| This thesis is a study of the Jinamahanidana, a biography of the Buddha, composed in Pali, probably in Ayutthaya in Thailand between the fourteenth and eighteenth centuries. The Jinamahanidana covers the Buddha's entire life, from his first aspiration to buddhahood to the Buddha's death. In thus confronting the reader with his death, it would seem to reaffirm his unavailability in the present. Yet it leaves the reader with a stronger sense of the Buddha's connection to the present and of himself as personally involved in a relationship with the Buddha. Moreover, the reader is revealed as having the ability and the responsibility to ensure the Buddha's connection to the present continues into the future. On the other hand, the Jinamahanidana tells the Buddha's whole story, and in unusual detail, and so promises the reader a fuller, more multi-faceted perception of the Buddha. Yet, ultimately, it undercuts this promise to reveal the fullness of his person as extending immeasurably beyond the reach of our perception or comprehension.; The Jinamahanidana achieves this complex portrayal of the Buddha through a sophisticated engagement with its own textual form, and a deft interplay between its form and content. Its form reflects aspects of its subject matter. In addition, its form and content often constitute existential and emotional stances toward the Buddha. Using its own textual form, the Jinamahanidana both creates and models for the reader a particular orientation toward the Buddha. In my analysis of this process, the thesis explores four qualities of the text that are also qualities of the Buddha: comprehensiveness, wholeness, connectedness, and denseness.; The Jinamahanidana is a composite text, created through the interweaving and reworking of material from earlier texts, and Chapters 1 and 2 depend on comparison of the form of the Jinamahanidana with that of its sources. Chapters 3 and 4 involve close reading of the Jinamahanidana in its own right. These complementary approaches reveal the Jinamahanidana's artful interactions with its sources, which permit it to present its particular vision of the Buddha. |
