Virtue and relationships in a Theravadin biography of the Bodhisatta: A study of the "Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakimahanidana".

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This thesis examines the vision of the Bodhisatta Gotama's career described in the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakīmahānidāna </italic> (<italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī</italic>), a Pāli work known in the medieval Theravādin world. My study of the <italic> Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī</italic> focuses upon the ethical dimensions of predictions, <italic>vyākaran&dotbelow;a,</italic> and the significance of relationships in the ethical development of the Bodhisatta.
Chapters one and two of this thesis explore the earliest stages of the bodhisatta career described in the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī's </italic> extended biography. In chapter one, I investigate the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī's </italic> vision of how a person becomes a bodhisatta and is thereby transformed from an ordinary person with ethical failings to a being who comes to exemplify extraordinary virtues as he evolves into a bodhisatta. I demonstrate that the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī</italic> imagines this to be a relational rather than a solitary process. That is, the Bodhisatta can only advance on the bodhisatta path through the help of a network of other beings who support his development in various ways.
Chapter two examines the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī's </italic> elaboration of the prediction of buddhahood by the addition of several preliminary predictions in the extended biography. I consider how the preliminary predictions create the opportunity for the Bodhisatta to enter into particular relationships with multiple Buddhas during the course of his development as a bodhisatta. It is in the context of these relationships that the Bodhisatta's identity as a buddha, the Buddha Gotama, begins to be formulated.
In chapter three I consider how to read the anthologized elements quoted in the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī</italic> as a part of the total narrative created by this text. Even though the <italic>Buddhavam&dotbelow;sa </italic> is quoted without substantial alterations or direct commentary, the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī</italic> substantially refashions how one reads and understands the <italic>Buddhavam&dotbelow;sa</italic> narrative by embedding it within the total expanded biography of the Bodhisatta. I demonstrate that, in the <italic>Sotat&dotbelow;t&dotbelow;hakī,</italic> one reads the <italic>Buddhavam&dotbelow;sa</italic> through the pre-Sumedha stories, highlighting the importance of relationships in the prediction events narrated in the <italic>Buddhavam&dotbelow;sa.</italic>.
Chapter four analyzes the kinds of relationships that are created by predictions. I argue that the predictions create three kinds of communities: communities of the self (the Bodhisatta's relationships with himself), communities of bodhisattas, and communities of ordinary beings (the Bodhisatta's relationships with the majority of all beings who do not take bodhisatta vows). Examining the Bodhisatta in the context of each of these communities, I demonstrate the constantly shifting hierarchies between these different ethical actors who participate in continuous exchanges of beneficence and reciprocity.