[Buddha-l] Re: Seduction of a holy man

[jkirk]

Amazing story-- seems to include recognition that the ascetic state is 
ambivalent.
The bit about his innocence of sex difference is funny.....could it have 
been a sly
dig at the standards of purity expected of, and perhaps performed by or 
simulated by,
ascetics?
Best,
Joanna
====================
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Andrew Skilton" <skiltonat at Cardiff.ac.uk>

> Joanna,
>
> In the spirit of not answering your original query, one of my favourite
> seduction stories is jataka 526 (nalinika), which sadly involves no 
> speaking
> foetuses that save the day. Here a father brings up his son as an ascetic, 
> whose
> power eventually threatens Sakka.  Sakka therefore punishes the locals 
> (why
> not?) and talks the local king into sending his daughter to seduce the 
> lad.The
> entire community it seems gets involved in launching this nubile spiritual
> Exocet against the young man, it being arranged that she descends on him 
> while
> his dad is away rooting up herbs.  The inevitable happens, related with 
> much sly
> humour by the way, but interestingly while the lad loses his powers due to
> sexual indulgence, he subsequently regains them through the practice of 
> the
> brahma viharas. (The local community is saved, by the way.)
>
> Stan,
>
> Not sure how this one fits your typology. Here the ascetic 'succumbs' but 
> is
> rehabilitated.  His 'failure' is not, surprisingly, a satire of phoney 
> holy men.
> In a way his 'purity' remains intact, not least because he is amusingly
> depicted as completely ignorant of sexual difference even after his 
> encounter,
> but perhaps also because the story is placing the 'ethical' virtues of the
> brahma viharas above the 'ritual' virtue of sexual abstinence?
>
> Andrew