ABSTRACT
This chapter explores a contribution the Indian Buddhist tradition makes to the study of the central existential themes of human finitude and anxiety in the face of death. It focuses on the Buddhist concept of saṃvega, the existential dread of the human situation, subject as it is to old age, sickness and death. Saṃvega shakes the individual from complacency, undercutting attachment to worldly success and thereby strengthening motivation for spiritual practice. At the cognitive level, it enables the transition from a superficial intellectual understanding of human finitude and frailty to a deeply embodied realization of the inevitability of death. The chapter examines three Buddhist presentations of saṃvega’s transformative power. The first is from the 2nd-century CE poet, Aśvaghoṣa, who explores saṃvega’s role in the future Buddha’s renouncement of ordinary life. The second, from the commentary on the Dhammapada, portrays the laywoman Kisā Gotamī, who goes insane from grief upon the death of her young child; saṃvega combined with the Buddha’s teaching enables her to overcome her sorrow and take up spiritual practice. Both these depictions illustrate the alienation from ordinary social values that saṃvega enacts. In the concluding section, I examine how the 8th-century CE Mahāyāna monk, Śāntideva incorporates saṃvega into meditative practices to develop compassion. I illustrate how Śāntideva integrates what appears to be conflicting motivations: saṃvega spurs the bodhisattva to escape worldly life, while compassion inspires her to remain within the realm of rebirth for the sake of benefiting all beings.
