Emergence of the Bodhisattva Ideal of Kingship in Theravâda Buddhism

Abstract

Expressions of a Buddhist ethos as principles of policy on the part of Buddhist rulers have been dismissed by Max Weber as gestures of mere formality,¹ for example, a victorious Mahâyâna Buddhist king of early 9th century Bengal, proclaiming in an inscription that he released captive elephants — who with tears in their eyes rejoined their fellow elephants in the forest.² Bengal under the Pâla Dynasty [about 725–1125] became a center of Mahâyâna Buddhism that had extended into Sumatra. A Buddhist monarch of the Shrivijaya Empire in Sumatra and Malaya proclaimed about himself (in 775 A.D.) that those who “have their heart burned by the flames of poverty come to him to put themselves into his extreme power, as the elephants, when the sun is hot, come to take refuge in ... the cool water.”³ Mahâyâna Buddhism inspired a similar state ethos in Cambodia, one of the earliest culturally Indianized empires of Indochina, where it enjoyed high favor under Jayavarman VII (1181–1218?). This Buddhist ruler described his aspirations as follows:

Perceiving that the earth, of which his wisdom had made a heaven, was oppressed by Death, he pointed out the ambrosia of remedies for the immortality of the mortals.