The Glorious Deeds of Purna by Joel Tatelman

Author:Joel Tatelman [Tatelman, Joel]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781138862326
Google: 0VHRrQEACAAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2015-02-27T04:56:16+00:00

The Discourse on the Exhortation of Pūrṇa

The aforementioned verse states that Pūrṇa “instantly attained tranquillity of the senses and thus remained by the will of the Buddha” (p. 60) – that is, through exercise of the Buddha’s psychic powers. Although the next episode occurs “some time later,” the narrator’s notice of this event is still fresh in the mind of the audience as the ‘Pūrṇāvavāda Sūtra’ unfolds. Having been treated to a taste of higher consciousness through this external agency, Pūrṇa now receives personal instruction from the Buddha in restraint of the senses. To adapt the old Chinese proverb, the Buddha has given Pūrṇa a fish and now, at Pūrṇa’s request, he’s going to teach him to fish for himself. Here ‘fishing’ stands for the mental cultivation that begins with freeing awareness from dependence upon the senses and ends with Awakening.

As we have seen (pp. 14–16, 60–63), the description of Pūrṇa’s instruction by the Buddha and the subsequent account of the former’s return to Śroṇāparāntaka (pp. 63ff) are in fact Mūlasarvāstivādin recensions of the better-known Theravādin texts, the Puṇṇovāda-sutta and Puṇṇa-sutta.26 While the second half of the Pūrṇāvadāna abounds in stereotyped phrases and passages taken from canonical sources, this episode, placed squarely in the middle of the narrative, functions as its ‘canonical core,’ validating, for readers mindful of the scriptural tradition, the story as a whole. And in terms of textual history, this sūtra bears the same relation to the rest of the Pūrṇāvadāna as the Pāli Puṇṇovāda-sutta does to the Puṇṇovādasutta-vaṇṇanā, its commentary.27

However, what is important for our purposes is that this episode, taken more or less verbatim from the canon, functions as an integral part of the narrative. The dialogue naturally divides into two parts: in the first (pp. 60–62), Pūrṇa receives instruction in non-attachment to sensory experience as a primary method of attaining Nirvāṇa; in the second (pp. 62–63), the Buddha tests the extent to which his disciple has developed the quality of patient forebearance (kṣānti) and finding this sufficiently well developed, permits him to return from Śrāvastī to his native land, where his success as a missionary is dramatized (pp. 63–64).

We may infer that at the time of his interview with the Buddha, Pūrṇa has been training in accordance with the Doctrine and the Discipline for some time. That he considers himself ready for a comprehensive teaching that will enable him to attain to the highest goal (arhatship) is made clear in his initial address to his teacher (p. 60):

“Well would it be for me if the Lord were to concisely expound the Dharma such that, having heard from the Lord the Dharma thus concisely expounded, I might abide alone, secluded, attentive, ardent, and self-controlled. That for the sake of which sons of good family cut off hair and beard, don yellow garments and with right faith go forth from home into homelessness – in this very life and by my own efforts may I know, realize and attain that supreme end of the holy life

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