Rebirth Narratives in Buddhist Literature, Images, and Landscapes of the Northwestern Borderlands

Prof. Jason Neelis (Wilfrid Laurier University)

Abstract

This lecture will offer an interpretation of the results of interdisciplinary collaborative research on Gandhāran rebirth narratives in Buddhist literary and visual cultures. While jātaka images are not generally considered to have been as important as Śākyamuni Buddha’s hagiography in Gandhāran narrative art, a comprehensive global survey conducted between 2015-2017 (under the supervision of David Jongeward) resulted in identifications of around 170 images of at least 15 jātakas. The repertoire is dominated by over 120 images of the so-called Dīpaṅkara Jātaka episode of the encounter of the previous Buddha Dīpaṅkara with a Bodhisattva (Megha, Sumati, or Sumedha in literary sources) who vowed to attain Buddhahood in a future birth. Localization of the Bodhisattva’s meeting with Dīpaṅkara in Nagarāhāra (around modern Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan) as attested in accounts of Chinese visitors between the fifth and seventh centuries CE reflects the narrative’s regional importance. In addition to reassessing why this narrative is so prominently depicted in Gandhāran Buddhist art as a prelude to hagiographical events of Śākyamuni’s present birth, I will also address the significance of the Viśvantara Jātaka in Gandhāra. This narrative of Śākyamuni’s penultimate previous birth (in the Pāli jātaka collection) is depicted in multiple images, localized at shrines visited by Chinese pilgrims, and briefly summarized in a series of pūrvayogas in the British Library collection of Gāndhārī manuscripts (edited by Timothy Lenz, 2003). The narrative framework of the Dīpaṅkara and Viśvantara stories will be related to depictions and localizations of the Śyāma and Ṛśyaśrṛṅga jātakas in Gandhāran art and landscapes. Comparisons with versions of rebirth narratives in early manuscripts from Gandhāra and Merv and in anthologies within the Mahāvastu and Divyāvadāna suggest diverse patterns of selective emphasis and elaboration in visual and literary media in the northwestern borderlands.

Bio

Jason Neelis, Associate Professor, Religion and Culture Department, Wilfrid Laurier University (Waterloo, Ontario, Canada), is currently visiting Vienna University as a Numata Buddhist Studies Chair. In Early Buddhist Transmission and Trade Networks (Brill 2011) and in other publications, he seeks to understand patterns of early Buddhist transmission in historical, economic and material contexts with an emphasis on issues related to processes of cross-cultural mobility and exchange. He coordinated a project on Buddhist rebirth narratives in literary and visual cultures of Gandhara with support from a collaborative research grant from the Robert H.N. Ho Family Foundation for Buddhist Studies and is co-editing avadānas in 1st century CE Gāndhārī manuscripts of the British Library collection with Timothy Lenz. He directs a recently initiated project on Upper Indus Petroglyphs and Inscriptions in Northern Pakistan: A partnership for cultural heritage preservation and promotion, funded by a Partnership Development Grant from the Canadian Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council.