a portrait of buddhism in licchavi

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    A Portrait of Buddhism in Licchavi NepalCharles M. Novak

    Buddhist Himalaya: A Journal of Nagarjuna Institute of Exact MethodsVol. IV NO. I & II (1992)

    Copyright 1992 by Nagarjuna Institute of Exact Methods

    The most noted characteristic of Buddhadharma as practiced by the Newars ofKathmandu Valley is that it has to a large extent preserved those forms of later IndianBuddhism known as Mahayana and Vajrayana in an unbroken, lining tradition. onlyrecently Have scholars begun to explore the rich storehouse of /Buddhist traditions ofNewar Buddhism from the point of view that it is an independent and unique tradition of

    Buddhism which deserves to be studied on its own merits. In order to better understandthe background from which the complex socio-religious system of the Newar Buddhistcommunity developed, the present article present to portray Buddhism as it developedin the Katmandu Valley during Nepal's Licchave Period )(ca. 300-879 A.D) Although, asmuch as possible, historically reliable information has been used here, given the4scantiness of historical references from this earliest period do Nepalese History and theauthor's desire to provide as complete a picture as is currently possible, somelegendary material as well as reasonable supposition is included below.Perhaps more so than most other places, the environment of the Kathmandu Valley has had adeep and abiding impact on the religious outlook of its people. The dramatic variety of physicalfeatures inspires awe: a central circular basin of just over 200 square miles surrounded by anuneven ring of high hills ranging from 6000 to over 9000 feet in height: vast forested areas onthe hills and plenty of fertile crop land in the lower areas which is drained by a weblike networkof rivers and streams: spectacular sunrise and sunsets which sometimes include many show-capped Himalayan peaks. Most important from a religious point of view are the high hills andmountains in and around the Valley and other sacred locales (Skt; tirtha) which are oftenassociated with bodies of water and are scattered throughout the Valley. From ancient timesseveral of these prominent places have been venerated by the Buddhist population ofKathmandu Valley. Most important among these are: Swayambhu Hill, Nasgarjun Hill, themountains of Namobuddha and Manichuda places like cobar and Codavari that are associatedwith Manjusri Bodhisattva, as well as numerous sites around the Valley which are connectedwith Buddhist deities such as Mahakala, Tara, Vasudhara, Padmapani Bodhisattva in hisseveral forms, Hariti and manu places such as Guheswari, Bajrabarahi and the two shrines ofvajrajogini which are related with the worship of female Buddhist deities known as yoginis. It iswidely believed by the Newars and by most scholars that ancient sites such as these were heldsacred even before the onset of strong cultural influences from India, which started perhaps inthe first or second century A.D. this early phase of cultural influence from India Correspondsroughly to the latter half of the Kushana Period and is most strongly felt throughout the Guptaperiod (ca. 300-550 A.D.). During this time, the old, indigenous place-names began to bereplaced by Sanskrit, but the original named did not easily give way to the Sanskrit and some ofthese ancient Newar names survive even today.

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    The extent of the territories controlled by the Licchavi kings of Nepal is point that is still beingdebated from the fact that all but a handful of the Licchavi inscriptions are found in theKathmandu Valley, it is obvious that this was the central and most important part of the Licchavedomain. Fleeting and perhaps false references from the inscriptions have led scholars to believethat the Licchavis held sway over vast are as to the east and west of the Valley. Be that as it

    may, more important with regard to the study to Buddhism in Nepal are the cultural connectionsto the south with India's heartland and later on to the north with Tibet. For over a thousandyears, from Kushana times until the early thirteenth century, Nepal received a steady flow ofcultural influences from India which were directly connected with Buddhism (and Hinduism).This includes the entirety of the Indian Buddhist tradition, with the notable exception of PaliBuddhism. It is only toward the end of the Licchavi period that Tibet begins to play a role a withregards to Buddhism, and that is mainly in the role of Patron to the Newar Buddhist artisans.In a real sense, Licchavi Nepal can be seen as an evolving "Oasis" of Buddhist culturaltraditions, An "Oasis" in the sense that all of the nearby, traditional centers of ancient Buddhismsuch as Vaisali, Sravasti, Sarnath, Kushinagara, Pataliputra, Limbini and Kapilavastu had beenabandoned about 500 A.D., and Licchave Nepal was the only major center of Buddhism to the

    northest of Magadha for several hundred years, until the rise of Buddhism in Tibet. The ancientBuddhist centers mentioned above were (as today) thought of only as places of pilgrimage, andnot looked to as real sources of Buddhist teaching. This meant that the main centers of IndianBuddhism which served as important sources of Buddhist teaching. This meant that the maincenters of Indian Buddhism which served as important sources for Licchave Nepal wereespecially the Nalanda/Rajgir/Bodhagya area, Mathur, perhaps pushpoagiri in Orissa,Tamralipti, Bharhut and even as far away as the western Indian cities of Ajanta, Ellora andNasik. Wherever in India Buddhist art forms and teachings might have come from, these founda warm welcome in Licchave Nepal and were cared for and developed with devotion andsensitivity.Two forms of Buddhist worship which came into prominence during the Licchavi Period were the

    worship of the caitya or stupa and the cart festival (or rath jatra) of Avalokitesvara. The manyancient sites within the Kathmandu Valley which are identified with major Buddhist caityas orstupas such as Swayambhu Hill, Buddha and Cabahil, Kathmandu and the four "Ashoka"stupas of Patan not to mention the almost two hundred examples of stone caityas dating fromthe Licchavi Period, testify to the widespread antiquity of caitya worship. One can imagine thatthis practice in its earliest incarnation in the Valley was analogous to the worship of stones,which probably had its origin with the early, tribal inhabitants of the Valley long before we thecoming of the Licchavis. According to one of the very earliest Licchavi inscriptions caityaworship could even involve encasing an existing Caitya and covering the new surface with manyelaborate paintings, but ordinarily consisted of ritual circumambulation of the caitya along withcertain standard offerings such as incense, colored powder, oil lamps and ablutions. Caityaworship must have been as important factor in bringing more and more of the tribe, proto-Newar

    inhabitants into the Buddhist fold, since it was a devotional practice designed for the generalpublic. Perhaps even more effective in involving the masses was (and is) the cart festival of

    Avalokitesvara/ Matsyendranath (Bunga kya:) which was probably begun during the latter half ofthe seventh century A.D. This festival was involved hundreds or even thousands of people inthe process of the construction and transport of a huge, wheeled cart bearing the image of

    Avalokitesvara for several days or weeks along a prescribed route. This sort of festival musthave been an instant success with the majority of the Valley's population and surelystrengthened Buddhism's standing in relation to the other main religious faiths of the Valley atthe time.

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    There are about forty stone inscriptions (Skt: silalekha) which make some mention of Buddhismthroughout the Licchave Period and most of the references found in these inscriptions areconcerned with Buddhist monasteries and the monks and nuns living therein. Even so, almostnothing can be said about the day-to-day life in the monasteries (skt: Vihara) or how theyfunctioned administratively. The names of more than fifteen Buddhist monasteries are known,

    and it is clear from the contest in which some of these are named that they are among the mostimportant religious foundations of the time. Although nothing definite is known about whichschools of Buddhism were most prominent, it is probable that the strongest early influences(omitting mention of an even earlier probable substratum of Pali Buddhism) came from theMahasanghika, Sammitiya and also the Sarvastivada, with the Makhyamaka and Yogacaraschools of thought being more influential later in the period with the emergence and growth ofthe Vajrayana. A trend which stands out from inscriptional evidence is that there was a stringtraditions of making religious gifts (Skt: deyadharma) for the sake of merit and that the womenof the Buddhist community seemed to take the lead in offering these gifts. These last twoelements find striking parallels in the Buddhist cave inscriptions of Maharastra which predatethe Licchvi Nepal. The references in the Licchave inscriptions to the Mahayana and Vajrayanawill be mentioned below in connection with Buddhist art and notable Buddhist figures of the

    Licchave period.In attempting to account for the Buddhist notables who date from Nepal's Licchave Period, weare entering the realm of legend, myth and unsure historical reference. Famous teachers andadepts from India such as Vasubandhu (the Younger?), the tantric Nagarjuna,Padmasambhava, Santiraksita and Kamalasila are said to have come to Kathmandu Valley inthe service of Buddhism but none of these seems to have stayed for very long. As would beexpected with such colorful figures as Nagarjuna, Padmasambhava and Vasubahdhu, theiractivities are identified with miraculous events, which tend to support the notion that tantricforms of Buddhism were present in the Valley at a very early stage, The Licchave inscriptionsand later chronicles mention that several kings of the time such as Vrsadeve, Manadeve,Dharmadeva, Amusvarma, Narendradeva and Sivadeve I had very strong Buddhist associations

    but details are scanty. One important event which seems to have occured before 650 A.D. wasthe marriage of Bhirikuti, a Nepalese princess, to the king ofTibet. She is credited with havingbrought the dharma to Tibet and the translator Silamanju is said to have also been sent fromNepal to Tibet at this time in order to translate Buddhist texts. As we move into the last 200years of our period (ca. 700-879 A.D.), such shadowy figures as Santikara Acaruya and a fewother adepts in the early phase ofVajrayana Buddhism are met with in Nepal. All in all, it is notpossible to isolate recognized Buddhist schools of thought by analyzing this listing of Buddhistluminaries of Licchave Nepal, but one does suspect from this that Buddhism enjoyed a highstatus and a continuous tradition during the Licchavi Period.

    Another interesting aspect deserving attention here concerns the matter of Buddhist texts inLicchavi Nepal. The Cabahil inscription of ca. 400 A.D. mentions the Kinnari Jataka and implies

    the currency of the Saddharmapundarika Sutra, but this is the solitary inscription of the period tomention Buddhist texts. From fragments of manuscripts which date from the eight and ninthcenturies, it appears safe to say that the famed "Nine Dharma" texts of Nepal were well knownin the Licchavi Period. This collection includes texts which represent Mahayana Buddhism in allits diversity, including the "wisdom" school (Prajnaparmita texts). delineating the Bodhisattvapath Dasabhumika and Samadhiraja Sutras), texts which are major classics of Mahayanadevotion (Saddharmapudarika, Gandavyuha, Lalitavistara and suvarnaprabhasa Sutras) animp0ortant text of the "mind-only" school (Lankavatara Sutra) and perhaps the mostfundamental text of the Vajrayana (Guhyasamaja Tantra). Considering the relative

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    inaccessibility of the contents of this vast body of Sanskrit literature to most of the Buddhistfaithful, the practice of worshipping the "Nine Dharma" texts in a ritualized manner was anadoption well-suited to the preliterate, tribal society of the proto-Newar communit6y of theLicchavi Period. It was probably not until the sixth or seventh century that the scholastictraditions of Indian Mahayana Buddhism started taking hold in the Kathmandu Valley, and the"Nine Dharma" collection should date from this time.The final area to be mentioned in this exploration of Buddhism in Licchavi Nepal concerns theBuddhist art and iconography of the time. The sculptural remains in stone and metal pore5tray alimited range of Buddhist artistic themes which are representative of the Mahayana in its fullflower. The sculptures illustrate seated and standing Buddhas, Bodhisattva Padmapani(Avalokitesvara),Vajrapani, Tara, Naitreya Buddha and the birth of Sakyamuni. In addition afew tantric Buddhist deities such as Aksyobhya, Amitabha, Vajrayogini, Vajrabhairava,Usnisavijaya and Samantabhadra are known from the inscriptions, chronicles and Tibetansources, In addition, it is certain that there was a strong influence from Mother Goddess cultswhich resulted in Buddhist deities such as the Pancaraksas. The same can be said of Saivismin general, Sakta cults, Vaisnavism, Brahmanical cults and several other minor religious cultswhich must have influenced the Buddhist iconography of Licchavi Nepal. The general

    impression one is left with is that the Buddhist art of this period as a result of contact with themany religious cults coming from India which had found home in the Valley. On the whole, itseems that the Nepalese penchant for exotic, tantric iconography forms was tempered in thelater Licchavi Period by religious conservativism, so that the more synthetic, tantric Buddhisticonography does not fully emerge until after the Liccdhavi era had ended.This brier survey of Buddhism in Licchavi Nepal indicated that the full-blown form of IndianMahayana Buddhism was transferred to the Kathmandu Valley during this early period. Certainelements such as the textual tradition, religious iconography the role of the Licchavi royalty andprobably the architecture and administrative setup of the Buddhist monasteries can be viewedas wholesale borrowings from India. On the other hand, the unique culture of the KathmanduValley shaped the actual expression of Buddhist art and practice. This is evident from the

    sculptural remain so the time, as well as the development of caitya worship and the cartfestivals. In general, the bulk of the evidence is suggestive of two major phases in thedevelopment of Buddhism in Nepal during the Licchavi Period. The first phase seems to run upto about the seventh century and is characterized by direct patterning after the Indian model ofMahayana Buddhism, which naturally took several hundred years to be assimilated by theValley culture. The second phase coincides with the coming of strong, new influences such asthe progressive rise of tantric cults and the beginnings of formal contacts with Tibet in theseventh century. Also by this time, many native elements of the fast-evolving proto-Newarculture of the valley were finding their way into the Buddhist fold. Consequently, as a result ofthe continuous and colorful tradition of Buddhism which evolved during Nepal's Licchavi Period,the stage was set for the unabated maturation of the Vajrayana Buddhist tradition in thecenturies to follow.