Another Piece of Shared Memory: Buddhist and Jaina Stories of the Karmic Enmity between Bimbisāra and His Son Ajātaśatru

Lunch Lecture by Dr Juan Wu (Jan Gonda Fellow, IIAS).

The lecture

As two prominent contemporaries of the Buddha and Mahāvīra, the Magadhan King Bimbisāra (known to the Jainas as Śreṇika) and his son Ajātaśatru (known to the Jainas as Kūṇika) are widely featured in both Buddhist and Jaina literature. In comparing Buddhist and Jaina sources, previous studies have almost exclusively focused on the episode of how Ajātaśatru causes the death of his father Bimbisāra in prison, with much less attention given to other stories of these two characters.

This lecture explores Buddhist and Jaina versions of a series of three episodes that separately describe the marriage of King Bimbisāra and his queen Celā, Ajātaśatru’s previous life as an avenger, and his ensuing rebirth in the womb of Celā. I will first introduce the Buddhist version as found in the Cīvaravastu (“Section on Robes”) of the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya, and will then look at the Jaina versions in three Śvetāmbara texts. After this, I will compare the Buddhist and Jaina accounts, discussing their parallels and divergences.

Given that both in the Cīvaravastu and in the Śvetāmbara Jaina sources, the episodes of Bimbisāra, Celā and Ajātaśatru belong to a larger narrative of the ancient Magadha at the time of the Buddha and Mahāvīra. Within this broader context, the present study may not only offer a fuller picture of Buddhist and Jaina narrative traditions of the conflict between Bimbisāra and Ajātaśtru, but may also help us appreciate the shared memory of Buddhists and Jainas about the ancient (Greater) Magadha, the historical-geographical milieu out of which both religions emerged.

The speaker

Juan Wu is a Jan Gonda Fellow affiliated with the International Institute for Asian Studies in Leiden. She graduated from Peking University (MA, Buddhist Studies) and obtained her PhD from Cardiff University with a dissertation on Indian Buddhist narratives of Ajātaśatru. Before coming to Leiden, she worked as a JSPS postdoctoral fellow at the University of Tokyo. She is currently preparing a monograph entitled “A Model of Both Violence and Virtue—Legends of Ajātaśatru’s Patricide, Salvation and Kingship in Indian Buddhism”. She has published several articles on Buddhist and Jaina stories of Ajātaśatru, which may be found at https://iias.academia.edu/JuanWU.

Lunch will be provided, but registration is required. Please use the registration form below.

About IIAS Lunch Lectures

Every month, an IIAS researcher or visiting scholar will present his or her work-in-progress in an informal setting to colleagues and other interested attendees. IIAS organises these lunch lectures to give the research community the opportunity to freely discuss ongoing research and exchange thoughts and ideas.