Page 258 - Proceedings book

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great carnage was wrought, But he was also the great patron of the Mahavihara who

built the Mahathupa, the largest monument in the Buddhist world at the time, the
resplendent uposathaghara called the Lohapasada and founded the

Mariccavattivihara with its stupa. The attitude that the sangha should adopt toward
such men of violence who were, nevertheless, generous patrons would have been a

problem which bothered many a conscientious monk, at least in the early phases of

the history of Buddhism. [Asoka as balacakkavatti] (Gunawardana, 1979)

In the tenth century when the claim that only Bodhisattvas became kings in Sri Lanka
was first put forward, it meant that even the warrior-kings were to be considered to be

men destined to be Buddhas in the future, and, as such, exemplars of the Buddhist

way. The contradiction comes out clearly in the chronicle Culavamsa. The chronicle
describes Sena I as a person who aspired to be a Buddha, but these pious aspirations

did not prevent Sena from sending his agents to the neighboring subcontinent to
assassinate rival to the throne living there in exile. (Cûlavamsa, 1953)

It is interesting to note that the aspirations to Buddhahood and the successful

assassination of a rival are both described by the monk who wrote the chronicle in the

very same chapter. The tenth-century ruler Mahinda IV who claimed that all Sri
Lankan kings were Bodhisattas spoke with pride in the very same inscription about

the victories he had gained in his military campaigns. If it was possible to see a
Buddha-to-be in a person resorted to assassination to eliminate political rivals or a

king who wielded the sword with vigor, it would seem that, by this time, a

fundamentally new attitude toward violence had emerged by this time in Sri Lankan
Buddhism. (Cûlavamsa, 1953)

How was this achieved. Part of the answer appears to lie in Sri Lankan myths. In the

myth of the first visit of the Buddha to the island, he comes to Mahiyangana where

the yakkhas were meeting. Standing above them in the sky, the Buddha tormented the
yakkhas in several ways. Rains and storms descend on them, through the power of the

Buddha's will. They are pelted with stones, weapons, burning embers and hot ashes,
again because the Buddha so wished. The yakkhas were kept in total darkness and

they were afflicted by cold, biting winds. The yakkhas appealed to the Buddha for
help. In return for such favors the Buddha asked for a place to sit. The yakkhas gave

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