Aspiring to become a Buddha, reading from Siamese manuscript colophons By Dr. Eng Jin Ooi

This short write-up presents the aspirations of donors in Thailand wishing to become a Buddha as recorded in the palm-leaf manuscripts of a Buddhist text, the Questions of Milinda, (Milindapañha).
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Colophons contain information about the manuscript and are usually written at the end of the text on the last leaf. In a survey of over seventy Pāli palm-leaf manuscripts, some of the colophons reveal details related to the social and soteriological ambitions of the communities that created them. Inspired by the ideology of merit, which promises good karmic returns for presenting and preserving the Dharma in this world by way of sponsoring and producing manuscripts, donors and scribes put forth various kinds of aspirations (Pāli: patthanā). Their aspirations are recorded in colophons.
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In this group of manuscripts, it is not uncommon to find that some of the donors’ preferred path to Nirvana is to become a Buddha. One example is the group of manuscripts sponsored by the Thai Royal Court of the Rattanakosin era (1782–present), which states: “Having copied down the text Questions of Milinda, with the power of this merit, in the future, may I fulfill the perfections (pāramī) and become a Buddha.” As we know Thai rulers have been presented as Bodhisattvas (Buddha-to-be) since the Ayutthaya era (1351–1767). This notion is foregrounded in the preamble to a law dated 1433 which states: “His Highness has set his heart on the performance of the Perfection of Giving (dānapāramī) with the aspiration (patthanā) for the realization of awakening (bodhiñāṇa), to lead all beings to freedom from the fears of cyclic existence (saṃsāra) and the suffering of the woeful realm.”
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The quest to be fully awakened and omniscient is not confined to kings or to the nobility, but it is shared by a wider layer of society as well. For example, another colophon dated 1802 recovered in Southern Thailand expresses: “We, servants of the Lord [Buddha], the former monk Chuen and Mr Nak, the scribe, were replete with faith and created these four manuscripts of the Questions of Milinda to be established in the excellent religion of the Buddha. We, servants of the Lord, pray to reach the state of Buddhahood in the future.”
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The aspiration to become a Buddha in the future has existed since the early period of Thai history during the Sukhothai era. One of the stone inscriptions of King Mahādharmarājā I of Sukhothai recorded the king’s resolution to become a Buddha: “As the fruit of the merit which I [am earning] by being thus ordained in the religion of our Lord, I do not thirst for the advantages of a universal monarch (cakravatin) or of an Indra or of a Brahma: I am fully resolved to become a Buddha so as to lead all beings across the three conditions of existence.” Even his Chief Monk who was also his preceptor, after composing a cosmological text, the Lokappadīpasāra, also aspired to become a Buddha. In the text’s colophon, he wrote: “By the merit that has been well stored, may I, until the attainment of the excellent Buddhahood, in the process of becoming, be always the one who causes the welfare of the world and full of refuge [to others].”
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In summary, even though the path of becoming a Buddha is much more demanding and time-consuming than that of the arhat, there are individuals who, out of altruistic intent and to give their best, would take up these challenges.

For further reading, see: https://doi.org/10.1353/mns.2022.0002