The Buddhist avadanas comprise a body of literature of enormous extent. Found in rudimentary form in the sutragamas, by the early centuries of the Common Era, they began to circulate as independent narratives. The Theravadin school incorporated them into their commentaries (afthakathas) on the pitakas. Other schools, such as the Sarvastivadins, included them in their Vinaya. Thousands of Sanskrit avadanas are extant in manuscript collections, but most remain unedited and untranslated. Yet considerable evidence attests to their popularity over a period of several centuries. The Pur~avadana is one of half a dozen avadanas found in all the extant recensions of the Divyavadana. Moreover, it is one of only two avadanas which invariably occurs in the same place (as the second story) in all the recensions. The Purna-story is also found in the Tibetan translation of the Mulasarvastivadin Vinaya, in a number of versions in the Pali commentaries, and elsewhere. The principle aims of this thesis are twofold: (1) to provide for the first time an English translation of the Purnavadana; and (2) demonstrate, through a 'close reading' of the text, the validity of literary analysis as an approach to the study of the avadana-literature.
Literary analysis has become increasingly important in the study of Biblical narrative. However, studies of Buddhist narrative have remained largely historical and text-critical. In studying the Purnavadana, my working assumption is that the fullest understanding of the text as a religious document is dependent upon fully comprehending how it functions as a literary work. This requires analysis of narrative point-of-view, allegorical elements, patterns of imagery, dialogue, irony, diction, narrative analogy, 'type-scenes', and other literary strategies. At the same time, I recognize that in order to be correctly interpreted, a text requires a context, and in Parts I-III as well as in the annotations to the translation I have provided necessary historical, philological, generic and doctrinal information. The avadana-literature is the largest corpus of Buddhist Sanskrit texts available to us. It is also one of the more extensive bodies of ancient Indian story-literature. The avadanas were widely disseminated and presented people with foci for piety and ritual, educated them in the doctrine, provided models for personal conduct, depicted paradigmatic forms of religious practice, served to authenticate local Dharma traditions, celebrated important figures in the tradition, and, last but not least, entertained. This study points to a new direction in Buddhist textual studies, for a considerable proportion of Buddhist literature is narrative of one sort or another, and much can be learned by adopting a literary approach to the study of a variety of Buddhist texts, canonical and noncanonical. / Thesis / Master of Arts (MA)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:mcmaster.ca/oai:macsphere.mcmaster.ca:11375/15819 |
| Date | 09 1900 |
| Creators | Tatelman, Joel Howard |
| Contributors | Granoff, Dr. P, Religious Studies |
| Source Sets | McMaster University |
| Language | en_US |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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