Dear Jonathan,

I do not know of the hermaphrodite part, but otherwise the prophecy of the monkey will indeed be
fulfilled in Washington next week.

best regards,
Matthew

Matthew Kapstein
Directeur d'études,
Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes

Numata Visiting Professor of Buddhist Studies,
The University of Chicago

________________________________________
From: INDOLOGY [indology-bounces@list.indology.info] on behalf of Jonathan Silk [kauzeya@gmail.com]
Sent: Tuesday, January 10, 2017 5:33 AM
To: Indology
Subject: [INDOLOGY] hermaphrodite king as an evil omen

Dear Friends,

This may be something well known, but...
I am working now on a set of prophecies of the evil to beset the Buddhist community after the Buddha's death. These (they are relatively well known) are cast as dreams of King Kṛkin, who lived in the distant past, and whose dreams were interpreted by the Buddha Kāśyapa (some sources say this was his son!) as pertaining to his far future, namely, our time, more or less. Anyway, one of the dreams is that a monkey will be consecrated as king, which is interpreted to mean that a hermaphrodite will be consecrated king. I've looked (sort of, not exactly sure even how to look for this!) to see whether this is considered a sign of decline, but I've come up empty. Probably i'm just looking in the wrong place... but one of you śiṣṭas must know...?

thanks!  jonathan

--
J. Silk
Leiden University
Leiden University Institute for Area Studies, LIAS
Matthias de Vrieshof 3, Room 0.05b
2311 BZ Leiden
The Netherlands

copies of my publications may be found at
http://www.buddhismandsocialjustice.com/silk_publications.html