4.1 Rupert Gethin’s question:
To better understand the problem of a definition of myth in Theravada Buddhism we should proceed now to a critical review and analysis of the use of the concept in a concrete example.
The first problem that we have to surmount is the lack of works dealing directly with Buddhist myth.82 In addition, those that tackle with myth in a theoretical manner are unfortunately very few.83 There is an article, however, that is particularly exceptional in its originality and the implications it presents, and we will use it to examine some important methodological and theoretical issues in relation to the study of Buddhist myth. We will also make reference to some other works related with it.
It must be remembered, however, that we will not be conducting here a detailed
82 This is true even for studies related to Mahāyana and Tantric Buddhism. In the particular case of Mahāyana, an exception to this would be in the study of the idea of the Bodhisattva. Indeed there are many works dealing with the conception of the Bodhisattva. However, most of the time is from the perspective of doctrine, philosophy, or historical development, and not from myth properly speaking. See for example Anālayo. The Genesis of the Bodhisattva Ideal. Germany: Hamburg University Press, 2010.
83 More common are those works that explain Buddhist symbols that can, according to the authors, are related to myth. See a typical example in Carus, Paul. “The Myhtology of Buddhism.” The Monist. Vol. 7.3 Apr (1897): 415-445.
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criticism of its philological arguments. Neither will we be arguing in favor or against its main hypothesis. What interest us here are its theoretical implications for the understanding of the concept of myth.
Our purpose here then, will be first to confirm with this example how the problem of the definition of myth materializes in the discipline of Buddhist studies.
Second, to try to trace this difficulty to what we have called before SDM and its TrV.
And third, to show how this problem could be influencing, directly or indirectly, the
results of such an analysis.
The article in question, titled “Mythology as Meditation: From the
Mahāsudassana Sutta to the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra,” by Rupert Gethin,84 focuses on a particular text, the Mahāsudassana Sutta (MSud),85 a text (sutta) in the big corpus of
the texts of the Pāli Canon (PCan), of the Theravada tradition.
The PCan, traditionally Tipiṭaka or ‘Three Baskets’, is divided into 3 subsections or piṭaka: Vinayapiṭaka, Suttapiṭaka, and Abhidhammapiṭaka. The Suttapiṭaka is named after the literary form (‘suttanta’) prevalent in the first four subsections (‘nikāya’), of the five it is composed of. The first four subsections “comprise mainly the discourses of the Buddha and his discussions with disciples and heretics alike. The
84 Gethin, Rupert. “Mythology as Meditation: From The Mahāsudassana Sutta to the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra” Journal of The Pali Text Society 28 (2006): 63-112.
85 Gethin’s article focuses on the Pāli version, but he also compares it in some detail with the Gilgit manuscript version.
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last (…) comprises a large variety of heterogeneous texts.”86 The Mahāsudassana Sutta (MSud) is a text in its first subsection, the Dhīganikāya (DN).
As it is well known, this sutta is considered unique among scholars mainly for two reasons. First, it is closely related in its textual genesis and development to the important Mahaparinibbāna Sutta (MPar), the sutta of the last days and death of the Buddha. (Gethin 2006 70) In fact, while it is found as an independent text in the DN (that is, as a sutta in itself) following the MPar, in other traditions it is still directly embedded inside this narrative.87 The reasons for this, as well as its general textual evolution are yet to generate consensus. (Gethin 2006 77)
Second, as Gethin argues in his article, it is considered ‘different’ from the rest of the suttas of the DN due to its content and structure, which is often described as mythical. Indeed, this difference appears so remarkable to Gethin that he starts his
article with the apparently simple question: “what is such a myth doing in the corpus of early Buddhist literature”? (Gethin 2006 64) About its uncommon content and
structure we can briefly mention here its rich and colorful images, its dream-like descriptions, its narrative simplicity, and its repetitiveness, among other details.88
Gethin’s ingenious conclusion, as we will see later, is that the mythic qualities of
86 v. Hinüber, p. 24.
87 For the details of the other versions see Matsumura, H. The Mahāsudarśanāvadāna and the Mahāsudarśanasūtra. Bibliotheca Indo-Buddhica. Delhi: Sri Satguru Publications, Indian Books Centre, 1988.
88 See Waldschmidt. 1944–48.
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the sutta in question could be better explained as elements that work in the manner of proto-visualizations (in the manner of a proto-template for later visualizations) or if
one “hesitates to regard [it] as a formal visualization”, in the very least it can be considered “as a form of early Buddhist ‘meditation.” (Gethin 2006 103)
At the core of his argument lays the similarity between the so called mythical elements in the Mahāsudassana Sutta and elements of later texts more explicitly connected with visualization, (Gethin 2006 70, 94) as well as its strange and excessive repetitiveness. (Gethin 2006 93)89 Gethin also intends to connect the narrative content of the sutta with the hypothetical purpose of it. He complements his conclusion with some philological details that we will review later.
It must be pointed out, however, that the author limits himself to presenting this as a probability, and prudently seems to shy away from a more categorical affirmation.
So much, indeed, that his final conclusion borders on the ambiguous when he affirms that by meditation (kammaṭṭhāna), following commentarial literature, we could also understand “recollections of the qualities of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha.”
(Gethin 2006 103) Thus the range of his conclusions is very broad: from formal visualization aid or template, to mere recollection (here even understood as remembrance).
89 See Rhys Davis introduction to the MPar. Rhys Davids, T.W. and C.A.F, Rhys Davids. Dialogues of the Buddha, Part II. 4th edition. London: Pali Text Society, 1954.
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The important thing for us will be to confirm whether the initial question of what is such a myth doing in the corpus of early Buddhist literature has been answered
satisfactorily.
4.2 A definition of myth?
Now, the formulation of the author’s starting question already carries three
important implications that we must examine before anything else. First, it immediately grounds the problem of ‘myth’ in terms of distinctions inside a group of
texts or narratives, a corpus, in this case the PCan. For canon here we mean “a collection of scriptures (whether oral or written), which gives certain authority to those texts included in it.”90 The authority in them is well reflected in the fact that its content is buddhavacana or ‘Buddha Word’91.
As is well known, the PCan is an exceptional group of texts for several reasons.
Perhaps two of the most relevant ones, are its antiquity and orality.92 However, scholars assume that while portions of this collection can probably be traced farther back in time, in the form that we have now it was probably closed near the 6th or 7th
90 Norman, p. 131.
91 v. Hinuber, p. 7.
92 Geiger, p. 24-25: “The Buddhist canon belongs to the class of anonymous literature.
It has not been shaped by one single author, but it has been growing over a long period of time. (…) The second important fact is that this literature has been handed down orally for a considerable time.”
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centuries.93
All these elements also suggest that the group of texts or corpus that forms this canon cannot be so easily taken individually: some if not most of them were probably developed from smaller units, in a process of high interaction.94 Thus an important have been shaped,97 and we seem to lack any information about the actual use made
of them.98 And to make matters worse, scholars like Schopen have been consistently
93 Schopen, 1985 p. 24: “We know (…) that the Pāli Canon as we have it—and it is generally conceded to be our oldest source—cannot be taken back further than the last quarter of the first century B.C.E, the date of the Aluvihāra redaction, the earliest redaction that we can have some knowledge of, and that—for a critical history—it can serve, at the very most, only as a source for the Buddhism of this period. But we also know that even this is problematic since, as Malalasekera has pointed out: “…how far the Tipitaka and its commentary reduced to writing at Aluvihāra resembled them as they have come down to us now, no one can say.” In fact, it is not until the time of the commentaries of Buddhaghosa, Dhammapāla, and others—that is to say, the fifth to sixth centuries C.E.—that we know anything definite about the actual contents of this canon.”
94 See Black, Brian and Jonathan Green. “The Character of ‘Character’ in Early South Asian Religious Narratives: An Introductory Essay” Journal of the American Academy of Religion 79.1 Mar 2011:6-32. Oxford University Press. 11 Dec 2013.
95 As a narrative system.
96 v. Hinuber, p. 1.
97 Geiger, p. 25.
98 Geiger, p. 30.
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insisting of the methodological problems involved in dating them.99
Considering the lack of a specialized theory to approach them, plus our general ignorance of their structure and use, it should be considered difficult or problematic to defend with certainty the reasons or explanations for any kind of perceived uniqueness of any text inside the corpus, without a clearer understanding of the broad system in which they are found.
It is in this dangerous context that Gethin chooses to use myth as a conceptual
category to go beyond these problems and to say something about the MSud purposes.
Second, and perhaps more important for us, the author’s starting question
necessarily marks a distinction between the MSud and other texts inside this corpus,
particularly in relation to the rest of the DN which, according to him, is apparently less mythical. This logically implies that myth is ‘something’ corresponding to or
particular of some of these texts, and not of all, or in the very least that myth manifests in different grades or levels in the different texts of the DN. Of course in this we have to trust the author, since his article does not describe in similar terms any other scripture of the DN beside the MSud.100
However, even though our author has chosen to start and center the analysis of the text in this ‘a-priori’ assumption, he never makes any effort to explain properly
99 Schopen, 1985, p. 27.
100 But in an earlier article, Gethin talks in similar terms of the Aggañña sutta, so we will use this to complement his argument.
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how he achieved this distinction between texts.101
Besides recognizing great difficulty in identifying myth from non-myth, the author tries to avoid the issue by changing the concept of myth for that of mythic qualities.102 For the author, these ‘mythic qualities’ seem to correspond to a very broad and general category in which he would include different dimensions, like language, content, and structure. Nonetheless, in the way Gethin seems to be applying it, it would mainly involve properties or elements whose presence lends narrative the function of myth.103 In any case, this conceptual modification does not satisfy the
need for a definition.
The author’s definition of myth may appear confusing at this point. Nonetheless,
he is working with a definition of myth, and before we can continue we should suggestive of a serious underlying meaning beyond its mere recounting of events or telling of a story might have to be considered as possessing mythic qualities; and in that case, one might argue that all the narrative portions of the Pāli Nikayas have a mythic dimension. Nevertheless, some narratives stand out more obviously as mythic than others. I would suggest that ten or eleven of the thirty-four suttas of the Dhīga Nikāya are essentially mythic in content.”
102 Another variant of this euphemistic concept is ‘mythical elements.’ See King, Winston L. “Myth in Buddhism: Essential or Peripheral?” Journal of Bible and Religion. Vol. 29, No. 3 (Jul, 1961), 211-218. Print.
103 For a greater detail of what the author exactly identifies as mythic qualities in a text the reader must trace the quotation to Waldschmidt, E. Die Überlieferung vom Lebensende des Buddha: eine vergleichende Analyse des Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra und seiner Textentsprechungen. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1944–48. The work of Waldshmidt, however, does not offer much more in terms of a definition of myth.
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(perhaps better understood as surplus of meaning or metaphor), when he suggests that myth could be understood as a narrative suggestive of serious underlying meaning beyond a mere recounting of events or telling of a story. (Gethin 2006 68)
Gethin here distinguishes between two types of narratives: on the one hand, narratives that merely ‘recount events’ or ‘tell a story’ and on the other hand those narratives with a surplus, a meaning beyond. In other words, a narrative would be mythic if it was suggestive of an underlying meaning going beyond the modes or contents of history or fiction. At the same time while fiction and history are distinguished, they both can carry meaning beyond, and thus be mythical. Thus it follows that this first definition of myth does not appear to be necessarily opposed to history, or particularly identified with fiction.
But Gethin also realizes that if a myth is defined as any narrative which ‘asks’ to be interpreted beyond, then almost anything in the Pāli Nikayas could be considered mythic. And yet, even though he accepts that such a classification would make almost all narratives of the canon deserver of the status of mythical, he still stubbornly insists that ten or eleven are more strongly so than others.
What exactly happened here? This, as well as the method that supports his final reasons for considering those ten or so narratives as ‘more obviously’ mythic, are left
for the readers to guess. Furthermore, Gethin does not even give the names of those
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other ten or eleven suttas that according to him should be considered mythic, thus we cannot use them or compare them with the MSud.104
Apparently, Gethin is moving rather ambiguously between two different definitions of myth: the SDM, in which myth is identified as that narrative which has less suggestion of history (historical probability) or truth (philosophical doctrine), and a more subjective definition, in which myth is merely a quality or qualities manifested in additional meaning present in any narrative (thus not necessarily opposed to history or truth). In the first case myth it is a type of narrative. In the second case, it is a quality or property of some narratives.
Referring to the mythic qualities of the MSud for example, he later will simply affirm that “there is nothing here that the modern mind would be tempted to read as history,” (Gethin 2006 63) thus referring to a definition of myth as opposed to history.
The author’s basic understanding of myth is clearly operating under the old
assumption that myth is opposed to historical truth (SDM). The real determinant for myth would not be meaning beyond history, as he has initially affirmed, but lack of history. Thus, there is obviously a conflict of definitions.
But it may not need to be so contradictory after all. The impasse may be corrected; the idea that myth is meaning beyond history/story juxtaposed to his
104 But we assume at least that one is the Aggañña sutta.
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previous opinion that myth is simply distinct from history could be harmonized by understanding that ‘meaning beyond’ does not signify meaning behind history/story.
Gethin then would be suggesting that ‘mythic’ corresponds to that meaning present in
those narratives which cannot be only accounted for as history/story. In other words, those narratives which appear strange or different from the perspective of history and fiction would need special explanation.
But we may be doing too big a favor by trying to harmonize these contradictory perspectives. It is safer to assume that, since Gethin lacks proper theoretical tools for
myth analysis, he is just forced, like others, to follow a SDM. Be as it may, it is impossible to not notice the lack of clarity when it comes to Gethin’s concept of myth.
4.3 Functional interpretation of myth
Then how can we know when a text goes beyond events and story, or when does it really have a meaning beyond? In other words, when is a text mythical? In the context of the PCan, Gethin’s argument naturally carries the implication that mythical properties, characteristics, or qualities, make a particular text to stand at odds with other non-mythical texts.
This, we believe, is exactly the case he wants to make for the MSud. The MSud, as a mythic text, is identified as an odd exception that demands a special kind of
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explanation for this exceptionality. Thus we are in a circle: a text demands a special explanation because it is myth, and it is myth because it cannot be explained by a non-mythical explanation.
Two things should be said in relation to this. The first is that by now it becomes clear that Gethin is working based on the traditional assumption that the PCan is predominantly non-mythical (by TrV). Second, the inclusion of a text like the MSud, certainly more mythical for him, must be warranted by a special reason. From there, it
is just one short step to the search of an explanation for these mythic properties ‘out of the text’, simply because there is no proper place or proper function for a mythical
text inside the PCan. The concept of myth is then invoked post-facto. It is not that we identify or classify through the concept of myth. Instead it is merely a naming. Thus, a
particular interpretation is invoking the SDM.
The author’s initial purpose then, is to move in the direction of an explanation of the ‘mythic qualities’ in the MSud. At the center is the question of the external
function of myth in a particular text. We will refer to this kind of inquiry as a functional interpretation of myth; in other words, an interpretation of the external, ‘out of the text’ purpose or finality of a myth.
4.4 Methodology and myth
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Gethin gives a very thoughtful explanation of the reasons why he thinks myth
and narrative have until recently been avoided as a direct topic of investigation by researchers of the Pāli canon.105
We believe that Gethin’s portrayal of the reasons for an initial disregard of the mythical in favor of the ‘historical’ in the scholarly community is very accurate. But
for us it represents just a partial account because it fails to explain the problem of TrV of myth expressed in the resulting method (i.e. the trimming away of myth).
We have to ask us why myth should be opposed to history; why myth is opposed, for example, to “those portions concerned directly and explicitly with the classic teachings.” (Gethin 2006 64) Why myth cannot be part of that so called ‘classic teaching’?
One could even argue that things moved in the opposite direction: the emphasis
One could even argue that things moved in the opposite direction: the emphasis