Tales of India in Buddha Age in Konjaku monogatarishu

Abstract

The purpose of the study is to examine the image of India as “Buddha-land” in Konjaku monogatarishu (1120s). The influence of India, mediated through Korea and China, can be traced in Japan back to antiquity. Buddhism, to a large extent, remained an Indian teaching even in Chinese translations; thanks to it, the Japanese got a fragmented acquaintance with the Indian literature, sculpture and painting, music, and non- Buddhist philosophical teachings. In the late Heian era, although there still were no direct contacts between the Indian and Japanese Buddhists, and the ties of the Japanese Buddhists with the Chinese community were weakening, the information available to the Japanese about India, the homeland of the Buddha, was brought together, and a circle of legends, especially important for the Japanese monks and laity, was constructed. Such an attempt of consolidating information is undertaken in the first three scrolls of the first part of Konjaku. Their plots are taken from sutras widely known in the Buddhist world, from Chinese collections of Buddhist tales and from the diaries of Chinese pilgrims who visited India. All these stories are retold in Japanese, with abbreviations and additions. The stories reflect the main events in the life of Buddha Shakyamuni, which also represent the main milestones of the path that every Buddhist seeks to go, and the deeds of the Buddha’s disciples - the examples of how people can walk the same path in different ways. Other major themes here are the reward of happiness for good deeds and that of grief for evil deeds; and the relativity of any oppositions, such as wealth and poverty, wisdom and stupidity, good and evil. Konjaku does not contain a complete exposition of the Buddha legend. The selection of stories is subordinated to the task of showing the prehistory of the Buddhist community that took shape in Japan by the turn of the 11th - 12th centuries. This task is also pursued by the order of the stories and the method of their presentation, where a special attention is attracted to the motives of the Buddha’s family ties, the participation of deities in his life, the distribution of roles between his disciples, as well as the idea that the main provisions of the Mahayana teachings adopted in Japanese Buddhist schools are rooted in the Buddha epoch.