Performing the Buddha’s Word: The Role of the Bhāṇaka

Abstract

Abstract The bhāṇakas were the main textual practitioners of early Buddhism. Although scholarship has been naturally critical of traditional accounts regarding the shaping of the canon, scholars have accepted many of their underlying assumptions, including a ubiquitous reference to bhāṇakas as “reciters,” without questioning the category. However, bhāṇakas were no less performers, storytellers, poets, expounders of the teaching and preachers. This article reconsiders their figure by showing that discourses were not preexisting entities that were placed in collections according to length and topic, but were generated through the particular methods of each Nikāya. Here, I focus on the Saṃyutta-nikāya, showing many of its unique formulas and narrative designs, including central definitions of the doctrine of selflessness and structured narrative frames. The Saṃyutta, we discover, even has its own ideological and philosophical emphases, and its own theory of liberation. This means that a Saṃyutta-text is the product of the Saṃyutta-methods and views. This understanding brings to light important aspects in the performative arts of the bhāṇakas.