PRESENTED TO THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SUNDAY, APRIL 19, 2015, AND AGAIN ON SATURDAY, DECEMBER 28, 2024 (REVISED).

The Discourse of the Lion’s Roar on the Wheel-Turning King

Digha Nikaya 26

Country: Magada

Locale: Matula

Speaker: The Buddha

Date of Composition: mid 4th cent. BCE

The motif of the “lion’s roar,” which also refers to a “brave speech”—PED has “a song of ecstasy; a shout of exaltation”—reoccurs frequently. It appears in the title of three discourses. The texts use it to refer to the Buddha’s teaching and the certainty that it creates, and it is also ironic. The second division of the Majjhima Nikaya, consisting of ten discourses, is also called the Lion’s Roar, as are two discourses in the set. The metaphor is obvious. Just as the lion is the lord of the forest, so too is the Buddha the lord of the order. Nanamoli and Bodhi say that “a ‘lion’s roar,’ according to MA [Majjhima Nikaya Atthakatha], is a roar of supremacy and fearlessness, a roar that cannot be confuted.” In addition, the Buddha descends from the sun, and the lion is a universal solar symbol.

The Mahasihanada Sutta demonstrates the Buddha’s claim to Buddhahood and his path being the supreme teaching. In the Udumbarika-Sihanada Sutta, the Buddha proclaims the true teaching that transcends the teaching of the wanderers. In addition, in the Cakkavatti-Sihanada Sutta, the Buddha reveals the secret of how to access the power of the teaching that confers emancipation. This discourse feels like a manual, much like the Mahasatipatthana Sutta.

The Dharma Refuge

We find the Buddha in Matula, Magadha. The discourse does not describe this town. Here the Buddha recites his famous pronouncement, which highlights and distills expressions found elsewhere in the discourses: “Monks, be islands unto yourselves, be a refuge unto yourselves with no other refuge. Let the Dhamma be your island; let the Dhamma be your refuge, with no other refuge.” Walshe considers the possibility that the word translated ‘island’ (Skt. dvipa) in this passage may mean ‘lamp’ (Skt. dipa). The word also means ‘help, support,’ which seems to be the most probable meaning given the subsequent reference to “refuge” (“guiding light”?). It is also possible that the Buddha is employing a double meaning.

The Four Attentions

The Buddha asks, “How does one dwell as a refuge unto oneself?” The answer is that the monastic observes the Four Attentions, discussed in the Mahasatipatthana Sutta. These consist in cultivating naked attention directed toward the body, feelings, mind, and mind-objects.

What Are the “Ancestral Haunts”?

He concludes with the advice that follows: “Keep to your own preserves [or ‘pastures’], monks, to your ancestral haunts. If you do so, then Mara will find no lodgement, no foothold. It is just by the building-up of wholesome states that this merit increases.” What is the Buddha saying here? Gocara means ‘suitable place.’ Visaya means ‘locality,’ and pettika, from peta, ‘gone before,’ means ‘paternal.’ The Buddha may be alluding to the forest, the traditional dwelling place of Buddhist monastics, which the Buddha recommends frequently, the implication being that in the absence of temptations, good states and merit increase. This is the end of the discourse, to which, as we see elsewhere, the redactors have spliced a story on, in this case with no segue whatsoever.

By remaining in the forest, according to my interpretation of “ancestral haunts,” the Buddha says that the qualities of life, beauty, happiness, wealth, and power will all increase. Each of these attainments seems to be associated with a specific practice or set of related practices. These are the practices in which a forest-dwelling monastic engages to produce the fruits described in the discourse. Specifically, one attains quality of life by a set of four related practices called the Four Roads to Power. One attains beauty by Right Conduct. One attains happiness by the cultivation of dispassion or detachment. One attains wealth by the cultivation of compassion. Finally, one attains power by a practice called “the liberation of heart and wisdom.” The Buddha must have adapted these four goals, since beauty, wealth, and power are ill suited to monastics. Thus, the Buddha asks what these goals mean for a monastic.

The Sacred Wheel Treasure

The story concerns a king called Dalhanemi, described as “a righteous monarch of the law, conqueror of the four quarters, who had established the security of his realm and was possessed of the seven treasures.” King Mahasuddassana of Kusinara, famous for Ananda’s calling it “a miserable little town of wattle and daub” shortly before the Buddha’s passing on in the Mahasudassana Sutta, was a wheel-turning king. We discussed the meaning of the seven treasures in connection with that discourse. Here, as there, we are especially interested in the Wheel Treasure. When the Wheel treasure slips from its position, the king will die soon. The king appoints his oldest son, the Crown Prince, to take over running the state, and joins the order in anticipation of his death. Seven days later, the Wheel Treasure vanishes. His son goes to the “royal sage” and tells him that the Wheel Treasure is gone. The king explains that the Wheel Treasure is not a hereditary possession, but that his son must earn it. If he does so, then on the lunar holiday that Wheel Treasure may appear to him too. Incidentally, a golden wheel, quite large and heavy, is presented to the young Dalai Lama at his coronation in Scorsese’s movie Kundun. This is the Wheel Treasure, which identifies the Dalai Lama as a “royal sage.” Sometimes this translates as “prince-priest.”

The Role of the Wheel-Turning King

The duty of a wheel-turning king is fivefold: to (1) honour the Teaching by maintaining the state based on the legal, ethical, and political philosophy of Buddhism, (2) establish the security of the state, including protecting the environment, (3) establish justice, (4) provide welfare for those in need, and (5) advise the order on matters of practical policy. Thus, it is explicit that Buddhism is a political-spiritual philosophy, not merely spiritual. The equal emphasis on security, justice, and welfare sounds positively modern. The role of the wheel-turning king in connection with ethics is interesting. The king is a supremely enlightened householder, whose legal and ethical character is unimpeachable—ideally—so that in relation to the order he exercises the role of a worldly advisor, like a chaplain in reverse. Once again, the Buddha makes the order dependent on the people for alms, so that the order should always be subject to the people and not the reverse. The Buddha was not trying to establish a theocracy.

King Dalhanemi’s son rules righteously, and one day when the king is on his verandah at the top of his palace after washing his head, observing the lunar holiday, the Wheel Treasure appears to him: “The sacred Wheel Treasure appeared to him, thousand-spoked, complete with feloe [outer rim], hub and all appurtenances.” In discourse 17, King Mahasudassana conquers his neighbours peaceably through the power of the teaching, led on by the Wheel Treasure, which appears as a luminous flying object that guides him from place to place, as though it has intelligence. Here the story is similar. It is clearly an allegory for the idea of ethics governing the power of the state, identified with the teaching, and expanding to include neighbouring states under the same regimen, thus eventually establishing a peaceful global dharma empire. King Dalhanemi’s dharma society was based on six precepts:

• Do not kill.
• Respect property.
• Do not commit adultery.
• Do not lie.
• Do not drink strong drink.
• Be moderate in eating.

Establishing a society based on these principles is less obvious than first appears. The modern world violates every one of them, thus bringing on Western society the same karma that it imposes on others.

Moderation in eating is one of the most important precepts of the Vinaya for the monastics. I am reminded by this story of Moses bringing down the tablets of the law in Exodus.

The Buddhist View of History

King Dalhanemi’s son dies, and a succession of wheel-turning kings succeed him, seven in all (the text does not count King Dalhanemi himself).

The last royal sage in this succession, which obviously lasted many thousands of years, is told that the Wheel Treasure slipped from its position. In accordance with the custom, the royal sage ordains as a monastic and prepares to die. Seven days later, the Wheel Treasure disappears.

The eighth successor does not consult his predecessor regarding the duties of a wheel-turning king. Instead, he decides to govern based on his own opinions, resulting in an overall reduction of the prosperity of the people. The Buddha is interested in economic ways of thinking. In response to the criticism of his ministers and others, he consults them on the duties of a wheel-turning king and based on their advice he establishes “guard and protection,” but he does not establish a welfare system. A conservative, presumably! As a result, the Buddha traces a logical progression, like interdependent origination, in which not giving property to the needy results in widespread stealing. Because of the increase in stealing, the king gives property to those who steal. As a result, an epidemic of stealing breaks out.

The Buddha clearly understands the intricacies of effective statecraft and the concept of “unintended consequences” in addition to the Law of Moral Causality. In response to the epidemic of stealing, the king institutes beheading. As a result, some people begin to steal other people’s property and cut off their heads, resulting in gangsterism. As a result, the longevity and beauty of the people falls. Over time, the quality and length of life falls dramatically. Also lying, gossip, adultery, harsh speech and idle chatter, covetousness and hatred, false opinions, incest, greed, “deviant practices,” and lack of respect for authority have all been progressively increasing during historical times.

Walshe translates miccha-dhamma as ‘deviant practices,’ influenced by the commentary. The dictionary definition of dhamma is ‘doctrine,’ ‘nature,’ ‘truth,’ ‘the Norm,’ ‘morality,’ ‘good conduct.’ Miccha is ‘untruth,’ ‘falsehood,’ ‘false,’ ‘wrongly,’ ‘wrong.’ To my ear, “deviant practices” has a connotation that is not borne out by these definitions: “false beliefs or wrong behaviour” seems like a more accurate rendering, but we have seen elsewhere that Walshe is not above incorporating contemporary social biases into his translations.

This brings us to the extended present of history when the human lifespan is about a hundred years or so. According to the Buddhist world-view, the continuing decline of the teaching results in an ongoing deterioration in the quality and duration of human life, until human morality itself disappears and humans revert to the animal state: “All will be promiscuous in the world like goats and sheep, fowl and pigs, dogs and jackals. Among them, fierce enmity will prevail one for another, fierce hatred, fierce anger and thoughts of killing, mother against child and child against mother, father against child and child against father, brother against brother, brother against sister, just as the hunter feels hatred for the beast he stalks.”

The progression in this succession of world-turning kings, beginning with eighty thousand years, falls at a regular rate.

The nadir of this process is the advent of the satthantarakappa (Pali sattha + antarakappa), when most people kill each other off quickly, “mistak[ing] one another for wild beasts,” nearly destroying human civilization. The term sattanatarakappa designates this apocalyptic reversal. Walshe translates sattha as ‘sword,’ but it can also mean “teacher” or even “science.” I would suggest that we are currently living in the descending arc of this cycle.

There is a common view, upheld in the Lotus Sutra, that a buddha always appears at the nadir of the historical cycle, to save the people. However, the Pali discourses have a different view, where Maitreya appears at the zenith of a future golden age. These views are not necessarily incompatible, however. Gotama himself clearly appeared near the nadir of human historical civilization.

Two Kinds of Beings

For the duration of the sword interval, following Walshe, a remnant of those humans who eschew violence survive in remote, inhospitable, and inaccessible places. After most of the race destroys itself, these people emerge and establish a new civilization based on the precepts of the teaching, which they have clearly not forgotten. Interestingly, a human population bottleneck is exactly the scenario that resulted in the reduction of the number of people to as low as a thousand breeding pairs about 74,000 BP (Toba catastrophe theory, hypothesized), among others. At the end of this evolutionary arc, greed, fasting, and old age are the only kinds of disease known. Jambudvipa—the Indian subcontinent—identified with the realm of humans and the teaching itself, will be powerful and prosperous, with numerous highly populated villages, towns, and cities. The time from the sword interval to the beginning of the final phase of the evolutionary arc is about eighty thousand years. Further population die-offs and economic disruptions seem likely because of climate change and environmental devastation, with the possibility of local nuclear or biochemical attacks or accidents. The First World War saw sixteen million causalities. The Second World War saw twelve million dead. The Holocaust added another eleven million. To this, we must add the slave trade, the modern history of which begins in the 17th century, not long after the advent of finance capitalism, which still afflicts untold millions. It seems that we are hell bent on destroying the planet and each other as soon as possible, so it does seem likely we are near the nadir of this devolutionary cycle, paradoxically, despite the progress of scientific enlightenment.

The Coming of Maitreya

The age, perhaps roughly eighty thousand years hence, when humans finally achieve greatly enhanced human longevity, disease is largely unknown, and prosperity is universal, characterized by high-density housing and a large population with many cities (the discourse literally says that it is as crowded as hell), will be a veritable golden age. This vision is exactly the scientific utopian vision of the future, which one also finds in the Kalachakra prophecies regarding the dharma society of the future, Shambhala. This may surprise those who believe in a kind of neo-Taoist Buddhism of “return to nature,” though the two views are not necessarily incompatible. See for example R. Buckminster Fuller’s and others’ vision of a science that aligned with rather than opposed to nature.

There is a common view that buddhas make their appearance near the nadir of human civilization. While this is true of Gotama, it is not true of the buddhas before him, nor is it true of Maitreya, the Coming Buddha, who appears at the zenith of human civilization and life span. Says the sutta,

In that time of the people with an eighty thousand year life-span, there will arise in the world a Blessed Lord, an Arahant fully enlightened Buddha named Metteyya, endowed with wisdom and conduct, a Well-Farer, Knower of the Worlds, incomparable Trainer of men to be tamed, Teacher of gods [devas] and humans, enlightened and blessed, just as I am now. He will thoroughly know by his own super-knowledge [gnosis], and proclaim, this universe with its devas and maras and Brahmas, its ascetics and Brahmins, and this generation with its princes and people, just as I do now. He will teach the Dhamma, lovely in its beginning, lovely in its middle, lovely in its ending, in the spirit and in the letter, and proclaim, just as I do now, the holy life in its fullness and purity. He will be attended by a company of thousands of monks, just as I am attended by a company of hundreds. (25)

Many people all through history have identified themselves with Maitreya, beginning with Wu Zetian (624–705), the empress of China, who ruthlessly persecuted her opponents in the royal family by cutting off their arms and legs and inserting them in jars, and, most recently, Ram Bahadur Bomjon (b. 1990), a Nepalese nicknamed “Buddha Boy.” However, the essential conditions of Maitreya’s coming, viz., a global human die-off followed by a progressive cultural revolution, the establishment of a new dharma society, and the appearance of a universal golden age, have yet to occur. According to the discourse, these are preconditions of Maitreya’s appearance, not the result of it. Maitreya will teach perfect wisdom, both exoteric and esoteric, but his order will be ten times greater than that of Gotama. This will only come about, in accordance with the Law of Moral Causality, when the time and the conditions are right.

The Dharma Refuge

The Buddha reiterates the advice to the monastics to be refuges unto themselves, with no refuge other than the teaching itself. Once again, the Buddha emphasizes that emancipation is an individual endeavour. No one or anything outside oneself saves one, which raises an interesting quandary for those who believe that the Buddha denies the existence of a self, as distinct from a certain kind of self or a certain way of seeing the self. He even says that the individual alone is their own refuge, with no other refuge—a startling thought given the emphasis on the Three Jewels. Have Buddhists been taking refuge in the wrong thing all this time? The text identifies taking refuge in oneself with taking refuge in the teaching, so self, i.e., buddha nature = the teaching. Note the text does not mention taking refuge in the Buddha and the order. Some scholars identify references to a unitary refuge formula in which one takes refuge in the teaching only, which is consistent with this advice and similar advice expressed in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta. The threefold formula is probably a later innovation, as Buddhism became more focused on the deification of the Buddha and the order is establishing its authority. Tibetan Buddhists added the Lama to the Three Jewels, but also identified it with them.

The Four Roads to Power

In the Mahaparinibbana Sutta the Buddha comments to Ananda that, had Ananda asked him to do so, the Buddha could have overcome his illness by an effort of will and lived out his full human lifespan of about one hundred years. The technique by which one may accomplish this is the Road to Power (a.k.a. the Four Roads to Power), which discourse 18 also describes. The Buddha breaks this down into four specific concentration exercises: (1) concentration of intention, (2) concentration of energy, (3) concentration of consciousness, and (4) concentration of investigation. According to the text, an effort of will accompanies each exercise.

Beauty, wealth, and power are strange goals for a monastic. The Four Roads to Power seem to be an adaptation of an originally non-Buddhist householder practice. Thus, the Buddha reinterprets beauty as right conduct, which the training rules perfect. The Buddha interprets happiness as detachment, which the practice of the Four Meditative Attainments perfects.

Wealth is another of those surprising goals, which the Buddha reinterprets as compassion, the familiar loving-kindness meditation, by which the monastic suffuses the entire world with positive feelings.

Finally, the Buddha identifies power with the destruction of the corruptions or taints, consisting of craving for sensual pleasures, craving for existence, and ignorance, to which the commentaries add attachment to opinions. The literal meaning of the word translated as ‘corruptions’ is ‘discharge from a sore’ or pus. This power is the corruptionless liberation of heart by wisdom. Heart in Pali means ‘heart/mind.’ Heart also suggests tranquility meditation; wisdom, insight meditation, or wisdom based on a serene heart.

Interestingly, the discussion of the Road to Power, culminating in power (perhaps “empowerment” is less misleading) and the liberation of the heart by wisdom attained by realization, segues into a discussion of the power of Mara. The commonality is clearly power, which identifies this practice as proto-tantric in character. Power is neither enlightened nor unenlightened, both of which are dualistic concepts. The energy of enlightenment immediately posits the energy of unenlightenment and vice versa.

This is as good a place as any to mention that, while this and other meditative practices are alluded to in the Pali Canon, the texts discuss the methods only briefly. The actual techniques must be far more detailed, so oral instructions probably supplemented the texts. This shows that the Pali Canon is not complete but is merely a compilation of outer teachings that demand elaboration. Alternatively, the absence of details might also imply that the redactors of the Pali Canon themselves were beginning to forget them, much as the Theravadins forgot the techniques of meditation by the nineteenth century. Unfortunately, time has obscured this aspect of the oral tradition. The Road to Power is especially interesting because it shows that at least some Buddhist meditations do not direct themselves to the attainment of enlightenment as such but are concerned with the acquisition of the so-called psychic attainments or even magical powers. This is why the later traditions have so much of value to contribute because they represent the fruits and insights of actual practice instead of a faded collective memory.

Merit

The Buddha concludes with the statement that merit increases with the accumulation of wholesome states. ‘Wholesome’ translates as something closer to ‘effective’ than the vague connotations of the English word. Thus, upaya means something like ‘strategic,’ whereas kausalya is ‘skilled’ or even ‘capable.’ We see here another indication of the influence of the mercantile society of the Buddha, his largest constituency, on Buddhist thinking. Just as Buddhism resolves ethics into the ontological fact of the Law of Moral Causality, so does it resolve morality into that which works. Buddhist ethics are pragmatic. Ethics are embedded in experience, not as an ‘ought,’ but as a fundamental ontological fact—the law of cause and effect, which is also a fundamental axiom of science.

Buddha Centre, Saturday, December 28, 2024.

Notes

1. The period implied between successive appearances of the Wheel Treasures is described as “many hundreds and thousands of years.” Eight periods are implied from the accession of Dalhanemi to the accession of his seventh successor.

2. Based on the sutta, the total duration of an antarakappa is 80,000 + 40,000 + 20,000 + 10,000 + 5,000 + 2,500 + 1,000 + 500 + 250 + 100 + 50 + 25 + 10 + 20 + 40 + 80 + 160 + 320 + 640 + 2,000 + 4,000 + 8,000 + 20,000 + 40,000  + 80,000 = 314,695 years, divided into devolutionary and evolutionary arcs of roughly 160,000 years each, despite the traditional view that is “incalculable.” It is interesting to note, therefore, that the earliest known fossil of Homo sapiens, our own species, is just about 160,000 years old. Three hundred twenty thousand years ago marks fundamental advancements in tool making and the first evidence for regular use of fire and the burial of the dead. Perhaps the absurd longevities given in the Pali Canon are not so absurd if we regard them as referring to ages of humanity rather than to ages of human individuals (http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2003/06/11_idaltu.shtml). If we regard the numbers as an arithmetical expression of historical devolution, the “stepped” character of the transforms suggests a cataclysmic rather than a continuous view of history, characterized by intermittent episodes of rapid change, which is now the dominant model of biological evolution.

3. Thus, we might also identify the “sword interval” with the Scientific Revolution, beginning in 1543, referring perhaps to the the generally destructive, anti-human effects of the ideology of scientific materialism (which includes philosophical materialism, Newtonian science, industrialism, social Darwinism, communism, fascism, capitalism, “scientism,” and technocracy), which are by no means past. We are therefore technically still in this “fascist” period dominated by the “reptilian” (or asura) mode of consciousness that has come to dominate the ego as a result of the collapse of the transcendental function. Buddhologist A.K. Warder (University of Toronto) identifies the sword interval with a series of major wars.

4. See Rhys Davids, The Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, Part 1 (1931; Oxford: Pali Text Society, rpt. 1996), pp. xxvi, xliii ff.