Buddhist confessional poetry:

Narratives of self-conversion

[Part 9 ]

I devoted the last few columns to a sustained discussion of the nature, significance, vision, structure and rhetorical strategies inscribed in the poems of the Therigatha. Today, as a way of extending this discussion, I wish to juxtapose two comparable and highly esteemed texts from the Western tradition. This juxtaposition would allow us to understand better the distinctiveness of the confessional self-narratives that constitute the Therigatha.

The two Western texts that I have selected for comparison are St. Augustine's Confessions and Jean- Jacques Rousseau's The Confessions. Both are outstanding autobiographical works that have had a palpable impact in Western intellectual and literary traditions. What is interesting is that they share certain features in common with the Therigatha while departing in certain other ways, from the declared ambitions of this work. I could have also selected Santa Teresa's Life of Herself, but Augustine's and Rousseau's self-narratives have gained greater visibility among readers.

Saint Augustine's Confession is a fascinating self-narrative that recounts the past lives of a sinner as he comes under religious influence and begins to see the world in a new light. His text seeks to achieve a two-fold aim; to clarify to himself the importance and the momentousness of his conversion to Christianity and in doing so to persuade the generality of readers that Christianity indeed constitutes the one true path towards truth and wisdom. What is interesting about this work by Augustine is that it combines in equal measure the intensity of feeling and intellectual and analytical rigor. This can be regarded as the first intellectual biography in western tradition in which lived reality, structures of feeling, philosophical and religious speculation meet in a productive union.

The Confession by Augustine was composed in 397-398 A.D. The official English translation reads The Confession of St Augustine. It consists of 13 books, the first nine are devoted to reminiscences of his life while the last four books deals with weighty issues of time, memory as well as philosophical and theological speculations. This is not only a personal autobiography but also a significant theological work. What is interesting about the early chapters is the vivid way in which he recaptures his sinful life. This vividness makes the conversion into Christianity that much more significant and compelling.

A brief description of the different books that comprise this text should give us a broad sense if the trajectory of the author's thinking. Book 1 and 2 deal with his early childhood, while book 3 recounts his life as a student in Carthage where he abandons himself to a life of pleasure.

Book 4 describes his days as a teacher of rhetoric. Book 5 is given over to a recounting of his growing philosophical interests. The next chapter discloses the fact that Augustine gradually comes to realise that his earlier concept of Christianity was defective. This book also tells the reader of his desire to get married and dismiss his mistress. Book 7 deals with his engagement with God and his quest to understand god as a spiritual being. Book 8 offers a description of his conversion and his mother is overjoyed.

Book 9 recounts a discussion between Augustine and his mother Monica about the life of saints in heaven and the death of Monica. In book 10, the author asks the reader to thank God for his conversion and to pray for him. The next two books explore the meaning of genesis. Book 13 constitutes an allegorical interpretation of the first chapter of Genesis. It is evident then that the Confessions by Augustine gas a definite and willed structure leading from personal experiences to theological ruminations. He lies openly before God, and it is God who confers meaning in human life and the world. As we read this self-narrative we realise that human beings are opaque to themselves and divine grace is vital to ascribe meaning to human existence. As a commentator aptly remarked, 'the life of saint Augustine has a special appeal because he was a great sinner who became a great saint and greatness is all the more admirable if it is achieved against odds.' It is here that we see parallels with some of the verses contained in the Therigatha.

Although there are similarities between the Therigatha and Augustine's Confessions in terms of the desire to give up on evil and enter a path of spiritual growth, repent for the past sins and misdeeds, the centrality of language and rhetoric, the power of the narrative impulse as an organising force, there are significant differences as well.

For example, Augustine’s Confessions, unlike the poems in the Therigatha, is in the form of a prayer. The tone ushered in, and the structure set up by this act of a prayer is central to the meaning of this work. These are the opening passages of Saint Augustine’s Confessions.

‘Can any praise be worthy of the lord’s majesty? How magnificent his strength? How inscrutable his wisdom1 man is one of your creatures, lord, and his instinct is to praise you. He bears about him the mark of death, the sign of his own sin, to remind him that you thwart the proud. But still, since he is a part of your creation, he wishes to praise you. The thought of you stirs him so deeply that he cannot be content unless he praises you, because you made us for yourself and our hearts find no peace until they rest in you.

Grant me, lord. To know and understand whether a msn is first to pray to you for help or to praise you, and whether he must know you before he can call you to his aid. If he does not know you, how can he pray to you? For he may call for some other help, mistaking it for yours.’

Prayer

The fact that the Confessions is in a form of a prayer colors its structure and vision. The notions of divine gaze and divine grace are central to the intended meaning of the text. The idea of the prayer provides a framework within which to locate the text. In the Confessions Augustine seeks God’s guidance in spiritual enlightenment. That is why it assumes the form of an extended prayer addressed to God. Here the structure of the text is important; God does not speak in the lengthy conversation except through the scriptures which emerges in Augustine’s mind. In this sense, the intertextualities associated with the Bible are an important segment of the meaning of confessions.

The eminent philosopher Charles Taylor has written illuminatingly about Augustine’s deep interest in God and his inwardness. For Augustine, he says God can be known more easily by means of his created order, and in a sense can never be known directly. However, it is important to bear in mind that our pathway to god is not through the domain of external objects but in ourselves. This is primarily due to the fact that God is not just the transcendent object or merely the principle of order of objects we seek to observe. God is also for us basically the support and subtending principle of our knowing activity. As Taylor points out, god is not just what we yearn to see, but what powers the eyes which sees. What this underlines is the fact that god is not out there shedding light on the order of being; god is also the inner light. It is the light ‘which lighteth every man that cometh into the word.’ (John 1:9)

In writing the Confessions Augustine makes an important move. He succeeds in shifting the focus of interest from the domain of objects known to the activity itself of knowing. That is where God is to be found. Hence his deep interest in the language of inwardness. The field of object is one that is public and commonly shared. The activity of knowing, on the other hand, is one that is specific and individual-centered. Each of us has our specific modes of engaging in this activity. To be involved in this active is to adopt a self-reflexive posture. This is indeed a feature that the Confessions shares with the Therigatha. However, the difference is that while in the Confessions this inwardness is combined with a vision of God, in the confessional poems by the Buddhist nuns that inwardness is pushed further as a consequence of which it becomes the center of moral consciousness. The net result of this effort is to emphasize the moral resources within us.

Language

When we compare Augustine’s Confessions and the poems in the Therigatha, another area that merits close consideration is the role of language in the different texts. In the Confessions the author is profoundly engaged with language both as it operates in everyday life and in relation to God. Augustine’s own engagement with language constitutes a central feature of this text. We see his gradual transformation from an infant without any knowledge of language to a schoolboy who excels in oratory. From there he moves in to become a teacher of rhetoric. Subsequently, the spiritual crisis he had to endure compels him to abandon the profession of rhetoric as being irreconcilable with his immersion in Christianity. In the last three books in Confessions, we find the emergence of Augustine as an interpreter of the concealed meanings in Biblical narratives. So the idea of language is a theme that runs prominently through the verbal fabric of Confessions.

The Confessions is a work of literature and hence the centrality of language as an organizing power. Going beyond that, Augustine subscribed to a specific notion of language as a determinant in human affairs. The ways in which he sought to enlarge the expressive powers of language through the deployment of metaphor, paradox, irony and satire merit close consideration. These diverse aspects of Augustine’s linguistic imagination come together in his writings to form a complex unity. Language, according to Augustine, is a gift of God to human beings and hence it is of the utmost importance that human beings use it in the dignified way that it deserves. Throughout the text one comes across statements such as the following that underline his approach to and understanding of, language. ‘Allow me to speak, since it is to your mercy that I speak.’

Gift

The understanding that language is a gift from God, to my mind, can be parsed in diverse ways. If language is a gift from God, it should be dynamic, pleasurable, wholesome and a promoter of human happiness. It is a signifier of positive action. The flip side of this is that the deprivation and withholding of language would inevitably lead to pain anxiety and suffering. Language should never be enjoyed as an end itself; it should always be deployed pleasurably as a bridge towards God.

In the Confessions, Augustine uses language in a way that dispels the sins covered by silence. If language is a gift from god, it can promote intellectual advancement and moral imagination. For example in the following passage, language and friendship are interlaced in interesting ways; through the pleasures of friendship and language he was able to survive the devastating death of an unnamed friend. ;speaking together, laughing together, reading sweet-speaking books together, - by these and other such signs which come from the hearts that love and love again, through the face, the tongue, the eyes….’

Another very important implication of the idea that language is a gift from god to human beings, according to Augustine, is that language provides a useful space in which to ponder the divine. This idea runs through the text like leitmotif.

For example, in book 9, the author re-tells how he and his mother once shared a spiritual experience that was ecstatic in nature. ‘so we spoke alone together, very sweetly,…and we began to ascend inwardly still further, meditating and speaking and marveling at your works, and we came to our own minds and transcended them to attain the land of unfailing richness….and while we spoke and longed for that country, we attained it, in our degree, for a whole heartbeat. ’The outward conversation between Augustine and his mother exemplifies the inner truths they have heartbeat from god. What we see here, then, is how human language becomes a space for the contemplation and experience of the divine.

Density

The inwardness, the religious density, the moral purposiveness that characterizes Augustine’s approach to language can be seen in the poems in the Therigatha as well. However, there is a significant difference. In the case of the Confessions, language is a gift from God and it points to the power and glory of God. In the case of the Therigatha, language is seen as a social compact that promotes its own internal exploration.

Language assumes the task of self-exploration, self-interrogation and self-reflexivity. Rather than turning outward towards a superior being it turns inwards towards the exploitation of its own resources for spiritual growth. It is not the relationship between god and the created universe, as in the case of confessions, that interest the authors of the poems in the Therigatha, but the power and possibilities of one’s own inner richness

Another important aspect of that merits sustained study is the relation between language and authority. According to Augustine language signifies the submission to authority. The idea of authority, and the willing submission to it is a central pillar in edifice of thinking. This idea, to be sure, has had a long history in Latin intellectual traditions. In another text Augustine asked the question what is well-constructed speech but the maintenance of someone else’s custom, reinforced by the authority of the speaker.

Augustine sees authority as a benevolent and creative force. That is why he paid particular attention to Christian scriptures as embodying this benevolent authority. The way Augustine presented his case, the authority of language rests not only on the fame and recognition of the authorities but also on the appreciation of the worth of language in society. Earlier styles of speech are allowed not only because of the prestige attached to them but also because language has provided its efficacy as a social force and a giver of pleasure. It is through this mode of reasoning that Augustine invests language with the imprimatur of divinity.

Model

When we examine the poems in the Therigatha, a different model of language and authority emerges; it is one that is consistent with the Buddhist attitude to language. According to Buddhist thinking, language has to be understood as a social practice inflected by conventions and agreed upon rues and regulations by the people who employ it. What this means is that language is not divinely-ordained and iron-clad, as some in both the East and West have argued, and that its movements and forward trajectories are shaped by conventions. In Buddhist literature there are copious references to agreement among users (sammuti), the practices of users (vohara), therefore, the idea that language is a social product is central to the Buddhist understanding of linguistic communication.

When we pause to investigate into the early discourses of Buddhism, we can identify five crucial concepts that ate the mainstay in discussions on language. They are etymology ( nirutti), generality (samanna), usage (vohara), consensus ( sammuti) and conceptuality (pannatti). The ideas of etymology and generality, to be sure, were current at the time. However, the Buddha, unlike some of his contemporary thinkers, was not obsessed with them; he did not reify them in the way that the others did.

His attention was directed more intently on ideas of usage convention and conceptuality because they enabled him to call attention to the idea of language as a social institution and social practice that responds to changing social and cultural circumstances. It is evident, therefore, that the Buddhist attitude to language is very different from that privileged by Augustine.

It is indeed this attitude to language endorsed by Buddhism that activates the poems in the Therigatha. In other words, when we examine the poetic texts that constitute the Therigatha we need to keep in mind this idea of language as a social product which the nuns were quick to combine with their cherished notion of language as a moral resource.

Feature

One feature that both Augustine’s Confessions and the Therigatha share in common is that both sets of texts encourage us to read them as triumphant statements of overcoming sin and valorizing the exemplary path of righteousness. The days of trials and tribulations and sinful behavior are behind them; it is in the light of present clear wisdom that the past is recounted and held up for public scrutiny. The elimination of sin, and the realization of the true path to spiritual growth become the conditions of possibility for the production of both sets of texts. This stance, both texts share and are keen to demonstrate. However, there is a significance difference underlying their respective approaches.

In the Confessions by Augustine, the importance of the conversion to Christianity and the establishment of the power and grace of God are highly significant. Indeed, the story of the Confessions is in many ways the story of God. It is a confession of past sins as well as a confession of faith in divine grace. As I stated earlier Confessions by Augustine is structured as a prayer to God.

When we examine it as a literary text what emerges strongly is the fact that the addressee of the text is God himself. The readers are onlookers of this important event. On the contrary, in the case of the confessional poems by the Buddhist nuns the poems are addressed to the discriminating readers. They are the chosen addressees. This difference has great implications for the understanding of the distinctive natures of the two sets of texts.

Drama

In the Confessions the drama that is enacted takes place between the author Augustine and God; it is God who is addressed directly and praised profusely. In the case of the Therigatha it is the reader who is directly involved with an interaction worth the nuns who happen to be poets. The nuns seek to explain the realized truth and the hardships they had to overcome in order to achieve their current state of supreme inner calm. This method of approach is in keeping with the essential Buddhist outlook which stipulates that one has to work out one’s salvation through diligence and critical engagement.

The second text that I wish to allude to briefly is Jean-Jacques Rousseau’s (1712- 1778) the confessions. If Augustine’s Confessions was the first autobiography, Rousseau’s Confessions is the first modern autobiography. Rousseau drew on Augustine’s work while responding in his own idiosyncratic to some of the ideas contained in .

This book deals with the first fifty three years of his life; with utmost candor and honesty, he sought to reveal the inner truth about himself.

His efforts resulted in a masterpiece that has exercised a profound influence on the world. Writers such as Goethe, Tolstoy, Proust and Gide were influenced by it. What is interesting about Rousseau’s Confessions is that it seeks to focus on the inner experience of himself not in terms of the divine gaze, as in Augustine’s work, but in relation to the essence of nature; in other words, a different conceptual framework is in place in this text. The idea of natural being is central to Rousseau’s mode of thinking. The opening passages of this work signify its intentions as well as its preferred pathway of analysis.

‘I have resolved on an enterprise which has no precedent, and which, once complete, will have no imitator. My purpose is to display to my kind a portrait in every way true to nature, and the man I shall portray will be myself.

Simply myself. I know my own heart and understand my fellow man. But I am made unlike any one I have ever met; I will even venture to say that I am like no one in the whole world. I may be no better, but al least I am different. Whether nature did well or ill in breaking the mould in which she formed me, is a question which can only be resolved after the reading of my book.’ Rousseau regarded him as a Christian but the establishment thought otherwise.

Light

The two texts, Augustine’s Confessions and Rousseau’s Confessions throw interesting light on the distinctiveness of the Therigatha. On the one hand, Augustine’s work and the Therigatha are confessional self-narratives that operate within an identifiable religious framework, and that religious framework serves to highlight the essence of the verbal fabric and the structure of the narrative.

The reason for writing their texts is to establish the significance of the true religious path that they had selected for themselves. Rousseau’s Confessions presents us with a different set of priorities. Rousseau who focuses on the idea of the inner self does not see the need for saints for whom the divine gaze is supremely important. For him, society needs solitaries who are able to stand apart from the rush of society. As he remarked, ‘I want to show to my fellow men a man in all the truth of nature; and this man will be myself. Myself alone.’

Augustine’s Confessions can be regarded as a portrait of the author and a portrait of the god in productive interaction. The central question that Rousseau seeks to answer in his work is the nature of human beings and the importance of probing into the solitary inner self.

Augustine’s work is a prayer to God, while Rousseau’s work is a conversation with the reader in which he seeks to uncover his deeper troubled self. As he remarks, ‘The single object of my confession is to make known exactly my interior in all the situations of my life. It is the history of my soul that I have promised, and in order to write it faithfully, ….it is sufficient for me, as I have done until now, to re-enter inside myself.’.

So, there is a clear similarity between Augustine’s Confessions and the Therigatha in that both contain a clear religious framework within which the literary text needs to be situated. This is absent in Rousseau’s work. On the other hand, Rousseau’s Confessions share an important feature with the Therigatha in that both place a high premium on the active participation and critical engagement of the reader.

This is absent in Augustine’s work. Both in Rousseau’s Confessions and in the Therigatha, the poetic texts are addressed to the discerning reader, while Augustine’s prayer is addressed to God. Rousseau, in his self-narrative, places a great responsibility on the readers. He addresses them, positions them as intelligent and critical interlocutors. He sought to establish a contract between the narrator and narratee within the internal organisation of the narrative. Through a variety of representational devices Rousseau aimed to establish common ground, create a common space between the author and the readers.

Reader

Modern literary theorists refer to the narratee that I alluded to earlier as the inscribed reader. This inscribed reader plays a central role in Rousseau’s text. As one commentator has asserted, ‘In Rousseau’s Confessions, the inscribed reader, the audience within, become as important as a meaning-producing element as the Rousseau’s book divisions or the temporal organisation of the text’. What is interesting about many of the poems collected in the Therigatha is that they too place a great emphasis on the role of the inscribed reader.

The poems are presented as means of edification to these inscribed readers so that they can realise for themselves the significance of the path to truth and spiritual wisdom uncovered by the nuns. This is indeed an important similarity between Rousseau’s Confessions and the Therigatha.

What I have sought to do in this column, then, is to select two of the outstanding confessional narratives from Western culture and examine the points of convergence and divergence between them and the Therigatha as a way of enforcing and demonstrating the distinctiveness of the Therigatha.

(To be continued)