Khuba Siwichai (1878–1938) was a celebrated monk from what is now northern Thailand, who happened to become a national figure because of the conflict between his local Lan Na (Yuan) Buddhist practices and the regulations newly set up by the modern Siamese (Thai) state sangha in the early twentieth century. Almost 80 years since Khuba Siwichai’s death, his reputation as a ton bun (holy man) is still prevalent in the midst of the proliferation of contemporary khrubas, who often hold Khuba Siwichai in high esteem as the primogenitor of their respectable tradition.
In the eyes of contemporary devotees, Khuba Siwichai may seem primarily an activist best remembered for his monumental building projects. Following a careful reading of a number of biographical writings on Khuba Siwichai, however, this paper is an examination of another significant field of his activities—the palm-leaf manuscripts he preserved. From 1926 to 1928, while engaged in the five-year-long renovation and reconstruction of Wat Phra Sing in Chiang Mai, he collected manuscripts in disrepair, sorted them, and had them copied in order to create new collections. The colophons of some of these manuscripts, in which Khuba Siwichai revealed his fervent desire and determination to achieve Buddhahood in his own handwriting, indicate that he produced some of these manuscripts himself.
Khuba Siwichai’s deep involvement in the manuscript production are reminiscent of one of his great predecessors in the region, Khuba Kancana, who established a library for Wat Sung Men in Phrae in 1830s and is said to be the greatest single preserver of manuscripts in the history of Buddhism in Laos, Thailand, and adjacent areas. It is most interesting that the mentoring relationships relating to Khuba Siwichai can be traced back to Khuba Kancana, who had also visited Wat Phra Sing in Chiang Mai at some time in life. It is therefore quite possible that Khuba Siwichai consciously emulated Khuba Kancana’s example. In this light, Khuba Siwichai should be considered as a successor of Khuba Kancana, whose work belongs to “the cultural region of Tham script manuscripts.” This important feature of Khuba Siwichai’s legacy is rarely remembered today, mostly because reverence for Tham script manuscripts themselves has diminished considerably since the division of the region into the modern nations of Thailand, Laos, Myanmar, and China.

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Buddhaghosa introduces unorthodox views of anonymous ones in his Visuddhimagga (Vism) and other Pāli commentaries, while Dhammapāla in his sub-commentaries sometimes identifies them as the Abhayagirivihāravāsins’. It has been pointed that some of the views are found in the Vimuttimagga (Vim), and consequently the Vim has been considered to be the work of this school. Nevertheless, some scholars threw doubts about the relevance of the coincidence of the three facts, that is, the anonymous ones’ views known to Buddhaghosa, the Dhammapāla’s identification and the doctine in the Vim. It seems, however, not fair if we, reputing that a theory is not enough proven, attempt to make an alternative explanation besed on a pile of hypotheses without verification and further investigation, while there is no rebuttal. It has to be more carefully weighed that if a sigle dhamma as a constituent element is different, it affects the basis of the elaborate system of the Theravāda Abhidhamma philosophy. In this sense, a placement of dhutaṅga (ascetic practice) in the Abhidhamma categories can be of great significance as one of the criteria to characterize the Abhayagirivihāravāsins.
Taking that into account, I reexamined the controversy over the definition of dhutaṅga in the Vism and the Vim, and then considered how and why the Mahāvihāravāsins and the Abhayagirivihāravāsins classified it into a different category. Overviewing the references in the Vism and the Vim and especially looking closely the passage in the Vim: “[Dhutaṅga] should not be stated to be wholesome, unwholesome or indeterminate,” one may challenge their concordance. However, there is a further crucial evidence to link the Vim to the Abhayagirivihāravāsins, that in the Vim dhutaṅga is explicitly mentioned in the list of concept (paññatti) which has been unknown to the scholars.
Looking into the Pāli canon, we often meet ascetic practitioners who are of evil wishes, pursue a reputation, and so on. There are philosophical gaps between the Vism and Pāli commentaries, too, regarding the understanding of dhutaṅga. Furthermore, we notice that the definition of dhutaṅga in the Vism was not given by Buddhaghosa, but was quoted from “Aṭṭhakathā” as an old commentary. It seems reasonable to suppose that discussions as to dhutaṅga arose in the Sīhaḷa-sources of Pāli commentaries and bhāṇakas (reciters), and that these two schools built their definitions of dhutaṅga, receiving the preceding discussions and trying to refuse the view that it can be unwholesome.

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The story of Śākyamuni’s descent to earth after preaching for his mother Māyā in Tāvatiṃsa heaven is found in many Buddhist texts and artworks, and thus seems to have been regarded as one of the important events in Śākyamuni’s biography. However, there are some differences between its various versions. In this paper, I will first focus on its version in the Dhammapada-Aṭṭhakathā. Then, I will compare this version with others (found in Za ahan jing, Zengyi ahan jing, Yizu jing, Genben shuo yiqie youbu pinaiye zashi [= Chinese version of the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya-kṣudrakavastu], Jātaka-Aṭṭhakathā, Paramattha-jotikā, etc.), examining differences between them. In doing so, I will make clear the tradition to which the version in the Dhammapada-Aṭṭhakathā belongs.

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Practice of taking care of the sick among ordained practitioners during the Buddha’s time seems to have carried critical importance. Therefore, five conditions of a good caregiver for the sick and five conditions of a difficult patient to take care are elaborated in Vinaya. This paper surveys the context as to why the practice of nursing had such an importance in Buddhist practice from the standpoint of mindfulness meditation and modern clinical education in nursing. The author will share the insights obtained from university education of spiritual care about the third condition of a good care giver for the sick (giving care with loving kindness, not from an expectation of something); the awareness of the unconscious motivation to become a care giver will support him/her to survive and attain emotional maturation through the difficulties of clinical practice.
Roshi Joan Halifax created the G.R.A.C.E. program in order to prevent burnout syndrome in terminal care, with her students who practice Buddhist meditations and also are educators in the medical environment. We will examine this G.R.A.C.E. program from the perspective of traditional understanding of Buddhist meditation practice: mindfulness (sati-paṭṭhāna), the three steps of learning (sīla, samādhi, paññā) and the four boundless hearts (appamaññā). Especially in the analysis of the near-enemy and far-enemy of four boundless hearts explained in Visuddhimagga, the emotional maturation of medical practitioners in the clinical human relationship will be examined from the standpoint of integration of ambivalence psychoanalytically.
Towards the end of this paper, readers will hopefully have some better understanding about how ancient meditation practices had a fundamental impact on the humane maturational process and how we can improve modern medical practice and education by utilizing those ancient experiential wisdoms.

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The sixth story of the Udenavatthu (Uvt-6) in the Dhammapadāṭṭhakathā is about the deaths of Sāmāvatī and Māgandiyā, who were wives of King Udena. Sāmāvatī was a disciple of the Buddha and a Sottapannā (one who has entered the path of wisdom), which is a saint. She was killed by the villainess, Māgandiyā, who held malice against the Buddha. The story of this murder shows the teaching of appamāda (carefulness) by quoting the twenty-first through the twenty-third verses of the Dhammapada. It also contains Sāmāvatī’s previous birth story and a quotation from Udāna to explain the principle of karma and the Buddhist worldview.
Several other stories in the Northern Buddhist texts written in classical Chinese or classical Tibetan have topics similar to Uvt-6. These stories and their teachings are of two groups: (1) stories on the failure and detection of Māgandiyā’s plan to kill Sāmāvatī, which warn of the lust for sexual pleasure, and (2) stories on the execution of Māgandiyā’s evil plan, Sāmāvatī’s death, and Sāmāvatī’s karma from her previous lives, which demonstrate the strict rule of karma.
Each of these Northern Buddhist texts has a singular teaching; however, Uvt-6 has teachings in addition to carefulness as a main doctrine, which are the rule of karma and the Buddhist worldview. Therefore, Uvt-6 contains more teaching messages than other stories in the Northern Buddhist tradition.

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The Muvadev dā vata tells the story of the Bodhisattva who was born as King Makhādeva, and is mainly based on the Pāli Makhādeva Jātaka. According to the story, King Makhādeva realized the consciousness of impermanence and renounced his household life after being shown a grey hair from his head by his barber. After practicing an austere life in the Himālaya forests, he was finally born in the Brahma world.
The original story of King Makhādeva first appears in the Pāli Majjhima Nikāya Makhādeva Sutta, and in its commentaries in a more detailed form. In the Sutta, it clearly states that the only way to attain emancipation is the realization of the four noble truths and the practice of the eightfold noble path. In this context, the Jātaka and Cariyāpiṭaka, the two other Pāli sources that describe Makhādewa’s story, run contrary to the Pāli Sutta and strongly emphasize the idea of renunciation (nekkhamma) as the way to attain emancipation. The Sinhalese Muvadev dā vata also lacks the detailed explanations of the bodhisattva path, contained in the Makhādeva Sutta and Pāli Jātaka.
This paper analyzes the various differences among the Pāli and Sinhalese sources (including Pāli chronicles) regarding the Makhādeva story and focuses on the Muvadev dā vata and its relation to the king Parākramabāhu the great, how it influenced and developed the bodhisattva ideal in the medieval period of Sri Lanka.

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