Some vital corrections needed in the presentation of the Angulimala Paritta

And its use in the lives of the Buddhists in Sri Lanka

In the vast majority of the books named Piruvana Potvahanse or Maha Pirit Pota which are printed in Sinhala characters and are now in circulation in Sri Lanka, the Angulimala Paritta is most lamentably misrepresented. the Catubhanavarapali in the Simon Hevavitarana Bequest Atthakatha Series does not contain the Angulimala Paritta. In the Piruvana Potvahanse presentation, there are two major areas of error. Although we have repeatedly suggested to the highest authority in the land on the subject of the need for a bureau of standards in Buddhist studies, it has fallen well below deaf ears. We have no Court of Appeal, through which we could rectify such errors, neither among the clergy nor among the academics.

The error No. 1 is that what is presented as the Angulimala Paritta in the Pirit Pota is a tragic combination of what is truly a part of what is in the Sutta by this name in the Majjhima Nikaya, together with a pitiable garbled version of a Commentarial tradition about date of origin of which we would say no more than that it is Commentarial. This covers a vast range of both time and place. Both parts are combined and presented as one genuine whole. Knowing what the Buddha intended, as is very clear from Angulimala Sutta, this to us is an ingenious bit of smuggling.

The Commentary, apparently associating itself with some forms of provincial magical beliefs, says that the water, with which the chair on which the reciter of the Angulimala Paritta sits is washed, is capable of facilitating easy delivery to a pregnant woman. Sri Lankan monks keep chanting this to you over and over again.

Parittam yom bhanantassa nisinnatthanadhovanm

Udakam pi vinasesi sabbameva parissayam

Sotthina gabbhavutthanam tanca sadheti tam khane

It further says that such a chair, carved out of stone, did exist at a later date, in some provincial Indian town. It is not difficult to stretch one’s imagination to contain such degradations, through time and space, within the sublime religious core of a religion like Buddhism. Forget not the hands and the lands through which Buddhism had to pass, in its journey from the north to the south of India. It is now quite clear, with the evidence available, that none of these can pass off as part of the original paritta. Does anybody want to cash on the gullibility of the credulous listener? We strongly feel that it is not a day too early in Sri Lanka to turn a new leaf in the presentation of Buddhism, irrespective of as to who is anxious to learn Buddhism anew through the fashionable and currently prestigious media of television or not.

The error No. 2 is that almost all Piruvana Pirit Potas attempt to present the Angulimala Paritta as being imparted by the Omniscient One (Sarvagna) to the powerful and prestigious (mahesakya) arhant Angulimala. This, it must be pointed out, is also a catastrophic blunder. It is an un-called for glorification. At the time thera Angulimala brought comfort to the pregnant mother who was in great pain due to the misplacement of the child in the womb, and to her unborn child within, on the instruction of the Buddha, he was only a newly ordained monk in the Order.

The asseveration (saccikiriya) he made that he knew not having consciously destroyed any life ever since he became an ariyan disciple, and that alone, brought comfort (sotthi) severally to the mother (itthiya) and to the unborn child (gabbhassa). This was definitely a pre-arhanthood achievement of Angulimala. Nor is Angulimal said to have facilitated, at any stage, the delivery of the child. It was after this event of blessing the pregnant mother that Angulimala became an arhant. For all these details, please read the Angulimala Sutta of the Majjhima Nikaya.

There is also currently another serious error in the application of this Angulimala Paritta in the service of pregnancy care. On the advice of someone, the original source being unknown to us as to whether it is the village sorcerer, the astrologer or the village temple monk, or even an elderly man or woman of the village at that, the time of chant of the Angulimala Paritta to the pregnant mother has been deferred to the last week of pregnancy. We know of numerous instances of monks, both of the town and the village, chanting the tender Tambili coconut with the Angulimala paritta and delivering it to the father or husband of the pregnant girl, with the instruction that the water of the chanted nut be consumed by the pregnant mother before proceeding for the delivery of the baby. What a shamelessly ugly enactment of village magic with the connivance of monk and layman?

We were much more bewildered to find in some of the Sri Lankan Buddhist temples, both in London and Paris, copies of some brand of the Piruvana Pota which contained the following instruction appended to the Angulimala Paritta. "In cases of difficulty of delivery of the baby, let some water be chanted with this paritta and the water be applied on the abdomen of the pregnant mother. Then this would ease the delivery of the baby." These books are on the common run even in Sri Lanka today. In the name of the Buddha, Dhamma and the Sangha who would detect these wild stories and take necessary action? Is it the glamorously labelled fictitious ministries, grandiloquent news paper reporters or non-existent SLS men for Buddhist affairs?

It is impossible for us to miss at this point the Buddhist sense of love and care reflected here in the story of thera Angulimala and the equally sensitive reaction on the part of the Buddha. It pervades human life in its entirety, without any regional differences. It just breathes the welfare of humanity as a whole, through the symbolism of the pregnant mother and the unborn child. About 800 A. D., it produced in Japan a delightful statue of a goddess (an Avalokitesvara) who presides over pregnancy who came to be calle Koyasu Kannon. She was seen in a dream by the Empress who was pregnant at the time. She had this statue made (reproduced herewith) and installed in a famous temple in Japan.

This is why we have established at the Narada Centre, nearly a year ago, the Pregnancy Care Consortium to invoke blessings on pregnant mothers, at any stage in their pregnancy, and their unborn babies (sotthi te hotu sotthi gabbhassa). The date is the first Sunday every month. For this purpose, we use the asseveration of thera Angulimala referred to above. We give every would-be-mother a laminated comply of the real Angulimala paritta, together with its English and Sinhala translations, for use by the husbands, parents or the in-laws. The number of pregnant girls now being served by us stands at 105. Let us ungrudgingly pay adequate respect to the Buddha world that"the Mother is the Friend in one’s Home = Mata Mittam sake ghare."