What’s the cause for the development of the bases of psychic power?

That women cannot be bodhisattas was not a carefully considered doctrine designed to exclude women. It did, however, result in a great inequality, despite widespread recognition that women were capable of achieving arahatship. If one’s sex is no obstacle to arahatship, and this is the mainstream goal of Theravāda, does it even matter that a tradition developed declaring women unable to be bodhisattas?

This paper offers a comparative study of a cluster of stories in which the Buddha-to-be makes a sacrifice – of flesh, family members or wealth – in exchange for a single verse of teaching. […] The paper argues that these tales reveal new perspectives on the oft-studied relationship between Buddha and Dharma, and between the Buddha’s physical body and his body of teachings

I begin with some general observations on the gender of the Buddha’s past lives as reported in jataka narratives, followed by a translation of the relevant section from the Ekottarikaagama. Then I compare this Ekottarika-agama version to three other versions of this tale preserved in Pali and Chinese, in particular in relation to the way they deal with the dictum that a woman cannot receive a prediction of future Buddhahood.

No matter how many stories one reads in which the bodhisattva agrees to give his body away, one still holds one’s breath every time the momentous decision is made. One still feels a shudder run up the spine whenever the bodhisattva cuts open his flesh, and the text dwells almost lovingly on the pain and agony endured. It is only the story that engages us to such an extent…

This sutra builds on themes found in Early Buddhist texts such as the Natha Sutta (AN 10.17) giving an example of how later Buddhists texts evolved from earlier ones.

With these various strands of thought, the basic ingredients of the bodhisattva ideal seem to fall into place.

A paper outlining the pre-sectarian roots of the Bodhisattva Path.

This excerpt was extracted from Bhikkhu Analayo’s full-length monograph on the subject, The Genesis of the Bodhisattva Ideal.

With my head I pay homage to the 512,028 Sambuddhas

How did the Theravadins come up with this figure?

The Abhayagiri monks were broad-minded in outlook; they maintained contacts with foreign Buddhist schools, and themselves established bases in India and in South-east Asia.

A brief scriptural quote from the elusive Abhayagiri school found in a medieval, Indian treatise.

This translation by T. W. Rhys Davids also contains his own introduction to the Jātakas, which remains worth a read even a century later.

I invite the reader to join me in a search for what could be found in the textual corpus of early Buddhist discourses

In the first chapter I investigate the bodhisattva conception as such, surveying relevant passages from the early discourses. With the second chapter I turn to the meeting between the previous Buddha Kāśyapa and the bodhisattva Gautama, examining the relation of this meeting to the notion of a vow the bodhisattva took to pursue the path to Buddhahood. The future Buddha Maitreya is the theme of the third chapter, in which I take up the notion of a prediction a bodhisattva receives in assurance of his future success.