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Gautama Undergoing Morbid Austerities Modern representation of a sculpture. Gāndhāra, 2nd-3rd century CE.
In the Mahā-Sīhanāda Sutta, the Buddha is
heard to be almost boasting over having undergone more extreme austerities
than any of his yogin contemporaries. He then recites a comprehensive
catalogue of his morbid practices that includes, for one thing, sleeping on
human bones in cremation grounds. Here we find the fundamental śavavāda
sacrament where Gautama symbolically performed his own funeral rites while
living in a cemetery. Also on the Buddha's list of morbid austerities is
crawling into cow pens to eat fresh cow dung, a typical custom of the
govrata, or "cow-vow" practice. Based on this scripture, we therefore
know that Gautama spent a certain amount of time living and eating like a
cow. We furthermore hear him making claims of having consumed his own urine
and faecal matter. In the words of Cambridge Professor Richard Gombrich,
"the author of the text" appears to be saying, "Anything your guru has done,
ours has done better" (See my
The Savage Buddha: notes on
Gautama and the Kapalika Vratra. (PDF). |
