Abstract
This paper is an analysis on the accounts found in the Buddha’s biographical texts of the Bodhisattva’s investigation of the world. Those accounts narrate that the Bodhisattva residing in the Tuṣita heaven made the preliminary examination of the world to which he would be born into as the future Buddha.
First, the accounts of the Mahāvihāra tradition of the Theravāda school are found in the Pāli commentaries, the main texts being the Jātaka-aṭṭhakathā (the Nidānakathā) and the Mahāpadānasuttanta-aṭṭhakathā. Through close
examination, it is apparent thatthe role of these descriptions is to demonstrate the ideal of “the common career for all Buddhas”. This ideal appears frequently in Northern Buddhist texts, which is fixed with the ideology of the Seven Former Buddhas in the Mahāpadānasuttanta and its Sanskrit and Chinese version.
Through this analysis it can be concluded that the Bodhisattva’s investigation of the world within the Buddha’s biographical texts presuppose the ideology of the Seven Former Buddhas. This matter can also be understood
as being closely related to “the Future Buddha Maitreya who resides in the Tuṣita heaven”.
