Tibetan and Himalayan Library - THL

Description: Creator’s Description: Ajātaśatru is famous in Buddhist literature for having killed his
father, Bimbisāra, in order to come to the throne. This study traces
the development of this story in Indian, Chinese and Japanese sources,
from canonical Mainstream Buddhism to the modern era. Over the course
of that long history, this story was transformed many times, a process
that culminated in perhaps the most startling transformation of all –
the elaboration of the modern psychoanalytic theory of a psychological
complex named after Ajātaśatru by Kosawa Heisaku and Okonogi Keigo
(the "Ajase Complex"), and the attendant reinvention of Ajātaśatru as
"Ajase". Particular attention is given in this study to connecting
transformations in the Ajātaśatru narrative to features of the
cultural context at two key junctures in its history – in China in the
fifth and sixth centuries, and in modern Japan. The study is also
presented as an attempt to model ways of using narrative materials as
windows into the historical Buddhist worlds they traveled through, and
that shaped them. Another dimension of the study that should be of
particular interests to Buddhologists is the links between certain
texts in Buddhist literature revealed by the narrative and its
transformations, particularly among members of a group of texts
related to the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra. More generally, the
book should be relevant to readers in Buddhist Studies, medieval
Chinese studies, Japanese cultural studies, and psychoanalytic theory
and its history.

Table of Contents: Acknowledgements
Abbreviations
Chapter One. Introduction: How an Ancient Indian Patricide Usurper Turned into a Modern Japanese Mummy's boy
Chapter Two. Ajātaśatru in India: The Drama Begins to Take Shape
Chapter Three. Between India and China: The Mahāparinirvāṇa and Contemplation sūtras
Chapter Four. The Making of the Chinese Ajātaśatru
Chapter Five. Chasing the White Rabbit: New Twists on Ajātaśatru in Medieval China
Chapter Six. Shinran and the "Rootless Faith": Ajātaśatru in Kamakura Japan
Chapter Seven. Ajātaśatru Meets Snow White: Between Shinran and Japanese Modernity
Chapter Eight. Ajātaśatru Meets Freud: Kosawa and Okonogi's "Ajase"
Chapter Nine. The Making of the Japanese "Ajase"
Chapter Ten. Conclusions: How Stories Have Been Told in Buddhist History, and What We Can Learn from Them
Appendix 1. Primary sources of the Ajātaśatru narrative
Appendix 2. Further exploits of Ajātaśatru in other texts
Appendix 3. The many names of Ajātaśatru
Appendix 4. The Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra and the Mūlasarvâsativāda vinaya: Hidden links between India and China
Appendix 5. The close affinity of the Mahāparinirvāṇa sūtra with the *Ekottarikâgama
Appendix 6. A cluster of stories as further evidence of links between MPNS and Sarvâstivāda sources
Bibliography
Index