For the Love of Dogs
Finding Compassion in a Time of Famine in Pali Buddhist Stories
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 3216724 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Phyllis Granoff (Yale University, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2019 |
| Volume | 10 |
| Issue | 3 |
| Pages | 183 |
| Publication date | 2019-03-12 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Religions (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 2077-1444 • E-ISSN: 2077-1444 |
| Publisher | MDPI AG (PUBLISHER • IT) |
| DOI | 10.3390/rel10030183 |
| OpenAlex | W2920998962 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 2 |
| References cited | 3 |
This paper focuses on stories from the 13th century Rasavāhinī in which feeding a starving dog is described as an act of great merit, equal even to the care of a monk or the Buddha. It begins with a reevaluation of passages from Buddhist texts that have been taken by scholars as evidence of pan- Buddhist concern for taking care of animals. It argues that they have been over-read and that the Rasavāhinī stories are distinctive. The setting in which these acts occur, a catastrophic famine, helps us to understand the transformation of the despised dog into an object of compassion. In such dire circumstances, when humans themselves behave like animals, compassion for a starving dog is both a new recognition of a fundamental shared kinship between human and animal and a gesture of recovering lost humanity
Art · Buddhism · Compassion · Crying · Famine · Gautama Buddha · Humanity · Kinship · Linguistics · Literature · Sociology · Theology · Anthropology · Eurasian Exchange Networks · History · Indian and Buddhist Studies · Philosophy · Psychology · Social Psychology
| Citations per year | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2024 - 2026 (3) |
| Highly cited | No |