The Tale of King Udayana of Vatsa

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The Tale of King Udayana of Vatsa (Udayanavatsarājaparivartaḥ)

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Descriptionངོ་སྤྲོད།

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The Collection of Jewels (Mahāratnakūṭa) is an anthology which now includes forty-nine tales, also called assemblies, fourteen of which were independent texts at one time. The Collection of Jewels referred originally to the Kāśyapa assembly, which is one of the oldest discourses on Emptiness now accepted as Mahāyānist and incorporated as the forty-third assembly. This anthology of forty-nine tales, translated into Chinese by Bodhiruci of the T'ang dynasty between 706 and 713, approximately 600 years after the composition of the Kāśyapa assembly, is now collectively designated The Collection of Jewels. The original compilation of forty-nine texts may have taken place in either China or Central Asia.[53] Due to the diversity of texts incorporated in The Collection of Jewels, there was no single place of composition.
      The twenty-ninth tale or assembly is "The Tale of King Udayana of Vatsa."[54] King Udayana[55] of Kauśāmbi had two wives. His chief queen, Śyāmāvatī, was a devout Buddhist. His second queen, Anupamā Māgandika,[56] wanted to slander the chief queen because she was jealous. Due to Anupamā Māgandika's lying and flattery, King Udayana tried to kill Śyāmāvatī by shooting three arrows at her. Śyāmāvatī then entered concentration (samādhi) and forgave the king. Instead of injuring her, the three arrows remained suspended over the king's head. Astonished and perplexed, the king repented and went to see the Buddha to find out why women are evil. The Buddha explained that one must know man's evil ways before one can know woman's, but from the discourse which follows, women are viewed as a problem of insurmountable proportions.
      Ironically, although Śyāmāvatī in the following tale was the most innocent and holy character in the story, the Buddha is made to present a scathing indictment of all women by the author of this text. The king is a "straw man" for the monks who projected their own insecurities and weaknesses onto women, as will be evident in the following story. Relationships with women are generalized first as being evil and the source of suffering. One should enter into worthwhile relationships, which exclude those with women. Second, relationships with women draw energy away from valuable relationships with monks and Brahmans. Those who deal with women have misplaced values since they view their relationships with women as valuable rather than as corrupting the valuable. Third, relationships with women are all-consuming and preclude involvement in other relationships. Fourth, attraction toward women is extremely powerful and implies a natural force which draws men and women together only to end in destruction. The author vacillates between woman's deception as the cause for the strong attraction and helplessness of the male, on the one hand, and a man's desire for self-inflicted pain, on the other.
      Women are given tremendous power in "The Tale of King Udayana of Vatsa." They manipulate and confuse men with their powers of deception. Yet men's self-inflicted pain is somewhat contradictory in view of their victimization by women. The monk's jealousy becomes evident, especially in the passages in which women are depicted as powerful competitors for attracting potential followers to the Buddha's teaching. In "The Tale of King Udayana of Vatsa" we find a vituperative polemic against women which demonstrates a polarization of women on one side and the Buddha's Dharma on the other. For the monk, his situation demanded the exclusion of women in order to practice the rules of celibacy. His lifestyle has been projected on society at large in the following tale in which women and the desire to associate with them should be totally rejected. The severity of this "monkish" attitude and the one-sided nature of the rhetoric is especially noticeable when the author extols the benefits of filial piety but glosses over the duties to mother, sister, and wife in contrast to the compulsion to denigrate sexuality at all costs. (Paul, "Introduction to 'The Tale of Udayana of Vatsa' from The Collection of Jewels", 25–27)

Citation

Paul, Diana Y., trans. "The Tale of King Udayana of Vatsa (Udayanavatsarājaparivartaḥ)." In Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the Mahāyāna Tradition, 25–50. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press, 1985.

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1 Full translation of

Udayanavatsarājaparipṛcchānāmaparivarta [आर्योदयनवत्सराजपरिपृच्छानामपरिवर्त]. 'phags pa bad sa'i rgyal po 'char byed kyis zhus pa zhes bya ba'i le'u [འཕགས་པ་བད་སའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་འཆར་བྱེད་ཀྱིས་ཞུས་པ་ཞེས་བྱ་བའི་ལེའུ།]. [The Sūtra of the Questions of Udayana, King of Vatsa (84000)]. Translated by Jinamitra, Surendrabodhi, Ye shes sde, Bodhiruci, Fa-chü, Fa-t'ien. Kangyur, RKTSK 73 http://www.rkts.org/cat.php?id=73&typ=1.

Classical WorksAbout this item

Manipulated into a murderous rage by the jealous Queen Anupamā, King Udayana launches a barrage of arrows at Queen Śyāmāvatī. King Udayana is terrified when Queen Śyāmāvatī pays homage to the Buddha, cultivates loving kindness, and the arrows are repelled. Awestruck by such a spectacle and inspired by Queen Śyāmāvatī’s words of praise for the Buddha, King Udayana approaches the Buddha and requests a teaching on the inadequacies of women. The Buddha tells King Udayana that he must first understand his own faults and proceeds to deliver a discourse on the four faults of men, such as attachment to sense pleasures and failure to take care of elderly parents. The teaching is delivered with a plethora of analogies and striking imagery to turn the mind away from sensual desires. The work concludes with King Udayana giving up his weapons and going for refuge in the Three Jewels, filled with love for all beings. (Source: 84000)