Introduction

i.1The Exemplary Tale of Śrīsena belongs to one of the most beloved narrative genres in Buddhism, the past life story (avadāna). It deals with one of the most powerful and pervasive themes in this genre, the bodhisattva’s bodily sacrifice for the benefit of living beings. In this avadāna, the act of bodily sacrifice performed by the Buddha’s previous incarnation, the bodhisattva king Śrīsena, forms the centerpiece of an elaborate morality tale extolling the virtues and far-reaching benefits of selfless generosity.

i.2Most past-life stories of the Buddha are found within two genres of Buddhist literature: avadāna and jātaka. The term avadāna, broadly meaning “narrative” or “tale,” denotes a type of exemplary story that is common to most Indian religious traditions. In the Buddhist context, avadāna is traditionally specified as the tenth of the twelvefold subdivision of Buddhist scripture (pravacana), classified according to content, thematic structure, and literary style. Although this class of works is as varied as it is voluminous, the stories typically illustrate the results of good and bad karma, indicating how past deeds have shaped present circumstances. In this vein, many avadānas, the present one included, set out to show how the exemplary lives of the Buddha, or, more often, his followers, have resulted from their meritorious deeds in past lives. Avadānas may also, in certain cases, include prophecies of future spiritual attainments.

i.3Avadānas recounting past deeds, such as the one translated here, typically follow a three-part narrative structure: a story from the present life of the Buddha or another protagonist, a story of an exemplary past deed, and a connecting conclusion that shows how the past protagonist and his circle were prior incarnations of the present protagonist and his circle. In this regard, avadānas bear a close relationship to jātakas (“birth stories” of the Buddha). One notable difference, however, is that the protagonist of an avadāna is often not the Buddha himself, as it is in most jātaka stories, but one of his followers or prospective followers. Another difference is that avadānas generally concern past human lives of realized beings, not those of animals or nonhumans, as is the case in many jātaka tales. Finally, while jātaka stories had wide popular appeal, with plots, characters, and motifs drawn from pan-Indian folklore, the avadānas seem to have originally been intended primarily for monastics, as suggested by their frequent references to attendant monks, their moral tone, and their specific prescriptions for Buddhist practice that are interspersed throughout the narratives. Yet, in the course of their historical diffusion, these edifying tales of spiritual and moral accomplishment eventually gained wide popularity and came to inspire and educate Buddhist monastics and lay followers alike.

i.4To our knowledge, there is no extant Sanskrit version of the Śrīsenāvadāna. Colophons of the Tibetan canonical translations of this text indicate that it was translated from Sanskrit by the Indian preceptor Dharmaśrībhadra, a chief editor called Sherab Lekpa, and the famous translator Rinchen Zangpo (958–1055 ᴄᴇ), who is said to have learned Sanskrit in Kashmir after traveling there in 975 to study Buddhism. It is interesting to note that the only compilation of Buddhist birth stories in any other language to include The Exemplary Tale of Śrīsena was also produced in Kashmir and at roughly the same time as Rinchen Zangpo’s sojourn. This collection was the Bodhisattvāvadāna­kalpalatā, a literary retelling of many Buddhist avadānas that was composed in Sanskrit by the famous Kashmiri poet Kṣemendra (ca. 990–ca. 1070 ᴄᴇ).

i.5In the version of the Śrīsenā narrative translated here, the deeds of its protagonist are related by the Buddha Śākyamuni. At the beginning of the text, the Buddha explains to his disciples that King Śrīsena was a bodhisattva who ruled from the city of Ariṣṭa. He was aided in his royal duties by his devoted queen Jayaprabhā and chief minister Mahāmati. He is renowned for his generosity and the prosperity he has brought to his kingdom. After he performs the exceedingly generous act of giving away his queen, his fame reaches the god realms. At this point, Śakra, lord of the gods, decides to test the authenticity of Śrīsena’s generosity by disguising himself as the victim of a tiger attack who is missing the lower half of his body, and who has been brought to the king to beg for the monarch’s lower body as a replacement. As Śrīsena sets out to fulfil the man’s request, his loyal subjects rise in protest and none will agree to help. It is only after Śakra enchants two of the king’s carpenters that they agree to perform the grisly task.

i.6The bodhisattva king passes Śakra’s test by not only suffering the pain of having his body cut in half, but by undertaking, enduring, and recalling the ordeal with nothing but joy, love, and equanimity. He is able to do this, the account explains, because he is motivated by the mind of awakening‍—the wish to attain awakening for the benefit of all sentient beings. At the end of the story, the Buddha reveals that he was King Śrīsena in a past life, his wife Yaśodharā was Queen Jayaprabhā, his ordained disciple Śāriputra was his minister Mahāmati, his lay disciple King Bimbisāra was the god Śakra, and his duplicitous cousin Devadatta was one of the carpenters.

i.7Like most of the past life tales of the Buddha, both avadāna and jātaka, The Exemplary Tale of Śrīsena is a morality tale that explains and illustrates the relationship between karma and its results. It demonstrates how the performance of good deeds causes beings to experience happiness and, conversely, the performance of harmful deeds causes them to suffer. It also highlights variations in the efficacy of good and bad deeds‍—good and bad deeds can be big and small, powerful and trifling. Even small deeds, however, can significantly impact an individual’s future behavior and experiences, whether positively or negatively.

i.8As the narrative demonstrates, much of a deed’s power comes not from the action itself, but from the intention behind it. The two carpenters did not reap the severe karmic consequence that would typically result from sawing a bodhisattva in half because they were enchanted while they performed the deed and had no control over what they did. Nevertheless, their inability to withstand the enchantment did not bode well for them, and we are told that they will continue to act out of ignorance in future lives. The bodhisattva’s actions, by contrast, were deemed to be both powerful and virtuous because they were inspired by the mind of awakening. From the Buddhist perspective, this intention infuses ordinary positive actions with tremendous power and makes extraordinary actions universally significant.

i.9All the various traditions of Buddhism agree that the Buddha awakened by perfecting these practices over eons, and many past life stories exemplifying this process can be found throughout Buddhist literature. Many of these stories exist in multiple versions, which vary according to the guiding aims and presuppositions of the traditions that have preserved them. Within these traditions, there are dissimilar lists of the behaviors that need to be perfected; some lists include ten behaviors that need to be perfected, others suggest only six. These six perfections appear in all the lists: generosity, discipline, patience, diligence, concentration, and insight.

i.10The perfection of generosity heads these lists, and it is a central theme in many past life stories, and certainly the main focus of The Exemplary Tale of Śrīsena. Within this narrative, the Buddha demonstrates how important it is not just to perform an act of generosity, but to do so with altruistic motivation and to dedicate any merit that results. King Śrīsena’s altruistic motivation is noted no fewer than thirteen times in the course of the text, and he repeatedly dedicates the benefit accruing from his acts of compassion to the welfare of others.

i.11This account not only describes an act of perfect generosity, but also highlights the moral and spiritual implications of this deed. Throughout the sūtra, there is a recurring discussion about the purpose of giving away one’s body. King Śrīsena is presented with many reasons from loved ones why he should not perform this act, such as the grief it will cause his family, the detriments it will inflict on his subjects, and the pointlessness of giving up such a rare and precious life. King Śrīsena responds to all these objections by patiently explaining that although he is fortunate to have met with such a valuable opportunity, he will not have fulfilled his life’s potential if he does not perform the deeds of a bodhisattva. When his relatives and friends beg him not to leave them, he reminds them that saṃsāra’s impermanent nature means that sooner or later all those who are close to each other must part. If, however, he awakens to buddhahood, he will have the ability to lead all sentient beings out of this cycle of meeting and parting. Time and again, he responds to those in his circle who beg him to forego his own suffering with a plea to think about the greater cycles of suffering that he and others will all endure if they do not attain liberation from saṃsāra.

i.12The conversations that King Śrīsena has about generosity, and the narrative details concerning his sacrificial deed, are reminiscent of other past life stories featuring bodily sacrifice. Reiko Ohnuma calls these “gift-of-the-body stories” and describes how they are found throughout all Buddhist canons, most commonly in avadāna and jātaka works but elsewhere as well. A few of these bodily sacrifice stories were well known across Buddhist traditions. Indeed, as Śrīsena argues with Mahāmati about the merits of his impending deed, he cites several previous gift-of-the-body stories to make his case. These include the stories of a king of Śibi who gives his eyes to a brahmin, another king of Śibi who gives his flesh to a hawk in order to save a pigeon, and King Candraprabha who gives his head to a brahmin.

i.13The Exemplary Tale of Śrīsena not only alludes to these other, more famous gift-of-the-body stories, but also follows their literary conventions closely. There are some obvious thematic similarities. Like the bodhisattvas in the other perfection of giving stories, for example, King Śrīsena is overjoyed at having the opportunity to perform such an enormous act of generosity. It is not every day that a person comes and asks a bodhisattva for his or her body. From the bodhisattva’s perspective, the opportunity to give away one’s body presents an opportunity to perfect generosity in a very direct way. It is also seen as an opportunity to shorten the time it will take the aspirant to become a buddha. As in related works, the bodhisattva in this story exercises equanimity in offering his body; indeed, it is a stranger that asks for his body, while his close relatives and friends plead with him not to perform the act.

i.14These bodhisattva bodily sacrifice narratives also share many symbols and tropes. Tigers, for example, and other flesh-eating animals, like hawks, are often involved. Limbs and eyes are the most commonly offered body parts, and, perhaps by necessity, swords, saws, and other types of knives also make regular appearances in these stories, as well as sharp teeth.

i.15Along with the content of these texts‍—their symbols, language, and narratives‍—the form of gift-of-the-body stories is also similar. Most of them follow the standard avadāna narrative structure, beginning with the Buddha teaching monks and concluding with the Buddha explaining who the people in the story famously became, typically the Buddha himself and his closest disciples. By way of this framing narrative, the Buddha emphasizes the importance of giving wisely‍—giving, that is, because the bodhisattva sees saṃsāra for what it is: unsatisfactory, impermanent, and empty of selves. The Buddha-as-narrator then reappears throughout the tale to remind his audience of monks of the importance of the altruistic deed that is about to be performed, thus repeatedly reinforcing the moral of the story.

i.16In producing this translation, we have based our work on the Degé xylograph while consulting the Comparative Edition (dpe bsdur ma), as well as the Stok Palace manuscript.