Stairway to Heaven and the Path to Buddhahood: Donors and Their Aspirations in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Ajanta

Vincent Tournier (1)

1 EFEO - École française d'Extrême-Orient

The important soteriological trend placing at its core the ambition to become a perfect buddha progressively suffused Indian Buddhism throughout the Middle Period, that is, between the first and sixth centuries CE. Across South Asia, evidence of various kinds concurs in identifying the late fourth to early sixth century as marking a shift, when the ideas propounded by the Bodhisattva movement became, so to speak, the “main stream”. The public impact of the Bodhisattva movement may, for instance, be measured by tracing shifts in the ideology of merit. To explore this issue historically, literary sources—and in particular those texts concerned with the generation and assignment of merit—need to be considered in close connection with epigraphical, visual, and archaeological evidence. These sources generally do not present a coherent picture of a gradual path to liberation in the same way as doctrinal works. Yet, the study of what religious agents define as their goal(s) may allow some understanding of the multi-life trajectory that bodhisattvas expected for themselves. This contribution attempts to determine how donors self-identifying as bodhisattvas harmoniously combined and hierarchically structured mundane and supramundane goals. I argue that both categories of expectations are in fact reconciled by an implied multi-life path to liberation, whereby benefits such as auspicious rebirths serve, inter alia, as markers of one’s progress toward Awakening. I also suggest that, at the prominent and well-documented site of Ajanta, the concern for rebirth among gods and high-born, beautiful human beings may well relate to the commemorative dimension of many of the fifth- and sixth-century cave dedications. To illustrate my point, I draw on two examples: (1) a series of short donative inscriptions transmitting a formulaic assignment of merit along with a scriptural quotation; (2) an elaborate record in verse composed by a prominent monastic donor and representing a unique document for understanding the ideology of the gift current in that time and place.

Domaines: Sciences de l'Homme et Société; Histoire

Vincent Tournier. Stairway to Heaven and the Path to Buddhahood: Donors and Their Aspirations in Fifth- and Sixth-Century Ajanta. Cristina Pecchia (dir.); Vincent Eltschinger (dir.). Mārga Paths to Liberation in South Asian Buddhist Traditions. Papers from an International Symposium held at the Austrian Academy of Sciences, Vienna 17–18 December, 2015, Verlag der Österreichischen Akademie der Wissenschaften, pp.177-248, 2020, 978-3-7001-8549-9. ⟨hal-03133075⟩