Har Dayal (1932/1970, 43) explains that “Gautama Buddha speaks of himself as a bodhisatta, when he refers to the time before the attainment of Enlightenment. This seems to be the earliest signification of the word. It was applied to Gautama Buddha as he was in his last earthly life.”
When employed in this usage, the term “bodhisattva” mainly conveys the idea of Śākyamuni having gone forth in quest of awakening, without any explicit relationship to the compassionate wish to benefit others. At least in Āgama thought, his compassion does not feature as the motivational force leading to his awakening but much rather comes to the fore with his teaching activities once he had become a Buddha. The perspective that emerges in this way aligns with the stage of the bodhisattva ideal evident in the Perfection of Wisdom, where compassion has not yet reached the eminent position that it eventually was to acquire.
A Pāli discourse and its Chinese parallel explicitly depict the nature of Śākyamuni’s motivation. This can best be illustrated with the following two excerpts taken from the Chinese version, the first of which concerns his aspiration to set out on the path to awakening and the second his report of having successfully reached awakening:
Formerly, when I had not yet awakened to supreme, complete
awakening, I thought also like this: “I am actually subject to
disease myself, and I naively seek for what is subject to disease; I
am actually subject to aging, subject to death, subject to worry
and sadness, subject to defilement myself, and I naively seek
for what is subject to defilement. What if I now rather seek for
the supreme peace of Nirvana, which is free from disease, seek
for the supreme peace of Nirvana, which is free from aging,
free from death, free from worry and sadness, and free from
defilement?”
Seeking for the supreme peace of Nirvana, which is free from
disease, I in turn attained the supreme peace of Nirvana, which
is free from disease. Seeking for the supreme peace of Nirvana,
which is free from aging, free from death, free from worry
and sadness, and free from defilement, I in turn attained the
supreme peace of Nirvana, which is free from aging, free from
death, free from worry and sadness, and free from defilement.
Arousing knowledge, arousing vision, I was concentrated on
the qualities pertinent to awakening. I knew as it really is that
birth has been extinguished, the holy life has been established,
what had to be done has been done, and there will be no experiencing
of a further existence.
"Śākyamuni’s motivation to set out in quest of awakening was to liberate himself."
The Pāli version proceeds similarly, differing insofar as it does not refer to the qualities “pertinent to awakening” (bodhipākṣika). It additionally mentions the condition of being subject to birth alongside the predicaments of disease, aging, death, etc. Apart from such minor variations, however, the two parallels concord that Śākyamuni’s motivation to set out in quest of awakening was to liberate himself.
The term “bodhisattva” in this usage would be applicable to Śākyamuni mainly for the narrative period between the first and the second of the two excerpts translated above, that is, from his going forth to his actual awakening. Yet, already in Āgama literature a broadening in the scope of meaning of the term can be discerned. Relevant to this broadening is the circumstance that, in order to refer to him before he went forth, the alternative possibility of using the name Gautama was clearly not considered appropriate. Āgama literature shows the employment of this name to be characteristic of non- Buddhists, in contrast to his disciples, who prefer to refer to him by an honorific epithet like “Blessed One” (bhagavat). In fact, a Pāli discourse and parallels in Sanskrit and Chinese report that the recently awakened Buddha explicitly told those who were to become his first disciples that they should not address him by his name, Gautama. This procedure concords with an apparent general reluctance in the ancient setting to refer to a respected person by their name.
Since at this stage in the evolution of Buddhist thought there was only a single bodhisattva—the Buddha Śākyamuni during the time of his quest for awakening—it would in a way be natural to extend the usage of the expression “the bodhisattva” to the time of his life preceding his going forth. An example in case can be seen in the Buddha’s report that his mother passed away soon after his birth. In a Pāli discourse depicting various marvels related to the Buddha, this takes the following form: “Seven days after the bodhisattva has been born, Ānanda, the mother of the bodhisattva passes away and arises in the Tuṣita Heaven.” In this way, the Buddha here refers to himself as “the bodhisattva.”
Notably, this discourse proceeds further, as it also covers Śākyamuni’s previous life in Tuṣita. The Buddha reports, in obvious reference to himself, that “the bodhisattva” was born in Tuṣita, stayed there, and passed away from there endowed with mindfulness and clear comprehension. The Chinese parallel does not mention the death of the mother at all; in relation to Śākyamuni’s previous life in Tuṣita, it does not use the term “bodhisattva.” The significant contribution made by these Pāli passages appears to be that they extend the meaning of the term “bodhisattva” to comprise the period of Śākyamuni’s life prior to his going forth, even to the extent of including his former life in the Tuṣita realm.
Another and similarly significant extension in meaning of the term “bodhisattva” can be seen in a discourse dedicated to providing details of the lineage of six previous Buddhas that according to the traditional account preceded Śākyamuni; the first of these is Vipaśyin and the last Kāśyapa. The Pāli discourses and their parallels (leaving aside the Ekottarikāgama) only know these six predecessors. With later tradition, the listing expands considerably and comes to comprise various other previous Buddhas, among them also Dīpaṃkara (see below p. 93).
"The generic concept of a bodhisattva emerges."
Although the set of six previous Buddhas must be comparatively early, the descriptions given in the relevant discourse are the result of some developments, based on incorporating textual material from the other discourse, just mentioned above, which depicts various marvels of the Buddha Śākyamuni. In a way such borrowing of portions of text is only natural, since the depiction of the lineage of Buddhas provides a template for central events that are believed to happen in the same basic manner in the lives of different Buddhas. Hence, to rely on descriptions of the Buddha Śākyamuni in another discourse to provide more details to flesh out this template is an obvious choice. As a result, the parts of the Pāli discourse on former Buddhas that appears to incorporate textual material from the depiction of marvels naturally use the term “bodhisattva” that is already found in this depiction. However, in its new context, the term now refers to the former Buddha Vipaśyin. This usage contrasts with a subsequent part of the same discourse, which instead speaks of him as the “prince” Vipaśyin. This change of terminology confirms the impression that an incorporation of textual material has taken place, and this has not been appropriately adjusted to its context. This could have been done by using the term “bodhisattva” continuously from then on or else by replacing occurrences of the term “bodhisattva” with the term “prince.”
As far as the term “bodhisattva” is concerned, its application to Vipaśyin significantly broadens its compass, as the term now refers no longer only to Śākyamuni but also to previous Buddhas during the time before their awakening. The bodhisattva has become a bodhisattva. Combined with the extension of the term to comprise not only the youth of a Buddha-to-be before going forth but even a past life, the generic concept of a bodhisattva emerges.
The above developments would in turn have set the stage for subsequent evolutions in meaning of the term “bodhisattva.” This applies not only to the Perfection of Wisdom and other early Mahāyāna texts but also to later texts in the Pāli tradition, which I examine next. My discussion in what follows thereby moves beyond the general parameters of my exploration of the Perfection of Wisdom from the viewpoint of Āgama literature, to which I will return in the remainder of this chapter. At the present juncture, however, so as to enable an appreciation of the pan-Buddhist relevance of the bodhisattva ideal, I believe it is warranted to allow for a short diversion by taking a look at how this ideal evolved in later Pāli texts and influenced living Theravāda traditions. Readers less interested in this exploration may prefer to shift directly to the next section (p. 22) on the roles of “Śāriputra and Subhūti” in the Perfection of Wisdom.
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See the formative years of Mahayana Buddhist literature through the lens of the Perfection of Wisdom, expertly analyzed by the venerable scholar-monk Bhikkhu Analayo. In this work we have a rare perspective on the early history of Mahayana Buddhism and the Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita), as far as this is still accessible in surviving texts. With his characteristic clarity and precision, Bhikkhu Analayo critically analyzes early Perfection of Wisdom literature based on the earliest extant versions of the Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita, or the Perfection of Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines, one in Chinese and the other in Gandhari—one of the oldest surviving Mahayana manuscripts discovered to date. In reading this text from the viewpoint of early Buddhist literature, the author shows that what has generally been considered a sharp rupture in the formation of the Mahayana turns out to be more of a gradual evolution.
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