Sacrifice and Asceticism in Early Mahāyāna Buddhism

It goes without saying that any study of asceticism in Indian religion owes a great debt to the work of Patrick Olivelle. In addition to making many of the classic texts available in masterful translation, Olivelle has sharpened our reflection on the purposes of brahmanical renunciation and its inherent conflicts with the social, religious, and political landscape from which it emerged. The study of Buddhist renunciation is similarly enhanced by his work, and it is in the spirit of honoring my former teacher that I would like to make a small contribution here toward better understanding the motifs of sacrifice and asceticism in the early Mahāyāna tradition specifically. Of course, Buddhism seldom calls to mind the notions of either sacrifice or severe asceticism. The historical Buddha's purported rejection of both is well known. For example, in the Küṭadanta-sutta , the Buddha counsels the brahmin Küṭadanta, who plans to offer a great sacrifice consisting of hundreds of bulls, rams, and goats. The Buddha describes for the brahmin his advice to a king for a bloodless sacrifice in a former life. Küṭadanta wants to know if there is an even more profitable sacrifice, and naturally the Buddha replies that there is. Gifts given to the saṅgha are more fruitful than other kinds of sacrifice, but even more profitable still is going for refuge to the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha , undertaking the moral precepts, and attaining direct insight into the nature and cessation of the manifold defilements.