Unfortunate Destiny focuses on the roles played by nonhuman animals within the imaginative thought-world of Indian Buddhism, as reflected in pre-modern South Asian Buddhist literature. These roles are multifaceted, diverse, and often contradictory: In Buddhist doctrine and cosmology, the animal rebirth is a most "unfortunate destiny" (durgati), won through negative karma and characterized by a lack of intelligence, moral agency, and spiritual potential. In stories about the Buddha's previous lives, on the other hand, we find highly anthropomorphized animals who are wise, virtuous, endowed with human speech, and often critical of the moral shortcomings of humankind. In the life-story of the Buddha, certain animal characters serve as "doubles" of the Buddha, illuminating his nature through identification, contrast or parallelism with an animal "other." Relations between human beings and animals likewise range all the way from support, friendship, and near-equality to rampant exploitation, cruelty, and abuse. Perhaps the only commonality among these various strands of thought is a persistent impulse to use animals to clarify the nature of humanity itself--whether through similarity, contrast, or counterpoint. Buddhism is a profoundly human-centered religious tradition, yet it relies upon a dexterous use of the animal other to help clarify the human self. This book seeks to make sense of this process through a wide-ranging-exploration of animal imagery, animal discourse, and specific animal characters in South Asian Buddhist texts.

Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in the Indian Buddhist Imagination, Reiko Ohnuma, Oxford University Press, Hardcover, 264 pages, $45.95

Reiko Ohnuma is Professor of Religion, Asian and Middle Eastern Studies, and Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Dartmouth College in Hanover, New Hampshire. She is a specialist in the Buddhist traditions of South Asia, with a particular focus on narrative literature, hagiography, and the role and imagery of women.

CONTENTS: Unfortunate Destiny
	List of Figures		vii
	Conventions		ix
	Acknowledgments		xi
	Preface		xiii
PART I:	UNFORTUNATE DESTINY		1
	1.	Unfortunate Destiny: Animals in a Buddhist Cosmos	5
	2.	Catching Sight of the Buddha: Faithful Animals in the Divyavadana and Avadanasataka	24
PART II:	WHEN ANIMALS SPEAK: ANIMALS IN THE PALI JATAKAS		41
	3.	(Human) Nature, Red in Tooth and Claw	51
	4.	Animal Saviors	77
PART III:	ANIMAL DOUBLES OF THE BUDDHA		95
	5.	Scapegoat for the Buddha: The Horse Kanthaka	101
	6.	Mirror for the Buddha: The Elephant Parileyyaka	129
	7.	Billboard for the Buddha: The Elephant Nalagiri	148
	Conclusion		178
	Appendix		183
	Abbreviations		187
	Notes		189
	Bibliography		217
	Index		231