WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 25 Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents”: With Reference to the Role of heosophy and Krishnamurti Karel WERNER Karel WERNER was awarded a PhD in philosophy and Indian philology in 1948 from the Palacký University in Olomouc, Czechoslovakia, where he taught Sanskrit and Indian philosophy and religions. Deprived by the communist regime of his position for political reasons in 1951, he had to earn a living in manual occupations. After emigrating to Great Britain in 1968 he was appointed Spalding lecturer in Indian philosophy and religion and taught also Sanskrit in the School of Oriental Studies in the University of Durham, becoming titular professor in 1975. After the collapse of the communist regime he was guest professor in Masaryk University in Brno, Czech Republic, from 1993 till 1998. In the years 2002-2007 he was guest professor at Dongguk University in Seoul as well as its Gyeongju campus. From 1993 he has been honorary professorial research associate in the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. He has published numerous research papers and books on Hinduism, Buddhism, yoga and a book on religious traditions of all Asian countries. His research interests include also philosophy of religion and methodology of religious studies. E-mail: kw19@soas.ac.uk International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture Vol. 27. No. 2 (December 2016): 11–33. Ⓒ 2016 Academy of Buddhist Studies, Dongguk University, Korea http:/dx.doi.org/10.16893/IJBTC26.2.** he day of submission: 2016.9.21 Completion of review: 2016.11.22 Final decision for acceptance: 2016.11.30 26 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 Abstract When the Buddha described his enlightenment, he related how he, as a phase of the process, recollected his past lives during many aeons of world-contraction and worldexpansion, but he said nothing about recollecting past buddhas. When soon afterwards the ascetic Upaka asked him who was his teacher or whose teaching he professed, the Buddha answered that he had no teacher, had no equal, was perfected and was himself the supreme teacher. he style of the description of this encounter suggests that it may indeed have happened that way. he Buddha described it later to his monks and it seems that it was faithfully remembered by them. Although awareness of past buddhas may be implicit in the ability of remembering past lives, the Buddha’s statement about details of six past buddhas was made at Sāvatthi some years later, but the wording of the passage is suspect. he names ascribed to the past buddhas were no doubt fabricated. Gombrich (1980, 64) suggested it was done to authenticate the Buddha’s status by reference to a long line of teachers. A further extension of the line of past buddhas in Buddhavaṁsa, a late text, was inluenced by Mahāyāna. However, the idea of future Buddhas was an early logical outcome of the notion of past Buddhas. But the Buddha predicted only the coming of the next Buddha Metteyya (Skrt. Maitreya). he paper then deals with the novel idea of projections or “descents” of the Bodhisattva Maitreya as utilised by some Mahāyāna movements and contemporary “new religions” and it finishes with an extensive account of the failed attempt by the heosophical Society to present to the world Krishnamurti as the World Teacher, akin to Jesus, under the guidance of the “Lord Maitreya,” as partly witnessed by the author. Key words: Past Buddhas, Metteyya/Maitreya, Buddhavaṁsa, Theosophy, Krishnamurti WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 27 he Buddha’s Smile he very irst reference to the notion of an earlier Buddha appears in the Pāli Canon in the Ghaṭīkāra Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya (MN), which conveys a seemingly insigniicant story. Walking on a road, the Buddha at a certain spot smiled. His attendant Ānanda thought: “Tathāgatas do not smile for no reason” and asked him about it. he Buddha told him that there was once in that place a market town and that the past Buddha Kassapa had had a monastery nearby. He had also had in the town his chief supporter Ghaṭīkāra, a potter, who was spiritually advanced and eventually died as a once-returner. Ghaṭīkāra had a friend named Jotipāla, a young brahmin student, who for a long time resisted Ghaṭīkāra’s urging to go with him to visit the Buddha Kassapa, but when he did go and was instructed by him in the dhamma, he asked for admission and in due course was fully ordained a bhikkhu. he Buddha then disclosed to Ānanda: “... I was the brahmin student Jotipāla on that occasion.”1 his discourse ascribes to the Buddha the capacity to recollect his past lives which he had developed during the night in which he attained enlightenment (bodhi), also termed “complete enlightenment” (sambodhi), which opened to him higher knowledge (abhiññā) in three stages during the three “watches” of the night. In the first watch it was just recollection of his past lives (pubbenivāsānussati); in the second watch he acquired through his newly opened celestial eye (dibbacakkhu) the knowledge of how all other beings pass from one life into another according to their actions (yathākammūpagañāṇa), and in the third watch he became assured by direct knowledge of his own liberation from having ever to be born again, and acquired the knowledge of the destruction of taints.2 he Event of Enlightenment Even before his enlightenment Gotama was experienced in concentration and meditation and able to enter deep absorptions of the mind ( jhānas), the fourth one of which was marked by total equanimity. He described the event of his enlightenment at some length, but a shortened version will suice here: 28 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 When my concentrated mind was purified, bright, ... steady, and attained to imperturbability, I directed it to knowledge of the recollection of past lives. I recollected my manifold past lives, that is, one birth, two births ... ten.. twenty ... a hundred ... a thousand ... a hundred thousand births, many aeons (kappas) of world-contraction, many aeons of world-expansion ... here I was ... such was my life-term; and passing away from there, I reappeared elsewhere ... and passing away from there, I reappeared here. Thus with their aspects and particulars I recollected my manifold past lives. I directed it [my mind] to knowledge of the passing away and reappearance of beings. With the divine eye, which is puriied and surpasses the human, I saw beings passing away and reappearing ... and I understood how beings pass on according to their actions. I directed it [my mind] to knowledge of the destruction of the taints (āssava). I directly knew as it actually is: his is sufering. ... his is the origin of sufering. ... his is the cessation of sufering. ... his is the way leading to the cessation of sufering. ... hese are the taints ... his is the origin of taints. ... his is the cessation of taints. ... his is the way leading to the cessation of taints. When I knew and saw thus, my mind was liberated from the taint of sensual desire, the taint of being, and the taint of ignorance. ... I directly knew: Birth is destroyed, the holy life has been lived, what has to be done has been done, there is no more coming to any state of being.3 he Uniqueness of the Buddha Gotama here is in the above description no reference by Gotama to recollection of any past buddhas, let alone of their predictions about his future buddhahood. His embarking, as a young brahmin, on the path to liberation under the Buddha Kassapa suggests a relatively short period of struggling to accomplish the path. He did it in his last life, when born as a prince without, to begin with, any recollection of his former life as Jotipāla or of having been instructed in the dhamma by the Buddha Kassapa. When, as the well-known story goes, he eventually recognized the futility of worldly life with its temporary enjoyments and joined the bands of ascetics (samaṇas) of the time, he found that severe asceticism was a dead end. He then resorted to his earlier meditation practice and attained enlightenment unaided, by his own effort. Having thought it WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 29 through and formulated it as the dhamma, he decided to teach it for the beneit of others. his story is told in the Ariyapariyesanā Sutta 4 and also in the irst “basket” of the Pāli Canon, the Vinaya-piṭaka IV (Mahāvagga). I quote, in a shortened way, the translation by I. B. Horner in admiration for her huge efort in translating the whole Vinaya-piṭaka between the years 1938 and 1966: Then it occurred to the Lord: “Now, to whom should I first teach dhamma? Who will understand this dhamma quickly? ...hat group of ive monks who waited on me when I was self-resolute in striving were very helpful.” ... hen the Lord with deva-vision ... saw the group of ive monks staying near Benares at Isipatana in the deerpark. hen the Lord ... set out on tour for Benares. Upaka, a Naked Ascetic, saw the Lord going along the highroad; seeing him, he spoke thus to the Lord: “Your reverence, your sense-organs are quite pure, your complexion very bright, very clear. On account of whom have you gone forth, or who is your teacher, or whose dhamma do you profess?” When this had been said, the Lord addressed Upaka in verses: “Victorious over all, ... Leaving all, through death of craving freed, by knowing for myself, whom should I follow? For me there is no teacher. One like me does not exist, in the world with its devas no one equals me. For I am perfected in the world, the teacher supreme am I, I alone am all-awakened, become cool am I, nirvana-attained.” When this had been said, Upaka, the Naked Ascetic, having said, “It may be (so), your reverence,” having shaken his head, went of taking a diferent road. (Horner 1962, 11–12) Both versions are virtually identical, which testiies to their belonging to the oldest parts of the Pāli Canon. We may conidently take them as descriptions of an actual event recorded (in memory) by monks before any speculations about past buddhas. Unthinkable Beginning However, the notion of a multiplicity of Buddhas in the past was, in a way, implicit in the Buddha’s statement that he was, in a past life, the brahmin student Jotipāla who became a disciple of the then Buddha Kassapa. It would have to be made explicit soon after it was realised that the “global low” (saṁsāra) 30 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 of reality in its cosmic dimensions as well as in the faring on of individuals through successive lives was without any conceivable beginning, which was even held by most wandering ascetics. The Buddha himself made several times an unequivocal statement to that efect, dramatically illustrated by vivid metaphors (e.g. about the amount of tears shed by a sufering being in the round of rebirths being greater than the water in the four seas): Anamataggāyaṁ bhikkhave saṁsaro pubbākoṭi na paññāyati avijjānīvaraṇānaṁ sattānaṁ taṇhāsaṁyojanānaṁ sandhāvataṁ saṁsarataṁ. (S II, 178f.) Of unthinkable beginning, monks, is this global wandering before and after the present point, one does not get to know the total continuous migration of beings hindered by ignorance, fettered by thirst.5 Incalculable is the beginning, brethren, of this faring on. he earliest point is not revealed of the faring on, running on, of beings cloaked by ignorance, tied by craving. (Davids 1972, 118f.) Unbekannten Anfangs, Ihr Bhikkhus, ist dieser Umlauf der Geburten; nicht kennt man einen ersten Beginn bei den Wesen, die, in dem Hemmnis des Nichtwissens, in der Fessel des Durstes gefangen (von Geburt zu Geburt) umherwandern und umherlaufen (Geiger 1925, 234–235). It would follow from this statement that the wandering of beings from birth to birth is beginningless and this is how it is most of the time understood. It would suggest a kind of lineal low of time from the ininite past into the future without an end, except for some individuals by liberation. But a certain ambiguity remains; a definite, unequivocal translation of the above Pāli quotation is not possible. Philosophically it is an insoluble problem, especially after Einstein’s formula in which time is the fourth dimension of space. he Multiplicity of Past Buddhas But the envisaging of enormous past world periods (kappas and asaṅkheyyas) soon created scope for further past Buddhas before Kassapa. In the Mahāpadāna Sutta (DN II.2: Davids 1959, 5) the Buddha Gotama revealed names and particulars of ive of them. It is there said that at that time he was staying at Sāvatthi in the park Jetavana, donated to him and the Saṅgha by WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 31 Anāthapiṇḍika, a rich tradesman who had become his lay follower three or four years after his Enlightenment. he Buddha spent in Jetavana several rainy seasons, but the discourse does not specify in which of them it took place. Nevertheless it would have been at least three years after the Buddha’s bold statement to Upaka. he discourse is lengthy, so it is here shortened: It is now ninety-one aeons ago, brethren, since Vipassi, the Exalted One, Arahant, Buddha Supreme, arose in the world. It is now thirty-one aeons ago, brethren, since Sikhī ... arose in the world. It was in that same thirty-irst aeon, brethren, since Vessabhū ... arose in the world. It was in this present auspicious aeon, brethren, that Kakusandha ... Koṇāgama ... Kassapa ... arose in the world. It is in this auspicious aeon, brethren, that I now, an Arahant, Buddha Supreme, have arisen in the world. (DN II, 4: Davids 1959, 5.) here is no doubt that the comprehensive higher knowledge and status of an Enlightened One could immediately after his Enlightenment bring to the awareness of the Buddha Gotama the occurrence of other Buddhas in past ages if he had directed his attention in that direction. But it would appear that he did so only sometime after he told Ānanda about Jotipāla and the Buddha Kassapa. hen he could tell the monks details about the past buddhas, although of their status there could have been no statement made as they had died and reached nibbāna. But since the Buddha Gotama himself also reached nibbāna, although he was still alive in the world, he must have already then been somehow sharing their company, as it were, but he could not describe their and his inner status except that they had been liberated and would not be born again in saṁsāra. Nevertheless, the wording of the passage is suspect, especially because of the precise names ascribed to the past Buddhas, and makes an impression of a late origin. But why would a line of former Buddhas have been fabricated? Gombrich (1980, 64) suggests that Upaka was not impressed by the Buddha’s proclamation about his status because he did not claim that his message was conveyed to him by a superior power or did not authenticate his position by reference to a long line of teachers. He had studied, it is true, with two teachers and mastered their achievements, but he had afterwards abandoned them as inadequate. Upaka’s attitude was, in Gombrich’s view, the fundamental raison d’être for the doctrine of previous buddhas. he model for it was ready at hand in the Jain 32 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 teaching on twenty-four ford-makers (tīrthaṅkaras). How to Become a Buddha The number of previous buddhas was topped up to twenty-four in Buddhavaṁsa (Horner 1975). heir names are: (1) Dīpaṅkara, (2) Koṇḍañña, (3) Maṅgala, (4) Sumana, (5) Revata, (6) Sobhita, (7) Anomadassī, (8) Paduma, (9) Nārada, (10) Padumuttara, (11) Sumedha, (12) Sujāta, (13) Piyadassī, (14) Atthadassī, (15) Dhammadassī, (16) Siddhattha, (17) Tissa, (18) Phussa, (19) Vipassī, (20) Sikhī, (21) Vessabhū, (22) Kakusandha, (23) Koṇāgama, and (24) Kassapa. Buddhavaṁsa is a late work, possibly from the third or second century BCE (Gombrich 1980, 68), although still included in the Pāli Canon. In the initial section the text describes how Sāriputta gathered together ive hundred monks, approached the Buddha and asked him several questions: about the nature of his resolve and the time of his aspiration for Awakening, about the practices involving generosity, morality, renunciation, determination and the sublime states and how he developed the ten perfections. In reply the Buddha described to Sāriputta the circumstances under which he had conceived the aspiration to become a Buddha when he was the ascetic Sumedha. It was a hundred thousand aeons and four “incalculables” (asaṅkheyyas) ago when as a learned brahmin he had realised that repeated birth and death was anguish. So he had given away his riches, become an ascetic and lived in a hermitage in the mountains. He excelled in ascetic practices and achievements resulting therefrom and became a teacher of others. Observing that people in the valley were constructing a highway for the visit of the current Buddha Dīpaṅkara, he started constructing one section of the road, but before he inished it the Buddha Dīpaṅkara was coming with a large retinue. Therefore Sumedha threw himself into the mire so that the Buddha and his monks could walk over it on him. Simultaneously he made a resolution that he himself would become a Buddha. Dīpaṅkara confirmed that he would accomplish it. This confirmation made Sumedha into a bodhisatta. He then surveyed the ten perfections he would have to develop for the purpose: giving (dāna), morality (sīla), renunciation (nekkhamma), wisdom (paññā), energy (viriya), patience (khanti), truth (sacca), resolute determination (adiṭṭhāna), loving-kindness (mettā) and WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 33 equanimity (epekhā), later illustrated by the Jātakas and in commentaries. he section in Buddhavaṁsa on Dīpaṅkara is a stereotypical description of the Buddha’s powers, teaching skills and ability to inspire in countless followers the attainment of liberation or stages on the path. his is also the case, with some variations, with all other Buddhas in subsequent sections. Sumedha was born successively at the time of each subsequent Buddha and was given by each an assurance of his future buddhahood after innumerable aeons during which he was born four times as a brahmin, once as king of the nāgas, once as a yakkha, once as a lion, once as a severe ascetic, once as a district governor and once as a brahmin youth. When he was born as a universal monarch (cakkavattin) at the time of the Buddha Sujāta, his buddhahood was predicted to occur after thirty thousand aeons. When born under three further buddhas (Piyadassī, Atthadassī and Dhammadassī) successively as a brahmin, severe ascetic and Sakka, the king of the gods (devas), buddhahood was promised to him after eighteen thousand aeons. Under the Buddha Siddhattha, when Gotama was a severe ascetic, it came down to ninety-four aeons and after three further Buddhas (Tissa, Phussa and Vipassī) when Gotama was in turn twice a warrior and once the king of nāgas, ninety-two aeons suiced. In four further births Gotama was a warrior. Under Sikhī and Vessabhū the waiting time was reduced to thirtyone aeons, while Kakusandha, Koṇāgama, Kassapa and also Gotama were active in the present ‘auspicious’ aeon, as mentioned above. An aeon (kappa) is an enormously long time, but Buddhist sources refer to the duration of kappas and asaṅkheyyas only in similes and, unlike Hindu sources, never put precise numbers on the cosmic periods (Werner 1998, 43–46). When the Buddha Kassapa ordained Jotipāla a bhikkhu, there is no mention of Jotipāla’s aspiration to buddhahood or Kassapa’s prediction. hat squares well with the proclamation of the Buddha Gotama to Upaka which rules out that he would have been aware at the time of past buddhas before Kassapa. Since his discourse in Sāvatthi on the six previous buddhas was delivered three years after his meeting with Upaka or later, he must have developed his recollection of them well after the meeting with Upaka. Besides Sumedha there would have been many other ascetics taking vows under all the past buddhas, so there must be incalculable numbers of bodhisattas in the world. Later Sanskrit works further increase the numbers of past buddhas: the Lalitavistara to fifty-four and the Mahāvastu to more than a hundred (Malalasekera 1974, II, 295). The Mahāvastu is a canonical text of the transcendental school 34 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 Lokottaravāda, a sub-sect of the Mahāsaṅghika, the irst schismatic movement which split from the early Sthaviravāda around 383 or 350 BCE. It contains the Jyotipāla Sūtra, a Northern (Sanskrit) version of the Pāli Ghaṭīkāra Sutta of the MN. he Northern Jyotipāla Sūtra goes a step further than the Ghaṭīkāra Sutta in referring to Jyotipāla as a bodhisattva for whom the Buddha Kāśyapa predicts future buddhahood (Rahula 1978, 82–83; 124). On the Use of the Term Bodhisatta/Bodhisattva he Jyotipāla Sūtra also illustrates the connection between usage of the term bodhisatta/bodhisattva and the emergence of the teaching about past Buddhas. Originally the Buddha Gotama referred with this expression just to himself when reminiscing about his life: “Before my enlightenment, while I was still only an unenlightened bodhisatta ...” (MN I,4.3, Bodhi 2001, 102). But when he later related the names and particulars of past Buddhas, he referred to them as bodhisattas while they were dwelling in Tusita (Skt. Tuṣita) before being born in the world: “When, bhikkhus, a bodhisatta passes away from the Tusita heaven ... and ... enters his mother’s womb ...” (AN II, 130: Bodhi 2012, 510). his applies of course also to the Buddha Gotama himself, although it seems to be expressly mentioned only in the commentarial literature (e.g Samantapāsadikā I.161). It is only a small step to applying the term to every aspirant to buddhahood the moment its fulfilment is predicted by a Buddha. In the course of time new organisations whose members aspired to buddhahood introduced the term for them even though after Gotama’s parinibbāna there is no living Buddha in the world to make a prediction about them. It is even used by individuals who conceive the intention to struggle for buddhahood without being ailiated to any organization. he Future Buddha Metteyya/Maitreya and his Descents he logical outcome of the notion of numerous past buddhas was of course the idea of future buddhas. he Suttapiṭaka duly predicts the coming of the next Buddha Metteyya: WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 35 At that period, brethren, there will arise in the world an Exalted One named Metteyya, Arahant, Fully Awakened, abounding in wisdom and goodness, happy, with knowledge of the worlds, unsurpassed as a guide to mortals willing to be led, a teacher for gods and men, an Exalted One, a Buddha, even as I am now (D III.77: Davids 1965, 73–74). Initially it is not mentioned where he will come from, but it would evidently be Tusita. his is conirmed later in the Great Chronicle of Ceylon: ‘Awaiting the time when he shall become a Buddha, the compassionate Bodhisatta Metteyya dwells in the Tusita-city’ (Mahāvaṁsa XXXII.73: Geiger 1964, 226). But he does not seem to have much leisure there; the Cūḷavaṁsa discloses: “Master of the world Metteyya who in the delectable Tusita heaven, at the head of the assembly of the gods, preaches the glorious doctrine of the truth”. King Kassapa V [ca. 929 CE] emulated him by “sitting in a maṇḍapa decorated with all kinds of jewels, surrounded by all the bhikkhus of the town, reciting the Abhidhamma with the grace of a Buddha” (Cv 52.47–48: Geiger 1973, 166–167). There are many functions which the Bodhisatta Metteyya is asked and expected to perform in the interim period before he will be born in the world to become the future Buddha. He has been worshipped in Śrī Laṅka since early times in front of images and statues, some regarded as precious. Thus King Dhātusena placed an image of him, protected by guards, near the Bodhi Tree (Cv 38.68-69: Geiger 1973, 31 & 36). King Dappula I [c. 661 CE] is reported to have had a statue of Metteyya made which was sixteen and a half metres high (Cv 45.62–63: Geiger 1973, 95) and three statues of Metteyya were built by King Parakkamabāhu I [1153–1186 CE] (Cv 79.76: Geiger 1973, 123).6 It is a wish of many Buddhists to be reborn at the time when Metteyya will become the Buddha so that, taught by him, they may reach nibbāna under his guidance. The idea, mentioned earlier, that there must be incalculable bodhisattas around was further developed into predictions of future buddhas beyond Metteyya. It found expression in a Sinhalese work he Birth Stories of the Ten Bodhisattas (Dasabodhisattuppattikathā) written in the fourteenth century. In the Northern Sanskrit Canon, preserved only in fragments, the Bodhisattva Maitreya plays an equally important role to that in the Southern Pāli tradition. Worth quoting is an episode from the Lalitavistara, originally 36 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 a Hīnayāna text, which gives the Sarvāstivāda biography of the Buddha, embellished in the spirit of the Mahāyāna. When the future Buddha Gotama residing in Tuṣita decided to undertake his last birth, the gods implored him to stay, as otherwise they would lack instruction. “he Bodhisattva consoled them and said that Bodhisattva Maitreya, who was to be the next Buddha, would expound the doctrine to them” (Banerjee 1979, 247-248). Mahāyāna, which spread from India into all Asian countries, makes frequent use of Maitreya. In the Southeast he is depicted in reliefs on the magnificent monument Borobudur on Java, which illustrate the whole Gaṇḍavyūha Sūtra. One set of reliefs depicts Maitreya helping the truth-seeker Sudhana in his search for salvation. When Sudhana reaches Maitreya in his heavenly mansion, Maitreya instructs him by granting him visions of himself advancing through various stages of practice during many past lives. Scenes with other bodhisattvas and of a bodhisattva’s last birth in the material world to become a Buddha are shown. hen Maitreya sends Sudhana to Mañjuśrī for a inal breakthrough.7 Maitreya profoundly inluenced Mahāyāna schools. Asaṅga (310–390?), one of the founders of the Yogācāra tradition, is said to have striven for many years to have a vision of Maitreya and was eventually taken by him to Tuṣita for instruction which resulted in ive important texts, not all of them ascribed to Asaṅga by scholars (Williams 2009, 86–87; cf. Wayman 1997, 213–214). In China the notorious Empress Wu Zetian (625–705) utilised the idea that a bodhisattva may appear in female form by proclaiming herself an emanation of Maitreya (Williams 2009, 139-140; cf. 218–221). Maitreya makes his appearance also in the two versions of the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, the primary text of “Pure Land Buddhism” which originated in India but spread throughout Asia. he Buddha Gotama describes to Ānanda in the shorter Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra, the land of bliss created by the cosmic Buddha Amitābha as his “Buddha ield” (buddhakṣetra). Ānanda is so taken by the description that he desires to see it and is enabled to do so by Maitreya, who grants him a vision of it. he whole scene seems to be somehow taking place on earth as well as in the cosmic context, because in the larger version the Buddha, surrounded by innumerable bodhisattvas/mahāsattvas who have assembled from diferent world systems, takes on a kind of cosmic stature. he bodhisattvas are headed by Maitreya and share in the vision of the pure land as do many assembled gods and humans. The Buddha then addresses WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 37 Maitreya, exhorting the whole assembly to seek rebirth in Sukhāvatī and explaining how to achieve it. His detailed descriptions suggest that they were to be used as guides to the visualization method of meditation (Gómez 1996). Maitreya appears in a similar role in one of the most influential texts of Mahāyāna, the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka Sūtra, (The Discourse on the Lotus of the True Law), usually shortened to ‘Lotus Sūtra’. The discourse takes place on Gṛdhrakūṭa (Vulture Peak) in historical time as well as in the cosmic context eternally, as it were. In the audience there are the Buddha’s monks and nuns, most of them arahats, and numerous bodhisattvas, headed by Maitreya, some aiming at buddhahood, others under a vow to enter nirvāṇa only after all other beings have been saved with their assistance; gods and all categories of beings from innumerable cosmic systems are also present. The Buddha is in deep meditation and starts speaking only after he is prompted three times by Maitreya. he gist of his talk is the revelation that he was enlightened aeons ago, if not from beginningless time, and appeared in many guises, including that of Śākyamuni. He further reveals that the only way to final liberation is to become a Buddha and several times solemnly predicts Maitreya’s future buddhahood on earth8. Maitreya has become a favourite focus for new religions in China, Japan and Korea which utilise the idea of the descent of Maitreya in their aim of facilitating salvation to ordinary people on earth (cf. Kim 2016). A modern expression of the aspiration of many Buddhists to be born when Maitreya becomes the Buddha, is the order Ārya Maitreya Maṇḍala founded by Lama Anagarika Govinda (Ernst Lothar Hoffmann, 1898–1985), a painter and poet, who became a Buddhist after studying philosophy and comparative religion. In 1928 he arrived in Ceylon and stayed with Nyanatiloka who gave him the name Govinda. In 1929 he assumed the status of an anagarika. As a delegate to the All-India Buddhist Conference in Darjeeling in 1931 he met the accomplished lama Tomo Geshe Rimpoche who initiated him into the Gelugpa order9 and entrusted him in 1933 with founding AMM; he is therefore regarded as the irst head or Ācārya of AMM, but he immediately passed on the role to Govinda, who in due course nominated his successor and so it continues. he present Ācārya is the fourth. he Order was enlarged in 1952 by founding a Western branch in Berlin. Further branches were founded in Hungary, Austria and Holland. Heads of branches bear the title Upācārya. In 1953 was founded the “Society of Friends 38 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 of the Order AMM” which provides courses in Triyāna Buddhism whose participants may become, after three years, candidates for full membership of the Order. A ceremonial taking of the Bodhisattva vow marks the entry into full membership. he Order conducts retreats which start with an esoteric pūjā, consisting of japa meditation on special mantras known as dhāraṇīs, recitation of extracts from the Pāli Canon and precisely defined ritual actions which symbolize the path to enlightenment. Retreats to which Friends are admitted start with an exoteric version of the pūjā which also contains formulas in national languages. he practice difers according to individual experience and ranges from simple meditation methods such as mindfulness of breathing to advanced vizualisation techniques.10 heosophy and the Plan for a Modern Messiah Movements utilizing the idea of the descent of Maitreya have not been spared instances of fraudulent claims. The most notorious one is connected with the heosophical Society founded in New York in 1875 by Henry Steel Olcott (1832–1907), Helena Petrovna Blavatsky (1831–1891) and others. hey were supposedly inspired by “Masters of the Ancient Wisdom” living in the Himalaya mountains in a transcendent dimension and forming the world’s “Spiritual Hierarchy” in which the most prominent igure is the Lord Maitreya, the true World Teacher, whose past “descents” were Zoroaster, the Buddha Śākyamuni and Jesus (Blavatsky 1888). It is not entirely clear whether the Lord Maitreya is identical with the Bodhisattva Maitreya in Tuṣita who will be the Buddha on earth in a future world period. In 1879 heosophy established its headquarters in Adyar, South India. Its head was Olcott, followed after his death by Annie Besant (1847–1933), a onetime social reformer, campaigner for women’s rights and member of the Fabian Society. She was won for heosophy in 1890 when she met Blavatsky in London. Another prominent member of the Theosophical Society was C. W. Leadbeater (1854–1934), originally an Anglican priest who joined the Society in 1883 and settled in Adyar in 1886.11 Soon after arriving in Adyar Leadbeater revealed that he had become clairvoyant and was directly guided by “Masters”. He claimed that he could leave his body at night and meet the Masters on the “astral plane” (devachan). WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 39 He declared that the Lord Maitreya would soon inspire his next spokesman, who would become the modern Messiah. In 1909 he noticed a boy on the beach in Adyar who had a “glorious aura”; he felt the boy was suitable for being groomed for the role. he Making of a New Messiah Annie Besant did not claim clairvoyant powers, but was being trained, perhaps through telepathy, by Leadbeater to participate in his nightly meetings with the Masters. She had vague dreamy recollections of them, but eventually she came to rely completely on Leadbeater’s visions and to believe in them unreservedly. Her strong point was public lecturing on the teaching of the heosophical Society for which she gained many new members and supporters when she announced the imminent coming of the new Messiah. he boy Leadbeater discovered was Jiddu Krishnamurti (1895–1986). His father, Jiddu Narayaniah, was an orthodox Telugu Brahmin and a heosophist employed at the Society’s headquarters at Adyar. Krishnamurti was removed from his home, along with his younger brother Nitya for company, and with his father’s approval started to be groomed for his mission as the modern Messiah. Both boys were first taught to keep spotlessly clean; the Indian way of pouring water over one’s head and body was deemed inadequate as it did not prevent the boys having lice in hairy parts of their bodies, including their eyebrows. hen they were put through rigorous exercises and sports and given secondary education and lessons in heosophy and religions, yoga and meditation. In 1911 they were brought to England and were taught upper class social manners. hey were also taken to a few European countries to extend their horizons. In 1912 their father, by then a widower, had second thoughts and sued successfully in Madras for his sons’ return to his custody. But Annie Besant won an appeal to the Privy Council in London. Krishnamurti was grateful to her, for now he abhorred the Indian life style, and a strong tie developed between them. He saw in her his surrogate mother, but as she often travelled giving heosophical lectures, he came to enjoy being mothered also by another older woman, Emily Lutyens, a member of the Society since 1910, to whom he eventually became even closer than to Annie Besant. For the purpose of Krishnamurti’s future mission, a special organisation 40 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 was founded in 1911 called ‘he Order of the Star in the East’. In emulation of Jesus’ mission twelve apostles were to be nominated. However, within a year or two Krishnamurti started showing signs of resentment and dislike of being constantly under surveillance. He appeared to have become a rebellious teenager, so Leadbeater decided to ind another possible candidate for the role of Messiah. In 1913 he discovered one in Desikacharya Rajagopal (1900–93) and wanted to supplant Krishnamurti, but Annie Besant, who by then had become very attached to him, did not allow the change. Rajagopal was very intelligent and so Leadbeater continued educating him in Theosophy and in 1915 took him to Sydney. Meanwhile Krishnamurti and Nitya were being tutored for Oxford. Nitya passed the examinations with honours, but Krishnamurti failed all of them. Despite all the grooming for his mission as Messiah, which presupposed self-discipline and strict celibacy, Krishnamurti was in fact growing up into a normal young man attracted to beautiful girls. After the strain of the examinations the boys were taken to Paris to relax. here they met Mme de Manziarly, a heosophist, and her four daughters, and Krishnamurti had a romance with the youngest one, Marcelle. But marriage was out of the question because of his ‘mission,’ so he suppressed his feelings. In 1920 Rajagopal was brought to London and Krishnamurti was at first apprehensive about him as a possible rival, but soon found that Rajagopal was friendly and supported his future role. In 1921 Krishnamurti fell in love with 17-year-old Helen Knothe, an American he met in Amsterdam, yet in 1922 he readily embarked on his irst lecture tour round the world, accompanied by Nitya. He spoke in the spirit of his mission as deined by the heosophical Society and made widely known by Annie Besant’s and Leadbeater’s lectures. He was becoming an impressive speaker. When they had finished the tour in Sydney, Krishnamurti was attracted to a beautiful English girl, Ruth Roberts, and rumours started. But Leadbeater intervened with a message from Master Kuthumi, advising him to ind his “true self ”. So he took a break for the purpose. he brothers then travelled across the Paciic to California, avoiding the heat of India as Nitya was ailing, and arrived in the Ojai Valley, where a house was acquired for them called Arya Vihara. At this time a 19-year-old American girl, Rosalind Williams, who had no connection to or interest in heosophy, was staying in Ojai with relatives. She was asked to nurse Nitya, which she did eiciently, and soon fell in love with WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 41 him. A warm relationship developed also between her and Krishnamurti, who maintained that he was still in love with Helen Knothe, yet was also obviously enjoying closeness to Rosalind. But he knew that Nitya returned her love and did not want to upset him. He tried to divert his mind from preoccupation with romantic involvements by undertaking long meditation sessions. Soon thereafter he suddenly started having strange spiritual experiences. hey were accompanied by a lot of pain, and he heard voices during them. When they started recurring, they were referred to as the “Process” and regarded as steps towards making Krishnamurti a channel for the Lord Maitreya. Sometimes the sufering during the “Process” was so intense that he could not stand any touch and sat collapsed under a tree. At other times he allowed Rosalind to nurse him through his seizures and sought relief by putting his head on her lap and sometimes cupping her breasts. She was skeptical about the “spirituality” of his symptoms and even suspected epilepsy, but no doctor was ever consulted. In June 1923 Nitya’s health improved and the brothers went for a holiday to Austria where Krishnamurti again met Helen Knothe. Rajagopal joined them from London and witnessed the recurrence of Krishnamurti’s “Process,” which convinced him of his vocation. It was Helen who now consoled Krishnamurti during his seizures. In subsequent years he several times met her in intimate settings, but eventually ended his tie to her to preserve his independence as a world teacher (Blau 1995, 58–65). Helen revealed in 1984 that during those meetings they often lay together in bed, but never had sex (Sloss, 1991, 56). From Austria the brothers returned to Ojai with Rajagopal, who became the eicient organiser of Krishnamurti’s activities from Arya Vihara. Rosalind looked after the three of them. But during the “Process” which again took hold of Krishnamurti, he avoided Rosalind and called for the absent Helen, probably again out of regard for Nitya’s love for Rosalind. In 1924, when Nitya seemed well recovered, Rosalind was sent to Leadbeater in Sydney for a briefing in Theosophy, which was not a success, while Krishnamurti, accompanied by Nitya, embarked on a new world tour. First Doubts In India Nitya’s health suffered and he also felt distressed when his brother revealed to him his doubts about his mission as Messiah. When they reached 42 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 Sydney in April 1925 and Rosalind saw the poor state of Nitya’s health, she prevailed on Leadbeater to let her return with them to Ojai to nurse Nitya. He seemed to recover under her care, but he probably knew or had a foreboding that he did not have much time left to live. He still believed in his brother’s vocation as world teacher, but was aware of his doubts about the role as envisaged by Theosophical leaders. One day he had a serious private talk with Rajagopal and Rosalind and asked them to promise him that they would always support Krishnamurti no matter what complications would arise in future. hey assured him they would, and after Nitya’s death they both continued to regard it as a solemn deathbed promise (Sloss 1991, 77). When Annie Besant asked Krishnamurti to come with her to Adyar for the Theosophical Society’s fiftieth anniversary in the autumn of 1925, he insisted that Rosalind should go as well, saying that he felt reassured by the Masters that Nitya was important for him during his mission and would live. But a telegram about Nitya’s death (aged 27) reached them on board ship from Naples to India. As a result Krishnamurti’s belief in heosophy, the Masters and his role as the Messiah was utterly shattered, yet he continued his “Mission” for another four years. In Adyar Krishnamurti showed tenderness to Rosalind but was often with Helen, while Rosalind turned for company to Rajagopal, who was asked by Annie Besant to organise the afairs of the Order of the Star. Rajagopal was full of admiration for Rosalind and started courting her. She, feeling lonely after Nitya’s death, became engaged to him in 1926. But the engagement was cancelled when it transpired that by marrying a foreigner she would lose her American citizenship. Krishnamurti felt encouraged by this but his renewed attentions to Rosalind led to rumours, and Annie Besant asked her to spend time living with her in London. When she went to Ommen in Holland to attend the annual gathering of the Order of the Star, she did not take Rosalind with her so as to keep her away from Krishnamurti. In her loneliness Rosalind telephoned Rajagopal, who arrived next day with flowers in his hand and asked her to marry him. When Annie Besant returned, she approved, hoping that it would terminate Krishnamurti’s attentions to Rosalind. She set the date for the wedding on 11 October 1927 in St Mary’s Liberal Catholic Church in London.12 She even decided to play the role of giving the bride away. Krishnamurti did not attend either of the wedding ceremonies and stayed away from the reception. WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 43 he “Pathless Land” Thereafter, Rosalind accompanied her husband on some of his own and Krishnamurti’s lecture tours, but she was often left alone in Ojai. Meanwhile Krishnamurti’s misgivings about the role of Messiah imposed on him by the leaders of the Theosophical Society matured into his decision in 1929 to dissolve the Order of the Star and become an independent speaker. He proclaimed that the truth was a “pathless land” that could not be organized and could not be “brought down,” just as the mountain top could not be brought to the valley and had to be climbed individually. He rejected institutionalised religion and spirituality and all philosophy and all systematized paths to liberation as deceptive products of thought. Still, one can find in his talks and books traces of Hindu-Buddhist spiritual outlook. His stress on being constantly “aware of what is” — “choiceless awareness” — appears to be a variation of the Buddhist technique of mindfulness (sati). After Krishnamurti’s proclamation, which shattered the Theosophical Society and gave a tremendous shock to Annie Besant, he continued circling the globe almost every year giving talks in his new style; they were always fully attended and efficiently organised by Rajagopal, who now founded Krishnamurti Writings Inc. (KWInc) to facilitate the publication of Krishnamurti’s talks and books, covering Krishnamurti’s expenses from the proceeds and incoming donations. But Rajagopal never resigned from the Theosophical Society and one part of his complicated personality seemed to have adhered to Brahminic orthodoxy. After his and Rosalind’s daughter Radha was born in 1931, he told his wife that now there was no need for them to continue their sexual contacts. In this respecf he followed Moksadharma’s advice to abstain from intercourse after begetting offspring. He then concentrated fully on the extensive work he was doing in organising Krishnamurti’s tours. For an American woman this change in their marital relations was not easy to accept. Rosalind now felt rejected by her husband, especially when left alone with her daughter when Rajagopal accompanied Krishnamurti on his travels. On seeing the baby, Krishnamurti was charmed and treated her as his surrogate daughter, practically replacing her father. He started spending his days in Rosalind’s lat, helping her with domestic chores and looking after Radha, while spending the nights in his nearby cottage. his 44 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 situation was taken for granted by others, but Rosalind’s relation to him was deepening. “Human All Too Human” The above citation from Nietzsche can be applied, with a twist, to Krishnamurti’s life from 1932 on. After giving a talk to a gathering held in the Ojai camp, he felt very elated by its success and in the night left his cottage, entered Rosalind’s bedroom and joined her in bed (Sloss 1991, 117). His visits then continued daily while he was in Ojai between his lecturing tours, on which he maintained the image of a spiritually awakened teacher independent of all ties. In 1935 Rosalind was with child and to Krishnamurti’s relief decided on an abortion. Her symptoms afterwards were ascribed to mild appendicitis. A year later she became pregnant again, but suffered a miscarriage. At the age of six Radha noticed Krishnamurti creeping up the outside stairs into her mother’s bedroom, but at the time did not take in what it meant. In 1939 Rosalind was again pregnant and considered keeping the baby but conceded to subtle pressure from Krishnamurti and had another abortion. During the war years Krishnamurti gave talks in various parts of the USA and his following also grew among people who were not members of the heosophical Society. he aura of the world teacher as a spokesman of Bodhisattva Maitreya somehow lingered in the minds of his listeners despite his disclaimer. Krishnamurti went on his first post-war tour in 1947 and in Bombay became close to Nandini Mehta, the wife of a rich businessman, and her sister Pupul. They looked after him when he was again suffering from his painful “Process” which now could not be regarded as a symptom of becoming a spokesman of the Lord Maitreya, in whom he no longer believed. When he returned to Ojai in 1949, he resumed his intimacy with Rosalind, but more than once called her Nandini, denying afterwards any disloyalty. But a few months later an article about him in Time magazine mentioned Nandini, who was denying sexual relations to her husband. She sued for legal separation after being beaten up by him but lost the case, her social standing and the custody of her three children. Rajagopal did not suspect Krishnamurti of impropriety in that case, but Rosalind knew that Krishnamurti was not truthful and entered into emotional involvements with other women. WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 45 Two Confessions In 1951 things came to a head after friends in London told Rosalind rumours about Krishnamurti’s affairs in India. She went to Paris to meet with her husband and when Rajagopal joined her from Ojai, she voiced her suspicions and then suddenly blurted out the whole story of her relationship with Krishnamurti. It was a shock for Rajagopal, especially the abortions, but he did not blame his wife, his anger was directed onto Krishnamurti and he threatened to pull out of his administrative function. Yet on his arrival in Paris from India, Krishnamurti managed to calm him. The deathbed promise to Nitya was probably in Rajagopal’s mind. He also realised that his resignation would expose everything and harm Rosalind. Rosalind later told Krishnamurti about her confession to her husband, his acquiescence in her behaviour and his anger over Krishnamurti’s deviousness and she asked him to talk things over with Rajagopal. Krishnamurti promised to do so but never did and when in India he resumed his contacts with Nandini and Pupul. he discrepancies and recurring double dealings of Krishnamurti were being glossed over by Rajagopal, but Rosalind was drawing away from Krishnamurti mentally, although still complying with his carnal demands. When all three were in Stockholm in 1955, Rosalind told her husband that she wanted to be free from Krishnamurti, who agreed not to return to Ojai with them. After a period of rest he started giving talks again and was acquiring new supporters. Rajagopal still saw to the publication of his talks and writings, but stopped organising his tours. Later, after recovering from an illness, Rajagopal fell in love with a young lady helping Rosalind in the school she ran for local children. A quiet divorce was arranged, enabling Rajagopal a new marriage. The strained relationship between Krishnamurti, Rajagopal and Rosalind deteriorated and led finally to complete rupture. In 1968 Krishnamurti accused Rajagopal in the Attorney-General’s oice in Los Angeles of misspending KWInc funds and demanded to be put in charge of them. The same year the Krishnamurti Foundation in London was formed to succeed KWInc and the Brockwood Park estate was bought by his new supporters at the end of 1968. It became his new base and a school. He then continued his self-deined “mission” with undiminished support from followers and public, despite publicity about the litigation that had already taken place. When Rosalind realized in 1971 the inevitability of a lawsuit, anticipating 46 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 that she would be called as a witness, she told everything about her life to Radha, who was now married with children. An attempt by Radha to mediate only made Krishnamurti angry. Altogether three lawsuits were started by the new Krishnamurti Foundation, but were always withdrawn. A inal settlement was reached out of court shortly after Krishnamurti’s death in 1986. Rajagopal was fully exonerated. Krishnamurti’s double life, in which the ecstatic experiences which fuelled his public speeches alternated with romantic involvements, was not generally known and the rumours circulating about him did not eclipse his reputation as a spiritual superman or world teacher (Lutyens 1990; Sloss 1991; Vernon 2001). Despite everything, his legacy still lives. Brockwood Park functions as the Krishnamurti International Educational Centre, his schools and centres exist in the Americas and India, there is also a Krishnamurti Centre in Sydney, and groups of his followers are scattered in many countries. Personal Input I read Krishnamurti’s books when I was running the Yoga Club which I founded in Brno, Czechoslovakia, in the 1960s. I recognized in his style the inluence of the Buddha’s “right mindfulness,” the seventh step of his eightfold path. Krishnamurti’s talks seemed to me repetitive and just variations of the same. They were carefully thought through, but never gave any answers. Those were left to the listener to “see,” not to formulate in words. His talks were clearly products of thought, yet he condemned thought as a limiting and misleading process. To prove this to myself, I experimentally adopted his style for my monthly talks to the members of the Yoga Club who had been attending my haṭhayoga classes. The effect was that they became deferential and started treating me as their guru; when I addressed someone on his or her own, they showed signs of shyness, almost like stage fright. I soon dropped the experiment, yet some of its efect lingered on in my listeners. When I was invited during the brief period of the “Prague Spring”— which started in Januar y 1968 — to lecture on Yoga in various towns in Czechoslovakia, a group of listeners to my talk in Moravská Ostrava took me late at night to the home of a small disabled man who was married with children, was nicknamed “little Krishnamurti” and was rumoured to be WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 47 enlightened. His flat was crowded with his disciples, a small sample of his following, I was told. here must have been, and perhaps still are, imitators of Krishnamurti in other parts of the world. I was careful not to land in a similar position after my emigration to England in the wake of the Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia on 21 August 1968. When I was appointed Spalding lecturer in Indian Philosophy and Religion at the University of Durham in the autumn of 1968, I also started, from 1969, yoga classes and lectured on yoga topics for the extramural departments of Durham and Leicester Universities and for Stockton’s YMCA. By then I had fully evaluated the nature of Krishnamurti’s teachings as a partial utilisation of the Buddha’s right mindfulness (sammā sati) expressed in ever reworded variations as if it were his own original discovery. Early in 1969 I visited the new Krishnamurti Foundation oice in London. here I was given two of his books and was asked if I would review them for some magazine. I was further asked whether I could arrange an invitation for Krishnamurti to give lectures at my university, but I never considered it feasible. On 21 March 1969 I happened to watch the BBC television interview with Krishnamurti in which he was asked whether, after giving talks for nearly ifty years, he thought he saw some change in the people or in the world as a result. His answer was: “I doubt it.” Inspired by this question and his answer I wrote a review article, “Half a Century of Krishnamurti” (Werner, 1969). After pointing out that his demand for continued “choiceless awareness” was basically the Buddha’s way of right mindfulness, I continued: “What is missing in his attitude, however, is the allembracing understanding and compassion of a Buddha who would not dismiss even little worries of ordinary people (who are not yet ripe for the arduous path of mindfulness), but would advise them even on their everyday afairs to make their lives brighter and to bring them too, eventually, to the path. Krishnamurti, on the other hand, speaks only to a certain part of the intellectually advanced elite. He does not possess the capability of talking the language of diferent people on diferent levels, he speaks only his own language. Perhaps this is the reason why he has to doubt that any change was brought about by his lectures. Contrary to this we know that the Buddha’s teachings have changed many a wild Asian folk into a peaceful nation”. I irst went to a talk by Krishnamurti on 7 September 1969. It was attended by about 800 people and delivered for the first time in a large tent erected in the grounds of Brockwood Park. His talk was emphatic and increasingly 48 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 passionate as if he were working himself up into an ecstasy. After he had inished and left the tent, I followed him. He turned round and I congratulated him on an efective lecture. He took my hand and during our conversation held it in his. I started feeling a subtle vibration passing through my hand into my arm and slowly sufusing my whole body. It was a pleasant feeling which lasted several hours. I had been driven to Brockwood by John Walters, whom I was visiting in his home in Farnham.13 He waited discreetly for me further of and when I joined him for our packed lunch, I told him about the contents of my conversation with Krishnamurti and the feeling which he had passed through his hand into my body and which had not yet diminished. John stopped eating and looked at me in amazement. When he had recovered, he said: “I have travelled the whole of Asia visiting places of pilgrimage and meeting yogis and Buddhist monks, but I have never had any experience of that kind. When I found myself to have become a Buddhist after a night of meditation, it was more like ‘the penny dropped,’ a kind of conceptually grasping the truth of the Dhamma.” I went to several more of Krishnamurti’s annual talks in the tent, packed each time by more than 1,000 listeners. I encouraged my students in Durham University to accompany me. Some did and we subsequently held discussions in my class. None of them was won to become a follower of Krishnamurti. Now that independent accounts of his life and activities are available, it is clear that he was a product of invention and delusion. To begin with he was a victim of the Theosophical grandees (Leadbeater and Annie Besant) who wished to produce a contemporary Messiah akin to Jesus who would be a “vehicle” of the Lord Maitreya, the future Buddha. Being educated for the role of Messiah in fact deformed Krishnamurti’s adolescence and on the threshold of adulthood the need to appear to live up to the image created in him a conlict with his strong need for erotic fulilment. For several years he acted under the inluence of Leadbeater, who claimed to have backing by Masters, but he could not resist feminine charms. This forced him into role playing, maintaining the image of the future Messiah. The instances of the so-called “Process” under which he sufered physically and mentally were most likely symptoms of this inner conflict. He can hardly be blamed for continuing his tours between his seizures and acting as an ostensibly inspired teacher while he was not yet quite sure where the truth lay. Yet once he stopped believing in the existence of the “Masters” and shook of the charade of a Messiah with twelve apostles, WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 49 the responsibility for his future actions became solely his. Having got used to a life of carefree luxury and wishing to maintain it, he projected an image of a teacher without ties and possessions. At the same time, he owned several cars and had a regular income for life from an endowment which alone would have suiced for a decent living, further enhanced by income from his books. Instead he chose to continue the deception and revelled in the glamour of a charismatic teacher circling the globe, while all the complicated arrangements for his public appearances and cosy private life were shouldered by others to whom he showed little gratitude. Although denying that he accepted disciples, he cleverly manipulated his adherents into total dependence on him. Many followed him wherever he went to deliver talks. He was an embodiment of a latter-day mobile Indian guru in all but name. The perpetuation of Krishnamurti’s influence is partly owing to the fact that many of his followers, even the functionaries of some spiritual movements, are unaware of his duplicity, which came to light only after his death. They rely on his writings and recordings of his talks and discussions distributed by Krishnamurti Foundations. he Temenos Academy This prestigious organisation, whose Patron is HRH the Prince of Wales, organised in Summer 2016 a lecture titled “J. Krishnamurti: was what he said an expression of the Perennial Philosophy in the Now?” by a follower of Krishnamurti, Nicholas Martin. In the programme the Academy’s chairman Ian Skelly writes: “Nicholas Martin will provide an account of the life of J. Krishnamurti from his childhood, through his involvement in heosophy to the later unfolding of his work to the public. He will show how the sacred was the pivot of J. Krishnamurti’s life and how he was always trying to move people towards that.” The publicity for this lecture would further have spread the misleading image of Krishnamurti and so I asked the Temenos chairman and Council to include in the Autumn 2016 programme my lecture “Krishnamurti and his Mission: The Full Story,” based on a section of my forthcoming book Pure Yoga. My ofer was declined. he Temenos Academy thus failed to maintain impartiality and virtually enhanced the reputation of a fraudulent would be 50 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 world teacher. I have therefore asked that my name be removed from the list of Fellows of the Temenos Academy. It is undoubtedly a task of academics to unveil deceptive phenomena in the area of their research, which I hope to have done in this case. WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 51 Notes 1 MN II, 81, 1–12 & 23: Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi 1995, rev. ed. by Bodhi 2001, 669–672; 676. 2 āsavakkhayañāṇa - the expression āsava means literally “inlows” of impurities such as craving and passions of various kinds. 3 MN I, 4.27–32: Ñāṇamoli and Bodhi 1995, rev. ed. Bodhi 2001, 105–106; cf. Werner 1981, 70–84; 1983, 167–181; 2013, 51–67. 4 MN I, 170–171 = I, 24–25: Bodhi 2001, 263–264. 5 my literal translation. 6 For the dates of kings see Codrington 1947, XV-XVII. 7 Williams 2009, 136–137, 146; Miksic 1990, 129–144; Werner 2002. 8 Kern 1884; Hurwitz 1976; Burton Watson 1993; cf. Werner 2003. 9 later in Tibet Govinda obtained initiations also into the Nyingma, Sakya and Kargyut- pa lineages. 10 Hecker 1996, 84–115; Bauman 1994; Govinda 1966; Werner 1986, 45–47, Zotz 2014. 11 In 1915 he moved to Sydney, joined the Liberal Catholic Church and became its bishop, but continued playing a leading role in the heosophical Society. 12 preceded on 3 October 1927 by a civil ceremony at the Registrar’s oice. 13 John was the author of the book Mind Unshaken. A Modern Approach to Buddhism which I had translated into Czech in the early 1960s for clandestine circulation in typescript copies; he had written it when he found one night in hailand that he in fact had become a Buddhist. 52 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 Abbreviation AN AMM Cv DN MN SN Aṅguttara Nikāya Ārya Maitreya Maṇḍala Cūḷavaṁsa Dīgha Nikāya Majjhima Nikāya Saṁyutta Nikāya References Banerjee, Anukul Chandra 1979 Sarvāstivāda Literature. Calcutta: World Press Private Limited. Bauman, Martin 1994 Der buddhistische Orden Ārya Maitreya Maṇḍala. Religionswissenschaftliche Darstellung einer westlich-buddhistischen Gemeinschaft. Marburg: Remid. Blau, Evelyne 1995 Krishnamurti: 100 Years. New York: Aquamarin Verlag, Stewart, Tabori & Chang. Blavatsky, Helena Petrovna 1988 Secret Doctrine. Pasadena, Cal.: heosophical University Press. Burton, Watson 1993 he Lotus Sutra. Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. New York: Columbia University Press. Codrington, H. W. 1947 A Short History of Ceylon. London: Macmilan and Co. Limited. Davids, T. W. and C. A. F. Rhys 1959(1965) Dialogues of the Buddha. Part II & III. London: Luzac & Company Ltd. Geiger, Wilhelm 1925 Samyutta-Nikāya. Die in Gruppen geordnete Sammlung aus dem Pāli-Kanon der Buddhisten. München-Neubiberg: Oskar Schloss Verlag. 1964 he Mahāvaṁsa or the Great Chronicle of Ceylon. London: Luzac & Company Ltd. 1973 Cūḷavaṁsa being the more recent part of the Mahāvaṁsa I & II. London: he Pali Text Society. WERNER • Past Buddhas, the Future Buddha Maitreya and His “Descents” 53 Gombrich, Richard 1980 “The Significance of Former Buddhas in the Theravādin Tradition.” In Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola Rahula, Sōmaratna Bālasūriya, 62–72. London: Gordon Fraser Gallery Ltd. Gómez, Luis O. 1996 he Land of Bliss. he paradise of the Buddha of Measureless Light. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press. Govinda, Anagarika 1966 Hecker, Hellmuth 1996 Horner, I. B. 1962 he Way of the White Clouds. London: Rider. Lebensbilder deutscher Buddhisten I, die Gründer. Konstanz: Universität Konstanz. he Book of the Discipline IV. London: Luzac & Company Ltd. 1975 he Minor Anthologies of the Pali Canon, Part III Chronicle of the Buddhas. London: he Pali Text Society. Hurwitz, Leon 1976 Scripture of the Lotus Blossom of the Fine Dharma. New York: Columbia University Press. Kim, Nam-Hui 2016 “A Study of the Salvation Types in the New Religions of Early Modern Korea: In Reference to Buddhist Faith in Maitreya.” International Journal of Buddhist hought and Culture 26(1). Lutyens, Mary 1990 he Life and Death of Krishnamurti. London: John Murray. Malalasekera, G. P. 1974 Dictionary of Pāli Proper Names I-II. London: The Pali Text Society. Miksic, John 1990 Borobudur. Golden Tales of the Buddhas. Singapore: Periplus Editions (HK) Ltd. Ñāamoli, Bhikkhu & Bodhi Bhikkhu 2001 The Middle Length Discourses of the Buddha. Oxford: The Pali Text Society. Rahula, Telwatte Bhikkhu 1978 A Critical Study of the Mahāvastu. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass. Sloss, Radha Rajagopal 1991 Lives in the Shadow with J Krishnamurti. London: Bloomsbury. Vernon, Roland 2001 Star in the East. Krishnamurti: he Invention of a Messiah. New York: Palgrave for St. Martin’s Press. 54 International Journal of Buddhist hought & Culture 26(2) · 2016 Wayman, Alex 1997 Werner, Karel 1969 Untying the Knots in Buddhism. Delhi: Banarsidass. “Half a century of Krishnamurti.” World Buddhism 18(2). 1981 “Bodhi and arahattaphala. From Early Buddhism to Early Mahāyāna.” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4. (Rept. In The Bodhisattva Ideal: Essays on the Emergence of Mahāyāna, ed. Bhikkhu Nyanatusita himi, 51–67. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 2013). 1986 “Arya Maitreya Mandala — A Buddhist Vajrayana Sangha.” In Realist. Penang: Buddhist Realists’ Centre. 1998 Yoga and Indian Philosophy. Delhi: Banarsidass. 2002 “Borobudur: a Sermon in Stone.” Temenos Academy Review 2. 2003 “On the Nature and Message of the Lotus Sūtra in the Light of Early Buddhism and Buddhist Scholarship: Towards the Beginnings of Mahāyāna.” International Journal of Buddhist hought and Culture 3. Williams, Paul 2009 Mahāyāna Buddhism. he doctrinal foundations. London & New York: Routledge, Taylor and Francis Group. Zotz, Birgit, ed. 2014 Lama Anagarika Govinda: Initiation. Vorbereitung, Praxis, Wirkung. Luxembourg: Kairos Edition.