Symbolism in the teaching of the Buddha

by Sarath LEWKE BANDARA

The birth stories Jataka Katha said to be a collection of various episodes in the life of the Bodhisathva in his previous births have been orally handed down from generation to generation and finally reduced to writing in the Sinhala language. The stories are part and parcel of the various Suttas and have been held to be the word of the Thathagatha.

The style and presentation of the Dhamma by the Thathagatha is multifaceted and deep in meaning. He frequently used similes, metaphors, parables and Jathaka stories to illustrate by means of these symbols the Four Noble Truths for which the mere use of words was found to be insufficient and inadequate.

The story in its outward form would appear to be a fictional account with unrealistic and improbable happenings. This would apply to several other stories attributed to the teaching of the Thathagatha and said to have occurred during His life-time, like the story of Patachara, Suneetha and even certain episodes relating to the life of Prince Siddhartha like the story of the Great Emancipation and the Four Great omens.

The Thathagatha was by no means a storyteller or narrator of fiction intended to entertain by the mere story value of these accounts. In fact, in the Buddhist way of life the recounting of fictional accounts is one of the prohibited modes of conduct for those observing the Higher Precepts. Thus, be it a Jataka story or be it any other episode in Buddhist literature the seeker after truth will look at it in the light of the Buddha's teaching which He summed up as, “Only one thing I teach, O! Bhikkhus, sorrow and its extinction.

Sentient body

The Buddha also said, “Within this fathom-long sentient body itself, I postulate the world, the arising of the world, the cessation of the world and path leading to the cessation of the world,” This means that the Four Noble Truths are to be found within the Five Aggregates, namely an aid to help us to realise this Truth.

The Thathagatha is not a saviour but One who having found the path has shown us the Path. No one can make another reach or realise Nibbana. However, by listening to the dhamma, which the Buddha Himself said is very rare, (Saddammo Parama Dullabo) the seeker after truth could help himself attain the goal of emancipation.

To this end all dogmatic attitudes towards the Dhamma have to be abandoned. Thus mere pronouncements regarding suffering and its extinction or repetitive chanting or committing to memory of the Pitakas cannot by themselves help reach this goal. Each individual on his own should make a genuine an uninhibited attempt to unravel the symbols used in the Buddha's teachings to achieve the Goal of Self emancipation.

With the development of penetrative wisdom each of us must equip ourselves to seek the truth enshrined in the words of the Dhamma, be it with reference to a story or parable involving men, places and events which are symbolic. All words are in the final analysis mere conceptualisations just as much as all phenomenon are conceptualisations.

To develop this penetrative wisdom the non-dogmatic approach towards the Dhamma is of vital importance. In the Kalama Sutta, the Buddha taught in no uncertain terms that He eschewed dogmatism of every description. He spoke to the Kalamas thus: “Now look, you Kalamas, do not be led by reports or tradition or hearsay.

Be not led by the authority of religious texts nor by mere logic or inference nor by considering appearances nor by the delight in speculative opinions nor by seeming possibilities by the idea, ‘This is our teacher'. But O! Kalamas, when you know for yourselves that certain things are unwholesome and bad then give them up and when you know for yourself that certain things are wholesome, and good, then accept them and follow them”.

In the Vimansaka Sutta in the Majjima Nikaya, the Buddha told the Bhikkhus that the disciple should examine even the Thathagatha himself so that he might be fully convinced of the true values of the teacher he followed.

Articles of faith

There are no articles of faith in the Buddha's teachings. The Thathagatha compared the Dhamma itself to a raft, illustrating the relative and pragmatic value of the Dhamma. The raft is improvsied out of the stray twigs and branches growing on the hither bank. By merely boarding the raft, by clutching at it, by decorating it with more twigs and branches one does not arrive at the further bank. One has to courageously apply and exert oneself having embarked for the beyond and has to gradually cross over with the aid of the raft. Once he has reached the further bank, he has to disembark and disown the raft. He might out of compassion instruct those living on the hither bank as to how they should build similar raft for themselves.

Similarly the Dhamma which constitutes the theoretical content of Samma Ditti (right view) is improvised out of the medium of language and logic in worldly parlance. By merely mastering it by dogmatically clinging to it, by clothing it with more concepts one does not reach the goal. One has to exert oneself having mastered the Dhamma to attain Nibbana. The truth-value of the Dhamma has its validity from the worldly point of view as it is presented through the media familiar to him. It is in this context that the Thathagatha's use of the simile, metaphor, parable and story becomes very relavant and appropriate.

The simile of the raft demonstrates that the truth-value of the Dhamma or Samma-Ditti (right view) pertains to the path and it is essentially the view of the goal but not the goal itself. The goal itself transcends the world of concepts and word being concepts cannot describe it.

Thus, the Dhamma presented in the form of simile, metaphor, parable, or story, or even as an episode in the life of Prince Siddhartha or the Thathagatha Himself, are all aids to obtain a view of the goal presented in worldly parlance. The Budhha drew from worldly usages, conventional signs and symbols in common use and treated all of them as conventional (sammuthi). It is up to the seeker after the truth to penetrate or unravel these signs and symbols with his penetrative wisdom and thereby see the goal.

Worldly concept

Thus, it would appear that there cannot exist a rigid dichotomy, between the conventional (sammuthi) and the ultimate (paramatta) from the point of view of the Dhamma, for the ultimate or the goal is what one achieves when one penetrates the shell of the conventional which is beyond the realm of concepts. To try to describe the ultimate by means of concepts is a vain attempt to describe that which cannot be described by worldly concepts.

Structure

The wording clings on to the conventional or conceptual structure (sammuthi) as reality due to craving (thanha), conceit (mana) and views (Ditthi). The ultimate goal (paramatta) is nothing, but the realisation that this concept in reality is sustained by craving, conceit and views which are but three aspects of the ego -consciousness.

The Thathagatha's non-dogmatic attitude towards the Dhamma also found expression in His non-dogmatic and non-extremist attitude towards the linguistic media for the mastering, teaching or disseminating the Dhamma. During His lifetime an attempt was made to preserve the Thathagatha's teaching in the original words lest His words would be corrupted by those learning the Dhamma in other dialects.

This attempt by some Bhikkhus was not approved by the Thathagatha and He specially permitted the study of the Dhamma in one's own language.

Dialect

In this context it is relevant to examine the media in which the Dhamma was disseminated in Sri Lanka. The Buddha is believed to have visited this land three times, and or every such occasion thousands of local inhabitants were put on the path of emancipation. This could not have been possible unless the dialect that was prevalent in Sri Lanka at the time was the same as or similar to the tongue in which the Buddha spoke.

The earliest inscriptions in this country are in the Brahmi script which is the same as found in the Ashoka inscriptions. The modern Sinhala alphabet is a logical evolution of the same script. It is certain that the dialect prevalent in Sri Lanka before the advent of Arahat Mahinda was very much similar to that prevailing in that part of Buddhist India.

This explains how the Missionary Mahinda could initiate such highly intellectual dialogue with the local King on day one of his arrival and how such highly complex Suttas were preached to thousands of local inhabitants and how they grasped the essence of the Suttas and achieved stages of emancipation.

Although there is no inscriptional evidence to ascertain with certainty what language was spoken by Vijaya and his followers it would appear to be a language very close to the Magadhi dialect. It was the close affinity of that language to that spoken by the local inhabitants that enabled some two centuries later the Indian missionaries to translate the Pali commentaries to Sinhala and Pali words pertaining to the Dhamma becoming part and parcel of the Sinhala language.

The stories appearing in Buddhist literature have ratained their external story form from their inception up-to-date in the course of their being handed down from generation to generation. The conventional stories with its characters, incidents, place names, and names of men and women have not lost their original form.

This presentation of the original structure of these stories is indeed very salutary because the essential truth-value of the Dhamma enshrined in the sorties have remained intact as a result. It is like a delicate and priceless treasure being securely packed in an intricate and complex packaging. The seeker after truth should be able to carefully remove the packing with his penetrative wisdom and take out the priceless treasure of the Dhamma.

Although the outward packing can have certain sundry uses, the precious treasure of the Dhamma enshrined in the story is what is sought and valued by the seeker after truth.

What is done today is the admiration of the outward packaging and crude utilisation of the superficial story value to entertain the public by dramatising them and using them to illustrate Vesak pandals. Thus the conventional or Sammuthi aspect of the stories and episodes in Buddhist literature emphasized at the expense of the sublime Dhamma value being lost for ever.

As a matter of fact the Thatagatha specifically unravelled the true vale of the Dhamma enshrined in some of these accounts by indicating at the end of the Sutta the key to the symbolism in the story like in the Ratha Veneetha Vammika and Asivisopana Suttas. But the rest of the vast repertoire of Buddhist literature is open and available to the seeker after truth to apply his penetrative wisdom to see for Himself the Truth enshrined therein by which process alone could he reach the goal.

It is like a book of mathematical problems where a few examples are worked out for the student's guidance, but the rest has to be worked out by the student himself if he is ever to achieve the goal which he alone will have to see. As the Thathagatha stated, “One alone is one's own saviour”.