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Mahādibbamanta: a paritta manuscript from Cambodia

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 December 2009

Padmanabh S. Jaini
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Extract

In 1961, while on a visit to Cambodia, I first came to know of this work from the chief Abbot of Vat Unālom of Phnom Penh. I was informed by the learned Abbot of the existence of a ‘Mahāyānist’ work known as Dibbamanta.The work was not available there but subsequently a palm-leaf MS of this work was found in the National Museum of Bangkok, a microfilm copy of which was made available to me through the courtesy of the curator of that Museum. The MS consists of 48 folios1, written in Cambodian characters. It is not dated and does not carry any information regarding the author or the scribe. As it was a common practice in Siam to copy Buddhist texts in Cambodian script, and as the work is not in use at the present day either in Siam or in Cambodia, it is hard to locate the original place of this MS. But on the basis of certain internal evidence which will be noted below I am inclined to believe that it could be of Cambodian origin.

Type
Research Article
Information
Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies , Volume 28 , Issue 1 , February 1965 , pp. 61 - 80
Copyright
Copyright © School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London 1965

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References

1 The 108 verses in this MS are written in rather an unusual manner. Instead of writing several verses on the same line our scribe has written each verse on a separate line. This could indicate a fairly late date for our MS.

2 On Harihara, see Groslier, B. P., lndochina (Art of the World, IX), 76–7. Two images are reproduced here, both from Cambodia, one dating between A.D. 657 and 681, the other belonging to the first half of the twelfth century.Google Scholar See also Coral, G. de Rémusat, Vart kkmer, pl. xxx, 104.Google Scholar

3 View quoted by Marchal, C. H. in Hackin, J. and others, Asiatic mythology, 206.Google Scholar

4 ibid. For a modem Cambodian image of this goddess, see Marchal, H., Le décor et la sculpture khmers, 1951 (illustration no. 251).Google Scholar

5 The word dharani is found e.g. in Buddhavarrisa(i.68) but is not used there as a name of a devi: cavitvā Tusitā kāyā yadā okkami kucchiyam dasahassī lolcadhātu kampittha dharanī tadā.

6 Śaka pancamī ket caitra brhaspatibāra khāl (tiger) naksatra See Finot, L., ‘Les inscriptions de Sek Ta Tuy’, BEFEO, XVIII, 1928, 50.Google Scholar

7 1105 Saka thob (hare) naksatra. See Coedès, G., ‘Le royaume de Śrīvījaya’, BEFEO, XVIII, 6, 1918, 34.Google Scholar

8 Ccedès, G., BEFEO, II, 1902, 60.Google Scholar

9 On the use of the term naksatra in the inscriptions mentioned above, see Coedès, G., ‘L'origine du cycle des douze animaux au Cambodge’, T'oung Pao, XXXI, 1935, 323 Google Scholar, where (p. 315) he lists several articles on the Chinese animal-cycle. The animal-cycle is not exclusively used for years and the term naksatrais already applied to them in Central Asia by the third century A.D. in Niya documents (Kharosthī inscriptions, ed. Boyer, Rapson, Senart, and Noble, no. 565); Burrow (translation, p. 111) refers also to Liiders, H., ‘Zur Geschichte des Ostasiatīschen Tierkreises’, Sb.PAW, Phil.-hist. Kl., 1933, 998 ff.Google Scholar See also Bailey, H. W., ‘Hvatanica’, BSOS, VIII, 4, 1937, 924–8, where different lists of twelve names of the animal-cycle as found in Khotan Saka, Sogdian, Krorayina Prakrit, Sanskrit, and Kuchean are given. See also his Khotanese texts, IV, 11. W. Simon in his Chinese-English dictionary (introduction, liii) gives corresponding zodiacal signs for the animal-cycle. According to Needham (Science and civilisation in China, III, 1959, 258) the Jesuits erroneously equated these two systems during the seventeenth century. For a bibliography on this subject, see T'oung Pao, Index général, 71.Google Scholar

10 e.g. icc evam…parinibbānato… sata-Sakarāje Mūsikasannite samvacchare…ayam gantho… paripunno ti (Jinakālamālī (PTS), p. 129).

11 Professor Coedès in his article (T'oung Pao, XXXI, 1935) states that the term naksatra is still in use (in Cambodia and Siam) for the twelve-year animal-cycle, but does not refer to the practice adopted in the Jinakālamālī.

12 ed. by K. D. Śri Prajnāsāra, Colombo, 1956. This work is based upon a Pali commentary called Sāratthasamuccaya (Simon Hevavitarne Bequest, XXVII) on an old paritta collection entitled Catu-bhānavār. The latter contains 20 suttas used as paritta (as against the list of six parittas enumerated in the Milindapanho, 150–4). But the Sāratthasamitccaya, written according to a Ceylonese tradition during the time of Parākramabāhu II, includes seven additional suttas treated separately in an appendi (called Parisitthasangaho). The works included in the appendix (Upagranthaya) of the Pali-Simhala-pirit-pota could be assumed to belong to a period later than the Sāratthasamuccaya. Popular paritta hymns similar to the one in Ceylon are also found in such works as the Chauk saung dwè Rangoon, 1895. See Bode, The Pali literature of Burma, 95.

13 Godakumbura, C. E., Sinhalese literature, 291.Google Scholar

14 The earliest Pali inscription found in Cambodia is dated A.D. 1230 (see Coedès, BEFEO, XXXVI, 1936, 14; and Majumdar, Inscriptions of Kambuja, no. 188) and the recorded date of the introduction of the sect of Sīhala bhikkhus to Nibbisipura is given as A.D. 1431 (1974 years after the parinibbāna). See Coedès, G., ‘Documents sur l'histoire politique et religieuse du Laos occidentel’, BEFEO, XXV, 1925, 131.Google Scholar