War as a Backdrop for Legislation

While the story of the Magadhan king Ajātaśatru’s seeking the Buddha’s advice on attacking the Vṛjis is well known and much studied, rather less known and little studied are stories of his war or conflict with the Vṛjis embedded in Indian Buddhist monastic law codes. This paper explores these lesser-known stories of Ajātaśatru’s warfare, primarily focusing on their function as narrative frames for monastic rules or exceptions (anāpatti) that have no necessary relation to war. It investigates the rationale behind Indian Buddhist jurists’ utilization of these stories to account for monastic legislation, and discusses the perceptions of war reflected therein. Moreover, the paper shows that Indian Buddhist jurists of different sects or schools do not seem to have shared the same stance on predicting warfare, some arguably more ambivalent than others, especially when a prediction proves wrong and is thus liable to shake the laity’s faith and/or harm the mutual trust between monks themselves.