers outlived Buddha by a number of years. No account of any portion of their lives was recorded in their own times. More than a century passed before the first written Buddhist texts, none of which contain the accounts given two centuries later by Sthaviravāda revisionists, nor in the Mahāyana texts eight to twelve centuries afterward.
Theravāda account
According to the Pāli CanonPāli Canon
The Pāli Canon is the standard collection of scriptures in the Theravada Buddhist tradition, as preserved in the Pāli language. It is the only completely surviving early Buddhist canon, and one of the first to be written down...
, he taught his sangha to adopt five tapas
Tapas (Sanskrit)
Tapasya in Sanskrit means "heat". In Vedic religion and Hinduism, it is used figuratively, denoting spiritual suffering, mortification or austerity, and also the spiritual ecstasy of a yogin or tāpasá . In the Rigveda, the word is connected with the Soma cult...
(literally, austerities) throughout their lives:
- that monks should dwell all their lives in the forest,
- that they should accept no invitations to meals, but live entirely on alms obtained by begging,
- that they should wear only robes made of discarded rags and accept no robes from the laity,
- that they should dwell at the foot of a tree and not under a roof,
- that they should abstain completely from fish and flesh.
His followers (including bhikkhu
Bhikkhu
A Bhikkhu or Bhikṣu is an ordained male Buddhist monastic. A female monastic is called a Bhikkhuni Nepali: ). The life of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis is governed by a set of rules called the patimokkha within the vinaya's framework of monastic discipline...
s and bhikkhuni
Bhikkhuni
A bhikkhuni or bhikṣuṇī is a fully ordained female Buddhist monastic. Male monastics are called bhikkhus. Both bhikkhunis and bhikkhus live by the vinaya...
s) came mainly from the Śākya
Sakya
The Sakya school is one of four major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, the others being the Nyingma, Kagyu, and Gelug...
clan. His closest four companions did not come back to the Buddha. According to Faxian
Faxian
Faxian was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to India, Sri Lanka and Kapilavastu in today's Nepal between 399 and 412 to acquire Buddhist scriptures...
, Xuanzang
Xuanzang
Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period...
and I Ching
I Ching (monk)
Yijing was a Tang Dynasty Chinese Buddhist monk, originally named Zhang Wenming . The written records of his travels contributed to the world knowledge of the ancient kingdom of Srivijaya, as well as providing information about the other kingdoms lying on the route between China and the Nālandā...
's writings, some people practised in a similar way and with the same books as common Buddhists, but followed the similar tapas and performed rituals to the past three buddhas and not Śākyamuni Buddha. Many followers of that sect listened to the lessons in the Nālandā
Nalanda
Nālandā is the name of an ancient center of higher learning in Bihar, India.The site of Nalanda is located in the Indian state of Bihar, about 55 miles south east of Patna, and was a Buddhist center of learning from the fifth or sixth century CE to 1197 CE. It has been called "one of the...
with the others, but it is believed by many that they were not students of Devedatta. However, there are still those who say they follow Devadatta today at Bodh Gaya.
The name Devadatta
The name Devadatta has the meaning god-given in Palī and Sanskrit. It is composed from the genitive of deva and the past participle datta of the verb da, give. In the Bhagavad GītāBhagavad Gita
The ' , also more simply known as Gita, is a 700-verse Hindu scripture that is part of the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Mahabharata, but is frequently treated as a freestanding text, and in particular, as an Upanishad in its own right, one of the several books that constitute general Vedic tradition...
, the conch shell used by Arjuna
Arjuna
Arjuna in Indian mythology is the greatest warrior on earth and is one of the Pandavas, the heroes of the Hindu epic Mahābhārata. Arjuna, whose name means 'bright', 'shining', 'white' or 'silver' Arjuna (Devanagari: अर्जुन, Thai: อรชุน, Orachun, Tamil: Arjunan, Indonesian and Javanese: Harjuna,...
on the battle-field of Kurukshetra
Kurukshetra
Kurukshetra is a land of historical and religious importance. Historically the land belonged to Punjab now a district in Haryana state of India. It is a holy place and is also known as Dharmakshetra . According to the Puranas, Kurukshetra is named after King Kuru, the ancestor of Kauravas and...
was named Devadatta. The name Devadatta is still given today, and is often spelled Deodatta.
Early history
The story of Devadatta has been viewed by some scholars as a later addition derived from a later account made in the vinayas of the various early Buddhist schoolsEarly Buddhist schools
The early Buddhist schools are those schools into which, according to most scholars, the Buddhist monastic saṅgha initially split, due originally to differences in vinaya, and later also due to doctrinal differences and geographical separation of groups of monks.The original saṅgha split into the...
. The Mahāsāṃghika
Mahasamghika
The ' , literally the "Great Saṃgha", was one of the early Buddhist schools in ancient India.The origins of the sect of Buddhism are still extremely uncertain, and the subject of debate among scholars. One reason for the interest in the origins of the school is that their Vinaya recension appears...
Vinaya mentions the figure of Devadatta, but the description and attributes of this figure are entirely different from those in the vinayas of sects from the Sthavira
Sthaviravada
Sthaviravāda literally "Teaching Of The Elders", was one of the early Buddhist schools. It was one of the two main movements in early Buddhism that arose from the Great Schism in pre-sectarian Buddhism, the other being that of the Mahāsāṃghika school....
branch. In fact, there is no overlap in the characterizations of Devadatta between the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya and the other five extant vinayas which all come from the Sthavira branch. In addition, modern scholarship is generally in agreement that the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya is the oldest. This has led some scholars to conclude that the story of Devadatta was a legend produced by the Sthaviras after they split from the Mahāsāṃghikas in the 4th century BCE. André Bareau
André Bareau
André Bareau was a prominent French Buddhologist and a leader in the establishment of the field of Buddhist Studies in the 20th century. He was a professor at the Collège de France from 1971 to 1991 and Director of the Study of Buddhist Philosophy at L'École Pratique des Hautes Études.-External...
has discovered that the earliest vinaya material common to all sects simply depicts Devadatta as a Buddhist saint who wishes for the monks to live a rigorous lifestyle.
Faxian
Faxian
Faxian was a Chinese Buddhist monk who traveled to India, Sri Lanka and Kapilavastu in today's Nepal between 399 and 412 to acquire Buddhist scriptures...
and other Chinese pilgrims who travelled to India in the early centuries of the current era recorded the continued existence of "Gotamaka" buddhists, followers of Devadatta. Gotamaka are also referred to in Pali texts of the second and fifth centuries of the current era. The followers of Devadatta are recorded to have honored all the Buddhas previous to Śākyamuni, but not Śākyamuni.
Lotus Sūtra
In the Lotus SūtraLotus Sutra
The Lotus Sūtra is one of the most popular and influential Mahāyāna sūtras, and the basis on which the Tiantai and Nichiren sects of Buddhism were established.-Title:...
, chapter 12, found in the Mahāyāna
Mahayana
Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...
Buddhist tradition, the Buddha teaches that in a past life, Devadatta was his holy teacher who set him on the path, and makes a noteworthy statement about how even Devadatta will in time become a Buddha:
Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra
In the Mahayana Buddhist text, Contemplation SutraContemplation Sutra
The Amitāyurdhyāna Sūtra , is one of the three major Buddhist sūtras found within the Pure Land branch of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Amitāyus is another name for the buddha Amitābha, the preeminent figure in Pure Land Buddhism, and this sūtra focuses mainly on meditations involving complex visualization...
, Devadatta is said to have convinced Prince Ajātasattu
Ajatashatru
Ajatasatru was a king of the Magadha empire in north India. He was the son of King Bimbisara, the Great Monarch of Magadha. He was contemporary to Mahavira and Buddha. He took over the kingdom of Magadha from his father forcefully by imprisoning him...
to murder his father King Bimbisāra
Bimbisara
Bimbisara was a King, and later, Emperor of the Magadha empire from 543 BC to his death and belonged to the Hariyanka dynasty.-Career:There are many accounts of Bimbisara in the Jain texts and the Buddhist Jatakas, since he was a contemporary of Mahavira and Gautama Buddha. He was the king of...
and ascend the throne. Ajātasattu follows the advice, and this action (another anantarika-kamma for killing your own father) prevents him from attaining stream-entry at a later time, when listening to some teaching of the Buddha. These are, however, tales that are not recorded in any of the first centuries following the demise of Gautama Siddārtha, but which appear later.
External links
- Devadatta entry in the Buddhist Encyclopedia.