Eschatology and World Order in Buddhist Formations
Eschatology and World Order in Buddhist Formations
JAMES B. APPLE
University of Calgary jbapple@ucalgary.ca
Abstract
At the core of Buddhist eschatological tradition is the concept of dharma—an ordering principle of an unending and beginningless universe, oscillating in a “cyclic existence” of creation and dissolution. But how does this cosmological principle shape Buddhist understanding and interpretation of the contemporary world order? This article relates Buddha’s dharma, with its primary themes of suffering and impermanence, to sociopolitical conditions in the realm of human affairs. Pointing out the dichotomy between the mundane (societal) and the super-mundane (cosmological), the article argues that world order is a process of dissolution and re-emergence based on the differentiation of environmental conditions and human dispositions. It concludes that although Buddhist tradition departs from the normal “end of things” eschatology, relative eschatologies have developed within the varied conditions in which Buddhism has flourished.
Keywords
eschatology, cyclic existence, dharma, Buddha, cosmology, super-mundane
Introduction
If eschatology is understood as a discourse about the final “end of things” then, as Jan Nattier (2008, 151) aptly points out, this is a misnomer since Buddhist scriptures regularly describe an unending and beginningless cycle of repeated birth and re-death applicable to the universe as well as to individual sentient beings known as samsārạ , “cyclic existence.” The cyclic existence of an individual sentient being may be brought to a final end by replicating the path that the Buddha took to his own awakening, or nirvānạ , from the treadmill of samsārạ . In addition to this soteriological ending of samsārạ , Buddhist writings often refer to occurrences of things coming to a temporal
end, such as a particular phase of the manifestation of a universe ending on the cosmic level or the gradual disappearance of the Buddha’s teaching from this world on a historical level. However, such endings on both cosmic and historical levels are merely episodes within repetitive processes of the universe being recreated or another Buddha appearing to teach in the distant future, just as previous Buddhas have taught in the distant past. Zwi Werblowsky (2005, 2834) terms cultural formations that do not have in their worldview “an ultimate consummation of history” as “relative eschatologies,” since they understand time as a beginningless flow of repetitive cycles.
The early Buddhist ordering principle of dharma
The relative eschatologies that occur within Buddhist cultures are interrelated with Buddhist notions of order which are derived from the pan- Indian term dharma (from the Sanskrit root dhr, “to sustain, to hold”; Pali, ̣ dhamma). Dharma is a multifaceted term in Indian religious culture and has multiple connotations within Buddhist thought and practice. A primary understanding of dharma for Buddhists is related to what the historical Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (ca. 480–400 BCE) experienced in his awakening. The Buddha was thought to have awakened to a fundamental law (dharma) that as a subtle principle or universal order to this world is invariant, inherent, and independently all-pervading regardless of whether Buddhas arise in this world or not. This fundamental law of dharma is natural, without a beginning or a creator, functions based on its own nature, and coalesces with the doctrine of dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda)—the principle that effects flow naturally from causes and conditions.
Ancient Buddhist scriptures relate the Buddha’s conception of dharma as a cosmologically ordering principle to the sociopolitical order found in the human realm (Tambiah 1976, 38). The Agañña Sutta (“The Discourse on What is Primary”) (Walshe 1995, 407–415) and the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta (“The Lion’s Roar on the Wheel-Turning King”) (Walshe 1995, 395–405) provide early examples of how Buddhists conceive of the relations of the Buddha’s dharma, with its primary themes of suffering and impermanence within oscillating cosmological conditions, to sociopolitical conditions in the realm of human affairs. These early discourses indicate that the dominion of human affairs is subordinate and inclusive to the dharma of cosmic law. As Tambiah explains, The dharma of cosmic law and its transcendence (nibbana) are larger in scope and superior to the dharma of righteousness as practiced by the ruler; this hierarchical arrangement parallels the gradient from spirituality to gross materiality in the cosmogonic emergence story of the Agañña sutta, as well as the dichotomy between the super-mundane (lokuttara) and mundane (laukika) in cosmology. (Tambiah 1976, 41) The relation of cosmology and polity in the Aggañña Sutta and
Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta
The Aggañña Sutta and Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta present a cosmological worldview and understanding of political order that influences South Asian Buddhist culture and literature in both Pāli and Sanskrit. The relations between cosmogonic processes and socio-political order that these discourses describe shape the wide range of Buddhist formations found in Asia throughout history. The Aggañña Sutta presents two interrelated movements that indicate cosmological and societal developments. The first movement presents the dissolution and re-emergence of a world-system based on the differentiation of environmental conditions and human dispositions, particularly the increase among humans of immorality and greed. The second movement presents humans coming to terms with degrading environmental and human conditions through instituting kingship to regulate human affairs. As a result of kingship a stratified society develops—and seeking deliverance from society the bhikkhu or Buddhist mendicant arises (Tambiah 1976,11).
The initial Buddhist description of the emergence of a world-system, the institution of kingship, and the formation of human society depicts an ironic inversion of the brahmanical worldview shaped during the Vedic period (ca. 1700–500 BCE) in South Asia. Social order for early Buddhists arose due to the institution of kingship through intentional human actions. The generation of the natural world and the beginnings of human culture were construed as a single process. There was not a division between the laws of the natural world on the one hand and the laws of human socio-political culture on the other. As opposed to the creative process instantiated through gods (devas) among Brahmanical groups, the Buddhist view of cosmogenic processes were shaped not by divine forces but by karmic forces generated through the degenerative and immoral acts of human beings themselves (Tambiah 1976, 22). As Tambiah explains, “The collective actions of all living beings produces the world as a whole resulting in a stratified world system that is constituted by upper levels of refined spirituality down to levels of coarse materiality” (Tambiah 1976, 38). The collective acts of sentient beings generate what is known as the “receptacle-world” (bhajanaloka). The trajectories from this worldview in early Buddhist literature established for Buddhist cultures the notion that it is the acts (karma) of sentient beings that shape society and the environment through an ordered law of causation (pratītyasamutpāda). The Buddhist understanding of dharma as cosmic law therefore shapes human society through interrelations with karmic counteractive measures and processes.
The Aggañña Sutta relates the conception of dharma as a cosmologically ordering principle to the order found in the human realm of sociopolitical relations and structures. The discourse presents a balanced structure and relation between kings and Buddhist monks. The king mediates between social disorder and a hierarchical social structure within the mundane world. The Buddhist monk or bhikkhu, drawn from any level within the social structure, transcends society, and enters a path that leads from this mundane world (laukika) to the super-mundane world (lokottara) of liberation (Tambiah 1976, 33). The super-mundane way of the Buddhist monk follows the teachings of the Buddha that transcend the mundane world. Yet, at the same time, the dharma as cosmic law found within the Buddha’s teachings are conceived as ordering the world and encompassing the principles that guide the morality of kingship. The Buddha’s dharma therefore is thought to permeate and inform the moral conduct of a righteous ruler who is ideally a concrete manifestation of dharma in worldly affairs (Tambiah 1976, 40). In this manner, early Buddhists accepted kingship as the basis of order in society and considered the morality instantiated through the Buddha’s dharma to guide the imperial state.
Similar to the depiction in the Agañña Sutta, the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta also provides an early discourse on the dharma of Buddhist kingship (Pāli rajadhamma). In this discourse the dharma as a cosmic principle orders the world and likewise, the dharma as truth, virtue, and morality taught by the Buddha, indicates the way to nirvānạ . The Buddha’s dharma of truth, virtue, and morality infuses the code of conduct of a king, and at the same time kingship is thought to have its basis in dharma and is represented, like the Aggañña Sutta, as being a “concrete manifestation” of dharma in the sociopolitical order (Tambiah 1976, 40). However, the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta in furnishing a Buddhist model of kingship also gives an early description of a special type of king, the Universal Monarch (Pāli cakkavatti, Skt. cakravartin, Tib. khor-los bsgyur-ba’i rgyal-po), that serves as a powerful force for the ideology of kingship in Buddhist Asia.
The Cakravartin, or Univeral Monarch, is endowed with the thirty-two characteristics of a great man (mahāpurusa). ̣ The ideal of the Cakravartin precedes Buddhism, but Buddhists give the concept their own special significance. Buddhists correlate righteous rule in accord with dharma with the presence of a Cakravartin King. The connection between a Cakravartin King and the Buddha are found throughout Buddhist texts. The Mahāparinibbanasutta, a discourse which details the final days of the Buddha up until his passing away, notes that Buddhas are to be buried as would a Cakravartin King. The hagiography of the Buddha narrated in the Lalitavistara not only describes the prediction by a Seer (rṣ ị ) that the young, Buddha-to-be, prince Siddhārtha, could become a Cakravartin King, but that he is a true Cakravartin. In the same text Siddhārtha as Buddha declares, vaśavartī sarvadharmesu ̣ tena dharmeśvaro jinah ̣ / dharmacakram pravartitvā dharmarājo nirucyatẹ (Lalitavistara 26.67) This is translated as, “Exercising the Empire over all the laws, I am because of that, the Superior Jina of the law, who after turning the wheel of the law, is called the ‘King of the Law’.”
Traditional accounts of the Buddha’s life-story, such as the Lalitavistara and Buddhacarita, and academic scholarship (Tambiah 1976) on the topic have differentiated the Buddha and the Cakravartin as two distinct, if not asymmetrical vocations, for the young prince Siddhārtha. A dichotomy is maintained between two wheels of dharma correlating with the two vocations, a wheel of morality (dharmacakra) relating to the Buddha and a wheel of dominion (ājñacakra) relating to the Cakravartin. However, previous scholarship has also suggested (Mus 1928, 1935; Snellgrove 1959) that Siddhārtha is born and dies as a Cakravartin, and that kingship is embedded throughout his life as the Buddha. The Milinadapanha (Gonda 1966, 64) notes that the Buddha may be described as a king because he is exalted, bears sovereignty, receives homage, pronounces judgments, and proclaims laws. In brief, there are strands of South Asia Buddhist cultural memory where the Buddha and Cakravartin are not differentiated. As Gonda states (1966, 126), it is … “[n] eedless to observe that Buddha is the cakravartin par excellence.”
The Cakkavattisīhanādasutta states that seven jewels manifest when a true Cakkvatti [Skt. Cakravartin] is present in the world. The Seven Jewels of Royal Power (Pāli sattaratana, Skt. saptaratna T. rgyal-srid rin-chen sna-bdun) are considered by Buddhist traditions to be accessories of the Universal Monarch (Pāli cakkavatti, Skt. cakravartin, Tib. khor-los bsgyur-ba’i rgyal-po). They represent different abilities or aids that a king gains upon enthronement and that he must possess in order to stay in power. The listing of the seven jewels in Buddhist texts most often occurs as a stock-phrase signifying the special qualities of a Universal Monarch’s kingship and are given in the following order, wheel-jewel (Skt. cakra-ratna), elephant-jewel (hasti-ratna), horse-jewel (aśva-ratna), gem-jewel (mani-ratnạ ), woman-jewel (strī-ratna), householder jewel (grhapati-ratnạ ), and adviser-jewel (parināyaka-ratnạ ). The wheeljewel is significant from among this list as it indicates that a cakra signifies dharma in political life for Buddhists. This emblem replaces the scepter or rod (danda), the symbol of authority in the brahmanical śāstras and doctrines of Kautilya.
The application of dharma to politics for Buddhists presupposes a theory based on principles of harmlessness (ahimsạ̄ ) and compassion in statecraft that often conflicts with actual approaches in concrete affairs (Tambiah 1976,42). As a set, the seven jewels of a Cakravartin are emblems of a righteous ruler (dhammiko dhammaraja), and signify the safety and well-being of a dominion under the influence of dhamma (Skt. dharma). The presence of jewels, relics, and emblems in Southeast Asian Buddhist cultures symbolically re-establishes the purity of the Buddha’s dharma while simultaneously legitimizing a king’s sovereignty. In such examples, royal power and the power of the Buddha’s dharma are fused together to consolidate socio-political stability in the cosmographic formations of southeast Buddhist Asian cultures.
Buddhists therefore understand the socio-political to take shape by means of the conduct of a righteous ruler, with social order being pervaded by dharma. Buddhist kingship is encompassed by the dharma of cosmic law, with the Buddha’s dharma infusing and informing the practices of kingship. The Aggañña Sutta depicts the relation between dharma and kingship through the figure of Mahāsammata (“People’s Choice”). As De Silva Wijeyeratne (2007) discusses, the appearance of Mahāsammata is brought about by the collective will of humans for order in society and restores such order after human beings descend from immaterial and blissful existence. Mahāsammata becomes a model of cosmic polity establishing order in a temporal world of human suffering. The very need to establish order is therefore related with the central themes of the Buddha’s teaching on impermanence and suffering. Along these lines, since the Buddha has transcended this world through achieving nirvānạ , the king serves to replace the presence of the Buddha and becomes the “sovereign regulator” (Tambiah 1976, 52) of order in the world. Kingship becomes an all-encompassing force in human society for Buddhists serving as a link between the cosmic dharma and the dharma of human affairs. The Buddhist kingship model of dharma being instantiated in this world through the ideal of the cakkavatti comes to the forefront during the reign of the Mauryan Emperor Aśoka (274–232 BCE). Aśoka’s version of dharma is preserved in the inscriptions of ancient major pillar edicts and minor rock edicts found throughout the Indian subcontinent as well as in legendary textual accounts of his rule. Although modern scholarship has questioned whether Aśoka’s dharma was as explicitly Buddhist as legends would have it, the case can be made that the historical Aśoka propagated a form of dharma that was congruent with the ideals of a Buddhist layman (upāsaka). Such ideals are consistent with the discourse on kingship found in the Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta. In this discourse, “territorial conquest is for the greater glory of the dhamma, and its effect is the acquisition of karma (merit) by the king” (De Silva Wijeyaratne 2007,161). However, the subjugation of other lands is carried out in a harmless manner since other rulers surprisingly give their territory to the cakkavatti. The cakkavatti responds with advice related to the five Buddhist precepts of lay virtues, not to kill, steal, lie, perform sexual misconduct, or ingest intoxicants. The Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta continues on to discuss how the cakkavatti does not disrupt the tax revenue power of subjugated kings but encourages the virtues of ruling by dharma (De Silva Wijeyaratne 2007, 161).
The depictions given in the the Agañña Sutta and Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta are early examples of what Tambiah (1976,16) called a “total social fact” found in Buddhist cultures where there are mutual interrelations between a bhikkhu and king, between the Buddha and the Cakkavatti as the two wheels of dhamma, between the sangha and the socio-political conditions of a locality, between this-world and other-worldly pursuits. The Agañña Sutta provides a depiction of the ideals of Buddhist kingship and order set within the cosmological framework of world systems that expand and contract. The Cakkavatti-Sīhanāda Sutta also elucidates the ideals of kingship through the model of the cakkavatti, placed within cosmic cycles of evolution and devolution. The models of cakkavatti kingship and socio-political order set forth in these discourses would come to shape the imperial ideals of kingship found throughout history in Southeast, Central, and East Asia.
The decline of the Buddha’ s dharma in this world
Along these lines, the relative cosmic eschatology of an expanding and contracting universe mentioned in these early discourses was not a great concern for Buddhists during the life of Śākyamuni (ca. 480 BCE–100 CE) as the dissolution of a cosmic cycle was quite distant in time and the dharma of Śākyamuni was still readily present.
However, what was of greater concern for early Buddhists was the duration of the Buddha’s dharma and the understanding that Buddhism as a religious tradition transmitted by error-prone human beings would eventually disappear. The earliest statements regarding the duration of Śākyamuni Buddha’s dharma predicted that Buddhism would last for 1,000 years after the Buddha’s final nirvānạ . However, like all conditioned things in this world, the Buddha’s dharma as a religious institution was thought to be impermanent. Several reasons are given in early texts for the decline of the Buddha’s dharma, such as the increasing lack of mindfulness and moral laxity within the monastic community (Chappell 1980, 123–127). However, a prominent explanation found in early texts is that due to the Buddha’s decision to allow women into his initially male based monastic order, the duration of the Buddha’s dharma was constrained to last only 500 years (Nattier 1991, 2008, 156–157). Although this prediction of a 500 year duration period is not found in all early Buddhist schools, the evidence that Nattier (1991, 28–33) has gathered indicates that it was widespread at an early date (ca. 340–200 BCE). Once the initial 500 year period had come to pass, Buddhists began to re-think the duration of the Buddha’s dharma. The revaluation of the dharma’s duration coincided with the development of Buddhist forms of thought and practice known as Mahāyāna (“Great Vehicle”). The scriptures composed by the different groups of followers within this form of Buddhism developed notions new to Buddhism, including the path of the bodhisattva (“Buddha-in-training”) leading to Buddhahood, expanded notions of the universe, and the idea that Buddhism lasts for a 1,000 years or two 500 year periods (Nattier 2003).
In many Mahāyāna sūtras, although not all, two time periods for the duration of the Buddha’s dharma are outlined based on the teaching’s effectiveness to liberate adherents. The first period is known as the time of the “true dharma” (saddharma). This is a period of time when the Buddha’s dharma is pristine in condition, readily understood, and maximally effective in leading followers to liberation. The second time period is called the “semblance” or “reflection” phase of the true dharma (saddharma-pratirūpaka). During the semblance period the substance of the true dharma has faded away and only the outer forms of practice remain. The notion of a semblance phase of true dharma seems to have been popular in South Asia, as far as the available evidence indicates, during the early centuries of the first millennium and then gradually fades away in popularity after this time. The expression occurs mainly in Mahāyāna scriptures during this period and diminishes in importance in relation to the gaining popularity of Vajrayāna, or Buddhist tantric literature, from the seventh to twelfth centuries (Nattier 1991, 70–89).
Along with the development of a semblance phase of true dharma, one of the more well-known stories concerning the demise of the Buddha’s dharma in mainstream Buddhist literature is the story of the King of Kauśāmbī. The story was initially formed in the period from 100–250 CE at the city Kauśāmbī in the northwest gangetic river valley of India (Nattier 1991). The story is common to mainstream and Mahāyāna literature and was translated into a dozen different Buddhist languages including northwest Indian Gāndhārī Prākrit, Central Asian Bactrian, Khotanese, Chinese, and Tibetan. The story is set in an unspecified future time, when northwest India is attacked by a combined force of Greek, Saka, and Parthian kings, and Buddhists everywhere are brutally persecuted. The King of Kauśāmbī will conquer over this coalition of anti-Buddhist kings, but fearing the karmic consequences of his brutal military campaign, he will invite all the monks of the known world to the capital to attend a great religious feast in order to gain merit for himself. At this feast, however, the king will mistakenly cause a conflict within the Buddhist monastic community due to differences in the ordination lineages of the various monks who are brought together. The conflict reaches an apex when the followers of the last arhat named Sūrata and those of the last tripitaka master named Śị ṣyaka fight over Vinaya rules. The following struggle ends in the death of all monks present and with that, the True Dharma (saddharma) disappears from the world until the future Buddha Maitreya will bring it back.
The Kauśāmbi story illustrates how Buddhist authorial communities utilize prophecy in Buddhist scripture. More often than not, due to the scholarly advantage of hindsight, such prophecies can be understood by the historian as statements that herald in the future tense certain facts that have already occurred in the past such as wars, invasions, famine, birth of great men, and so forth. The composition of prophecy is a mixture of historical facts and seemingly purely fictitious data employed to resolve problems facing Buddhist communities under the historical conditions in which the prophecies were composed. The Kauśāmbi story and its prophecy can be read as a criticism of the Buddhist community for its lack of self-discipline under the opulence and prosperity experienced under the Kushan dynasty (Nattier 1991, 227, 285).
The Kauśāmbi story was influential for Buddhists in India, Central Asia, and China for over a thousand years but gradually became ignored and forgotten and replaced with other models and prophecies related to the disappearance of the Buddha’s dharma. The Kauśāmbi story became the standard reference point for the decline of the Buddha’s teaching among Chinese Buddhist commentators after 566 CE when a version of the story was translated into China in a version contained in the Candragarbha Sūtra. The importation of this sūtra into China coalesced with the indigenous developments of Chinese Buddhist relative eschatology as described below. Tibetan Buddhists did not initially formulate an “explicit periodization of decline” (Nattier 1991, 280) when Buddhism was imperially sanctioned and initially supported in the seventh to ninth centuries of the common era. During this time period, the decline of the dharma was not conceived as a specific era in history for Tibetans. Rather, the story of Kauśāmbi as preserved in the Candragarbha Sūtra was understood by early Tibetan Buddhists as a prediction of the gradual disappearance of the Buddha’s teachings (Nattier 1991, 282). This view would change among Tibetans with the translation of Vajrayāna Buddhist texts during the eleventh to twelfth centuries (see below).
The age of final dharma in China and Japan
East Asian Buddhist formations, mainly in China and Japan, developed their own relative eschatology based on the notions of saddharma and saddharmapratirūpika inherited from the importation and translation of scholastic treatises such as the Mahāvibhāsạ (a Sarvāstivāda work of the second century) and multiple Mahāyāna scriptures. The term saddharma was translated into Chinese as zhenfa “true dharma” and the term saddharma-pratirūpika was translated by xiangfa “semblance dharma.” As the meticulous scholarship of Nattier has demonstrated, these two terms coalesced with the indigenous Chinese phrase moshi “final age” to form the distinctive Chinese Buddhist neologism mofa “final dharma” by the beginning of the fifth century CE. After the sixth century, Chinese Buddhist scholars understood mofa as a third and final phase of the history of Buddhism in this world.
Chinese commentators conceived the True and Semblance Dharma time periods to last either 1,000 or 1,500 years. The period of the Final Dharma was construed as lasting for 10,000 years, a time expression that signified for Chinese scholars an immeasurably long period of time and signaled that the age of Final Dharma will never end within this aeon (Skt. kalpa).
Scholars in China generally accepted the beginning of the Final Dharma to occur in 552 CE while Japanese authors thought that this phase began in 1052 CE based, among other factors, from the time when they thought Śākyamuni had passed into full nirvānạ . Relative eschatology has often been connected with chronology in Buddhist discourse. Although both Chinese and Japanese Buddhist cultures shared this sense of Final Dharma eschatology relative to their understanding of Buddhist scriptures, the response of how to practice Buddhism within such decadent cosmological circumstances varied immensely. Some understood this period as a time for increased discipline of the monastic precepts to facilitate meditative cultivation. As Nattier (2008, 158) notes, the founder of the “Three Stages” school in China, Xinxing (540–594), and the founder of the Rinzai Zen school in Japan, Eisai (1141–1215 CE), found the Final Dharma period as a time to “work harder and redouble one’s efforts.” Some scholars such as Dōgen (1200–1253) were indifferent to the eschatological concerns of the culture and thought that true Buddhist practice transcends the distinctions of the phenomenal world (Stone 1985). Chinese scholars such as Daochuo (seventh century) and Tientai Zhiyi (538–597) as well as Japanese pioneering figures of the Kamakura period (1185–1333) such as Hōnen (1133–1212), Shinran (1173–1263), and Nichiren saw the decadent conditions of the Final Dharma period (Ch. mofa, Jpn. mappō) as a time for revolutionizing Buddhist practices. Such revolutionary practices involved consolidating complex Buddhist theories and rituals into simple, independent, and singular forms of practice. For groups centered around Hōnen such practices focused on reciting the “nembustu” or the name of Amida, the Buddha of the Western purified world-system of Sukhāvatī. Followers of Nichiren Practice recited the daimoku or great title of the Lotus sūtra.
Eschatology relative to the Buddhist culture of Tibet was shaped by the timetables found within the Buddhist scriptures that Tibetans translated as well as historical events occurring in eleventh to thirteenth century South Asia. A Tibetan mainstream notion of the timeframe for Buddhism’s decline was connected with a scripture related to the future Buddha Maitreya entitled the Byams pa’i mdo, “Maitreya Sūtra” (Nattier 1991, 59). The timetable of decline found in this scripture provided for a general Tibetan understanding of the Buddha’s dharma to last 5,000 years after his final nirvānạ . However, a timetable that also greatly influenced Tibetan eschatological notions, as well as post-fourteenth century Tibetan Buddhist culture up to the present day, is the apocalyptic Wheel of Time Tantra (Kālacakra-tantra).
As John Newman (1995) notes, the Wheel of Time Tantra was the last Buddhist revelation produced in India. The text depicts the historical Buddha Śākyamuni teaching to the ruler of the mysterious land of Śambhala, King Sucandra, on a range of special features unique in Buddhist literature including, adaptation of a Hindu myth, the correlation of the universe (macrocosm) with the individual human being (microcosm), and an account of the (relative) end of time. The text was born out of traumatic events that occurred in the early eleventh century in northern India when Hindus and Buddhists encountered Muslims invaders such as Mahmūd of Ghaznī (active 997–1030 CE) (Nattier 1991, 60).
The eschatology found in the Wheel of Time presents a timetable where King Sucandra will be followed by twenty-five “lineage-holders” (Skt. kūlika, Tib. rigs-ldan) who each rule for one hundred years. In the 98th year of the last lineage-holder, the year 2425 CE according to Tibetan calculations (Nattier 1991, 60), Buddhist forces, based in Śambhala, join together with Hindu groups to conquer the “barbarian” religion of Islam in a “final apocalyptic war” (Newaman 1995, 284). After a period of flourishing throughout the world, Buddhism will disappear from this world 5,104 years after the final nirvānạ of Śakyamuni.
Conclusion
Buddhists have traditionally understood the indigenous South Asian concept of dharma as an ordering principle of human socio-political structures within a temporal world encompassed by an unending and beginningless universe that oscillates through cycles of creation and dissolution. Buddhists acccepted, based on the early teachings of the Buddha in their scriptures, the fusion of worldly royal imperial power and the Buddha’s dharma of truth, morality, and virtue. The Buddha’s dharma as represented through the position of kingship manifested most dominantly in history through the special type of Buddhist king known as the Cakravartin, the Universal Emperor. The model of the Cakravartin king would come to shape the imperial ideals of kingship and socio-political order throughout history in Southeast, Central, and East Asia until colonial times (seventeenth to eighteenth century).
The ideals of order and kingship found in Buddhist cultures were shaped and constrained by underlying cosmological worldviews that shifted in structure and meaning in the various cultures where different forms of Buddhism developed. In general, all traditional Buddhist cultures adhered to a worldview constituted by an unending cosmology known as samsārạ that did not posit an eschatology in the absolute sense of the term. However, relative eschatologies did develop within Buddhist cultures and such eschatologies were formulated within the varied historical conditions where Buddhism flourished. The various relative eschatologies that Buddhists formulated throughout history depended on the Buddhist scriptures that were imported, translated, and utilized by a given Buddhist community and the interpretative attention given to such scriptures.
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