The Platform Sūtra and Other Conspiracy Theories

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alan Cole
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Conspiracy Theories ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The Buddha

This chapter focuses on the Platform Sūtra. Composed sometime in the late eighth century, Platform Sūtra picks up and works over a number of claims regarding the Bodhidharma clan that had been put forth in earlier Chan works. The text opens with an unusually creative “autobiography” of Huineng, one that circles around an involved conspiracy supposedly orchestrated by master Hongren. As the details of the conspiracy come into focus, the reader learns that Hongren's chosen heir was not Shenxiu, but rather Huineng. With that startling “history” newly revealed roughly one hundred years after the events supposedly took place, the narrative turns to show Huineng giving a formal dharma teaching that, in places, appears to negate many of the building blocks of the Buddhist tradition, while also emphasizing the innate presence of perfect tradition within each person in the form of the buddha-nature.

Where the Blessed One Paced Mindfully

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (2) ◽  
pp. 181-216
Author(s):  
Minku Kim
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
New Interpretation ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Historical Transition ◽  
Made In

Abstract Caṅkrama is mindful locomotion, a notion and practice well developed in classical India. Within the Buddhist tradition, a series of such ambulations performed by the historical Buddha in the wake of his Enlightenment is widely recognized; in Bodhgayā itself, the monument known as Caṅkramaṇa has long commemorated the path he took. The early stupas of Bhārhut and Sāñcī also bear representations of this ambulation path and other noteworthy occurrences. In connection to caṅkrama, a fact that has been neglected until now is that the earliest and largest known freestanding statues of the Buddha made in Kuṣān Mathurā were all made to be installed at the venerated caṅkrama sites in Śrāvastī, Vārāṇasī, and Kauśāmbī. This essay groups these specimens together under the rubric of “caṅkrama type,” and suggests that this new taxonomy can be extended to other early standing statues of Mathurā with similar traits—kapardas, scalloped nimbi, akimbo arms, splayed feet, and so forth. Arguably, the very first appearances of Mathurā's “standing” Buddha-images might be closely related to the cult of caṅkrama, and thus should be factored into the historical transition from the previous aniconic period. The essay also presents a new interpretation of the term bodhisattva as it appears in the dedicatory inscriptions of the caṅkrama types and other early Mathurān statues depicting the Buddha. Here “bodhisattva” can be understood literally, and even symbolically, as equivalent to “image”; that is, the term may signify the representation itself rather than pointing to the Buddha's previous career as a bodhisattva.

Introduction

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryan D. Lowe
Keyword(s):  
Social Function ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
The State ◽  
Specific Mode ◽  
New Approaches ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The World

This chapter introduces the notion of ritualized writing, a specific mode set apart from more quotidian forms. It traces the development of sutra transcription in terms of the “cult of the book” in the Buddhist tradition and highlights similar practices in a variety of religions around the world. It then outlines a practice based approach to ritual that focuses on ethical cultivation and social function, while arguing against a classic functionalist position. The introduction then turns to historiographical issues related to the “state Buddhism model” as well as its critics. It proposes new approaches to get beyond common elite/folk binaries. It outlines the structure and logic of the book and overviews the sources with a detailed description of Shōsōin documents, a collection of roughly 10,000 documents from the eighth century that deal primarily with sutra copying.

Tibetan philosophy

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tom J.F. Tillemans
Keyword(s):  
Philosophy Of Language ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
Buddhist Philosophy ◽  
Fine Tuning ◽  
Two Truths ◽  
Buddhist Logic ◽  
Great Debate ◽  
Analysis And Synthesis ◽  
The Status ◽  
The Buddha

Tibetan philosophy – if we can make a rough separation between what is predominantly argument-oriented and analytical and what is more a question of ritual, devotion or vision – is best characterized as a form of scholasticism. It exhibits marked parallels with philosophy in Western medieval contexts, including a heavy emphasis on logic, philosophy of language and metaphysics, all in the service of exegesis of religious doctrine found in root texts. Just as in Western scholasticism, there is a reliance upon scripture, but within that traditional context there is also ample room for rational analysis and synthesis of potentially disparate doctrines, as well as a considerable quantity of argumentation which is a type of ‘fine tuning’ of Indian issues. Tibetan thinkers explored matters which are often of genuine importance in our understanding of Indian texts. In particular, in Mādhyamika Buddhist philosophy we find an important synthesis of Indian Yogācāra ideas with a relatively natural interpretation of key ideas in the literature on the Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha); we also find important debates on the nature of the two truths, the status of means of valid cognition (pramāṇas), and on questions of philosophical method, such as the possibility or impossibility of Mādhyamikas holding theses and themselves defending positions. Beginning with the Great Debate of bSam-yas (Samyay) in the latter part of the eighth century, we find constantly recurring reflection on questions concerning the nature of spiritual realizations and the role of conceptual and analytic thought in leading to such insights. In the logico-epistemological literature, the hotly debated issues generally centre around the problem of universals, the Indian Buddhist philosophy of language and the theory of the triply characterized logical reason (trirūpahetu). In addition, the Tibetans developed an elaborate logic of debate, an indigenous system containing many original elements unknown in or even alien to Indian Buddhist logic.

Losing an Argument by Focusing on Being Right

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nathan McGovern
Keyword(s):  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Diachronic Analysis ◽  
Textual Traditions ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Over Time

Through a diachronic analysis of the textual traditions for the Aṭṭhaka and Pārāyaṇa, we have now seen that the treatment of the category Brahman in the Buddhist tradition changed over time, reflecting the emergence of a bifurcation between the categories śramaṇa and Brahman. This chapter explains how the conception of Brahmans and śramaṇas as two mutually antagonistic groups arose. Building upon the suggestion of other scholars that the varṇa system was a rhetorical tool used by householder Brahmans to set the terms of debate, it argues that the genre of early Buddhist texts in which the Buddha refutes the ideological claims of householder Brahmans (“encounter dialogs”) was self-defeating because it implicitly ceded the category Brahman to the Buddha’s opponents, simply by allowing them to frame the debate.

Scripture, Commentary, and Exegetical Distinctions

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Maria Heim
Keyword(s):  
Building Blocks ◽  
The Buddha

This chapter shows how Buddhaghosa describes the three “genres” or areas of expertise that the Buddha taught: Suttanta, Abhidhamma, and Vinaya. It discusses Buddhaghosa’s interpretation of his school (Vibhajjavāda) as engaging in the practices of analysis. It then describes the chief commentarial building blocks that inform the rest of the book: Buddhaghosa’s distinctions between teachings stated briefly and in detail; the ideas of meaning and phrasing; how teachings can be rendered conventionally and in the furthest sense; definitive and interpretable statements; and contextual and categorical forms of the teaching. All of these are descriptions of the Buddha’s words that then provide interpretative cues for the commentator. The chapter explores how these distinctions can be learned from Buddhaghosa through following his examples and practices, rather than as a set of general principles of interpretation.

Numinous Awareness Is Never Dark

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Robert E. Buswell Jr.
Keyword(s):  
Zen Buddhism ◽  
Extensive Study ◽  
Buddhist Literature ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
Korean Buddhism ◽  
Wide Range ◽  
Gradual Development ◽  
Sentient Beings ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Annotated Translation

Numinous Awareness is Never Dark examines the issue of whether enlightenment in Zen Buddhism is sudden or gradual: that is, something achieved in a sudden flash of insight, or through the gradual development of a sequential series of practices. In Excerpts, the Korean Zen master Chinul (1158-1210) offers one of the most thorough treatments of this “sudden/gradual issue” in all of premodern East Asian Buddhist literature, including extensive quotations from a wide range of his predecessors in Chinese and Korean Buddhism on the sudden/gradual issue. In Chinul’s analysis, enlightenment is actually both sudden and gradual: an initial sudden awakening to the numinous awareness, the buddha-nature, that is inherent in all sentient beings, followed by gradual cultivation that removes the deep-seated habitual proclivities of thought and conduct that continue to appear even after awakening. Chinul’s preferred approach of “sudden awakening/gradual cultivation” becomes emblematic of the subsequent Korean Buddhist tradition. In addition to an extensive study of the contours of the sudden/gradual debate in Buddhist thought and practice, the book also includes a complete, copiously annotated translation of Chinul’s magnum opus. In Buswell’s treatment, Chinul’s Excerpts emerges as the single most influential work ever written by a Korean Buddhist author.

The Buddha's Biography: Its Development in the Pagan Murals vs. the Later Vernacular Literature, in the Theravādin Buddhist Context of Southeast Asia

2017 ◽  
Vol 27 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-294
Author(s):  
SAMERCHAI POOLSUWAN
Keyword(s):  
Sri Lanka ◽  
Southeast Asia ◽  
Thirteenth Century ◽  
Twelfth Century ◽  
Vernacular Literature ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Biographical Account ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
Complete Account

AbstractAn investigation is provided on the narration of the Buddha's biography in Burmese murals of the Pagan Period (eleventh to thirteenth century ce). It detects a development of the complete account on the subject in the oldest murals of the period at the Patho-hta-mya Temple, which probably predate the earliest known literary counterpart in Pāli, the Jinālaṅkāra, which was most likely composed in Sri-Lanka during the mid-twelfth century ce. The comparison is provided between the biographical account of the Buddha illustrated in Pagan murals and those found in the two main groups of much later vernacular texts compiled in Southeast Asia, namely: Malālamkāravatthu-Tathāgataudanadīpanī particularly prevailing in Burma and representing the later Burmese tradition on narrating the Buddha's biography; and, Pathamasambodhi gaining its popularity over several other parts of Southeast Asia (i.e., Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, Southwestern China and eastern part of the Shan State). The Pagan narrative on the Buddha's life is shown to be far more associated with the Malālamkāravatthu-Tathāgataudanadīpanī than with the Pathamasambodhi, suggesting the first group of texts to be a later product of the longstanding Buddhist tradition existing in Burma at least since the Pagan Period, and the latter of a separate development.

Mahāvīra and the Buddha.

1932 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 859-866
Author(s):  
A. Berriedale Keith
Keyword(s):  
Point Of View ◽  
Late Professor ◽  
Interesting Article ◽  
Buddhist Tradition ◽  
The Buddha ◽  
De La Vallée Poussin

In a very interesting article,1 Professor Jacobi has arrived at the conclusion that, contrary to the Buddhist tradition, we must hold that Mahavlra outlived the Buddha, probably by some seven years. In point of fact, of course, it may seem of very little consequence whether we accept this view or that of Buddhist tradition, but the issue involves a very important question affecting the value of our authorities, and on this point it seems to me clear that the position adopted by Professor Jacobi involves serious difficulties.Professor Jacobi treats as the assured foundations for his investigations the dates of the Nirvanas of the Buddha and of Mahavlra as 484 and 477 B.C. But it must be admitted that both these dates rest on very unsatisfactory and late evidence. The question of the date of the Buddha has been set out, with his usual acumen and precision, recently by Professor de La Vallée Poussin,2 and he has shown how utterly uncertain is the date 483 or 484 B.C. for the Nirvāṇa. From a very different point of view the late Professor Rhys Davids confessed 3 that the date was purely conjectural.

Hindus Beyond the Hindu Kush: Indians in the Central Asian Slave Trade

2002 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 277-288 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott C. Levi
Keyword(s):  
Historical Analysis ◽  
Social Institution ◽  
Eighth Century ◽  
North India ◽  
Cultural Relations ◽  
Early Modern History ◽  
Mughal Empire ◽  
Central Asian ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Buddha

AbstractHistorical analyses of slavery in India generally emphasize the escalation of this social institution during the era of Muslim domination in north India. The present study is not an exception to this rule. However, while historical records make it clear that the Delhi Sultans and Mughal emperors retained slavery in order to suit their political and economic needs, it should be emphasized that Muslim rulers did not introduce slavery to the subcontinent. Sources such as the Arthaśāstra, the Manu-smrti and the Mahābhārata demonstrate that institutionalized slavery was well established in India by the beginning of the common era. Earlier sources suggest that it was likely to have been equally widespread by the lifetime of the Buddha (sixth century BC), and perhaps even as far back as the Vedic period. Furthermore, just as slavery was common in India long before the eighth-century Islamic conquests in Sind, recent work demonstrates that the institution continued, in various manifestations, well after the decentralization of the Mughal Empire in the early eighteenth century. Still, it is argued here that the expansion of slavery in Muslim India is an important component of the medieval and early modern history of the region and, at least in terms of its role in the commercial and cultural relations of India and Central Asia, it is a subject that would benefit from further historical analysis.

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