Panna or wisdom as the final stage

E P I L O G U E

We feel we would be failing in our obligation to the lay community if we do not include in this collection of parittas the one derived from the Angulimala Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya [ M. 111. 97 - 105 ]. Long before the initiation of worldwide movements like Women's Liberation and Feminist Activists, the Buddha appears to have felt the need to pay serious respect to the role the woman plays as mother of children. This was, of course, more than twenty-five centuries ago and was introduced to mankind in the eastern theatre of the world, namely India. To mistake this attitude as assignment to women of today's 'degraded position' of child-producing machines is both lamentable and criminally incorrect.

It comes from a much more to-be respected conservasionist attitude that the Buddha adopted about a total growth [ i.e. physical, moral and intellectual ] of humanity. The concept of mother [ màtà ], in an age of pre-test- tube babies, looms large in Buddhist thinking. Màtà mittaü sake ghare : The mother is the friend in one's own home says the Samyutta Nikaya [ S.1. 37 ]. The woman, as the growing up young girl in the home, is guarded with serious concern as the future wife and would-be mother. She must be fit and qualified enough to stand up to the count down before being launched into the challenging role of multi-purpose womanhood. Whichever be the century we live in or are moving into, these roles cannot be, with any degree of sanity in our heads, be underrated or underestimated. The Buddhists are not oriented to labour too much to accommodate unmarried mothers or fatherless children. They are believed to be lapses which are to be conscientiously guarded against. They rightly visualise the dangers and deficiencies of single-parent homes.

This respect for motherhood in a civilized social set-up has directed Buddhist thinking to prepare for preliminaries of maternity care. Physical ease and comfort of a pregnant would-be mother and her clinical mental grooming for motherhood are very much part and parcel of a well-run household with generous and well-meaning in-laws. Sri Lanka of more than fifty sixty years ago knew of many miniature domestic ceremonies of the white magic type which were quietly carried out in the home for the security and well-being of expectant mothers. The morn to evening day-time ceremony of Mañi-ata-perãma , Ata-gaha-metirãma or Ambakola-atten-metirãma were delightful rituals carried out in our village homes on the advent of the arrival into the family of new-born babies. Everyone of us in the home, the young and the old, made our contribution towards it by carrying messages to the master of the ritual in his own home [ not through calls on the cell-tell ], by gathering from the nearby woods the fruits and leaves needed for the creation of the associated artefacts. They included ant-hill clay for moulding the sun-disc, tender coconut leaves for numerous types of decorations, creepers like hãressa and leaves of the tolabo lily plant, perhaps to be used as mock weapons of offence and defence of various divinities associated with the ritual.

Besides these, there is also maternity care coming [ to the Sri Lankan Buddhists ] via religious considerations. In the category of Buddhist parittas, we have the Angulimala Sutta [ M.111. 97 - 105 ] referred to above, the use of which for this purpose appears to date back to the time of the Buddha himself. This sutta tells that Angulimala, the erstwhile bandit, after his ordination as a disciple under the Buddha, reported to him of a woman whom he had seen during his alms round, suffering severely under labour pains. The Buddha, realizing Angulimala's anguish and concern, admonished him to go to that woman in pain and through the asseveration of his personal purity to wish her well and pray for the safety of her unborn babe. Angulimala immediately pointed out to the Buddha his pre-ordination crimes and the Buddha promptly advised him to make the asseveration from the time of his admission to the noble order [ ariyàya jàtiyà jàto ]. He acted accordingly and she is said to have been immediately relieved [ Atha kho sotthi itthiyà ahosi sotthi gabbhassa. op. cit. p. 103 ]. It is undoubtedly the spiritual prowess of Angulimala that did it. All that happened is described as sotthi itthiyà ahosi = To the woman there was security and well-being. There is not a word about the delivery of the baby.

It appears that in the years that followed, this incident has been simulated in its entirety. In the manner of other paritta recitals which we have discussed earlier, where the monks in congregation emphatically assert the power of the Buddha, Dhamma and the Sangha [ as in the Ratana Sutta ], and thereby invoke blessings on those in need of them, in the case of Angulimala paritta too, the monks in congregation appear to repeat the words of Angulimala which are no more than a record of his own spiritual prowess, and invoke blessings thereby on the pregnant mother and her unborn babe. However, in the Angulimala paritta as recited today we discover ten additional lines as a preface to what Angulimala himself recited under the direction of the Buddha.

It immediately discloses the manner in which the Angulimala paritta appears to have developed itself to a high-powered pregnancy [ or we should say child-delivery ] paritta. Those ten lines in translation are as follows.

Whosoever shall recite this paritta, the seat on which he sits, The water with which it is washed shall eliminate all labour pains. With ease shall there be delivery, that very moment it shall be done. This paritta which the Lord-of-the-World had given unto Angulimala, Is one of great majesty which shall keep its efficacy for a whole aeon. That paritta we shall now chant.

The growth of this legendary process is witnessed in the Commentary to the Angulimala Sutta MA. 111. 337 ]. The Commentary elaborates it in this manner. Angulimala learnt this asseveration procedure or saccakiriyà from the Buddha and went to the woman to provide her comfort and security. As males were not allowed within the labour room, the monk was accommodated behind a curtain from where he did his chant. That very moment the woman is said to have delivered her baby with perfect ease.

In recognition of the very great efficacy of this sutta, a seat is said to have been constructed at the place where the monk did the chant. This seat is believed to have acquired such a reputation for its power and potency for easy delivery of offspring, it is said that even animals with difficulty of delivery benefit by being placed on it. In the case of feeble ones who cannot make the journey there, the water with which the seat is washed is to be applied on their head. This enables easy delivery. Even other diseases are said to cured thereby [ Yà dubbalà hoti na sakkà ànetuü tassà pãñhaka-dhovana-udakaü netvà sãse si¤canti taü khaõaü yeva gabbha-vuñthànam hoti. A¤¤aü pi rogaü våpasameti. Yàvakappà tiññhanaka-pàtihàriyaü kit ' etaü . MA.111. 338 ]. Thus in Sri Lanka, the Angulimala paritta today has changed its rightful place in being a pre-natal child-and-mother care chant, to one of easy delivery in the labour room. The role of chant-water has reached its highest ascendancy.

This same Buddhist concern for pre-natal maternity care of both the mother and the unborn child [ which would be deemed a basic and fundamental humanitarian concern ] in seen to exist in the Mahayana countries of the Far East like China and Japan as far back as the 8th century A.D. With the profusion and proliferation of Bodhisattvas in the Mahayana to serve in specialised capacities, it is not surprising to discover one like Koyasu Kwan-non [ Kwan-non of Easy Deliverance ], a lady-like Goddess of Mercy, holding a child in her hands. Alice Getty thinks she ' was unquestionably brought to Japan from Northern India via Central Asia and China'. She also further says: ' We know from reliable texts that in the eighth century there existed a Kan-non cult in Japan, and that the Kan-non was called Koyasu or the Kan-non who brings about Easy Deliverance '. [ Alice Get - Gods of Northern Buddhism, p. 96 f. ].

For purpose of comparison with the obviously earlier genesis of the mother-care concept in the Angulimala Sutta, we reproduce here a statement from Alice Getty's Gods of Northern Buddhism.

In the Bukkyo Daiji-ten is the following legend: The Empress Komyo ( 710-760 ), being with child, invoked the Shinto goddess Amaterasu, and prayed that she might have an easy deliverance. One night she saw in a dream the Bodhisattva Avalokitesvara standing at her bedside, and when she awoke she found a small image of the Bodhisattva lying beside her. She kept it preciously until after her deliverance, and then ordered it to be placed inside a statue of the 'thousand-armed Avalokitesvara which she had enshrined in the Taisan-ji ( temple of Easy Deliverance ) in Kyoto. According to popular belief, the Empress Komyo founded the Taisan-ji and dedicated it to the Koyasu Kwan-non, and it has remained up to this day one of the most flourishing centres of devotion in Japan. [ p. 97 ]

With due deference to the traditions of both the Theravada and the Mahayana on this subject, we therefore wish to add to this collection of parittas the text of the Angulimala, indicating what the original canonical version was and how it was used as a simple pre-natal mother-and-child protective chant [ sotthi te hotu sotthi gabbhassa ] as well as its apparently more developed Easy Deliverance concept [ sotthinà gabbha-vuññhànam ya¤ ca sàdheti tam khaõe ], with its true parallel in Koyasu Kwan-non of Japan. We are more inclined to popularise what we consider to be the earlier canonical tradition of pre-natal care of the mother and the child [ sotthi te hotu sotthi gabbhassa ] which can quite harmlessly begin from the earliest indications of pregnancy, thus building up confidence and comfort in the mind of the would-be-mother. That kind of religious solace, the presence of comforting religious grace of the tisaraõa must necessarily come to all areas of life in society, well before the outburst of crisis situations. This would eliminate the not very honourable last minute rush to wayside-shrine-divinities for guard and protection through the local bàra-hàra type of supplication.

Aïgulimàla parittaü

[ Paritta as recited today ]

Preface Prittaü yaü bhaõantassa nisinnaññhàna-dhovanaü udakam ' pi vinàsesi sabbaü eva prissayaü. sotthinà gabbha-vuññhànaü ya¤ ca sàdheti taü khaõe therassa ' ïgulimàlassa lokanàthena bhàsitaü kappaññhàyi-mahàtejaü parittaü taü bhaõàmahe.

Translation Whosoever shall recite this paritta, the seat on which he sits, The water with which it is washed shall eliminate all labour pains. With ease shall there be delivery, that very moment it shall be done. This paritta which the Lord-of-the World had given unto Angulimala, That paritta we shall now chant.

Text Yato ' haü bhagini ariyàya jàtiyà jàto nàbhijànàmi sa¤cicca pàõaü jãvità voropetà. Tena saccena sotthi te hotu sotthi gabbhassà ' ti.

Translation O, Sister, from the moment I entered this noble life of a recluse, I reckon not having deprived any living thing of its life. By the truth of this, may there be happiness and well-being To you and to your unborn babe.

Note: The original text with which the Buddha is said to have commissioned Thera Angulimala to go to the woman in labour pain and make an asseveration [ sacca-kiriyà ] to relieve her of her agony consists only of the eighteen words given above, beginning with Yato ' ham... and ending with gabbhassa. [See M.111. 102 and MA. 111. 337 f. ]. These alone tell us of Thera Angulimala's pre-arahant spiritual prowess whereby he was able to provide comfort [ sotthi ] to the woman in labour pain. The ideas expressed in the apparently later composed preface reduces the force of the directly communicated power of the sacca-kiriya and brings it down to the level of a water-powered ritual.

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