Ambedkar and the Buddha's Sangha: A Ground for Buddhist Ethics

The saṅgha is one of the three jewels of the Buddhist tradition. While undervalued in many other Anglophone iterations of Buddhist modernism, Ambedkar’s approach to Buddhism placed a reconceptualized saṅgha at the center. Where traditional accounts often limit the boundaries of saṅgha to ordained monks and nuns, Ambedkar sought to include all lay Buddhists within its frame. He suggests that the role of the saṅgha is not, as many traditional accounts might suggest, the personal liberation of the monks and nuns who join it, but instead social service directed toward the community at large. Ambedkar’s commitment to the development of a religion that champions egalitarianism naturally lead to his inclusion of women as full participants in his image of the saṅgha, despite the historically patriarchal limits placed on them in many traditional Buddhist settings. This wide-tent approach to the saṅgha, along with its emphasis on service and egalitarian principles, are defining features of Ambedkar’s unique approach the Buddhist tradition.

How Things Are

This work is designed to introduce some of the more important fruits of Indian Buddhist metaphysical theorizing to philosophers with little or no prior knowledge of classical Indian philosophy. It is widely known among non-specialists that Buddhists deny the existence of a self. Less widely appreciated among philosophers currently working in metaphysics is the fact that the Indian Buddhist tradition contains a wealth of material on a broad assortment of other issues that have also been foci of recent debate. Indian Buddhist philosophers have argued for a variety of interesting claims about the nature of the causal relation, about persistence, about abstract objects, about the consequences of presentism, about the prospects for a viable ontological emergentism. They engaged in a spirited debate over illusionism in the philosophy of consciousness. Some espoused global anti-realism while others called its coherence into question. And so on. This work is meant to introduce the views of such major Buddhist philosophers as Vasubandhu, Dharmakīrti, and Nāgārjuna on these and other issues. And it presents their arguments and analyses in a manner meant to make them accessible to students of philosophy who lack specialist knowledge of the Indian tradition. Analytic metaphysicians who are interested in moving beyond the common strategy of appealing to the intuitions of “the folk” should find much of interest here.

Constructing a Buddhist-Inspired Framework for Examining Tulkus’ use of Cyberspace

<p>This thesis is both, an examination of tulkus’ use of cyberspace (with a particular focus on social media); and a methodological experiment. In this thesis I construct a framework for examining tulkus’ use of social media platforms, such as: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. However rather than using “alien” ideas to construct the framework (such as, the ideas of Virtual Reality, and telepresence), I draw on concepts and doctrines found within the Buddhist tradition. The four ideas I draw on are: nirmāṇakāya; the yamakaprātihārya; ideas surrounding presence and absence in the Buddhist tradition; and visualization meditation. The four ideas are then applied to case studies in order to demonstrate how these ideas could potentially offer a way to view tulkus’ use of cyberspace from a “Buddhist” perspective. One of the aims of this framework is to investigate the potential (from a Buddhist perspective) for cyberspace to be sacralised by the presence of a being such as a tulku, and consider how religious functions and activities seem to be carried out “in” cyberspace. This framework is also a methodological experiment. Rather than using an “off the shelf” theory I plan to construct my methodology using ideas from within the Buddhist tradition. As far as I’m aware, the method of considering material from within the tradition being studied is relatively rare. I hope that this project will demonstrate the general potential for such an approach being used more widely in academia. NB: When I submitted this thesis for examination, I was informed that I should have obscured the names of the Facebook users in the screenshots included in this work. I have done my best to rectify this problem, by obscuring all the names of the followers of the tulkus studied, and removed any reference to them by name in the body of the thesis.</p>

Constructing a Buddhist-Inspired Framework for Examining Tulkus’ use of Cyberspace

<p>This thesis is both, an examination of tulkus’ use of cyberspace (with a particular focus on social media); and a methodological experiment. In this thesis I construct a framework for examining tulkus’ use of social media platforms, such as: Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube. However rather than using “alien” ideas to construct the framework (such as, the ideas of Virtual Reality, and telepresence), I draw on concepts and doctrines found within the Buddhist tradition. The four ideas I draw on are: nirmāṇakāya; the yamakaprātihārya; ideas surrounding presence and absence in the Buddhist tradition; and visualization meditation. The four ideas are then applied to case studies in order to demonstrate how these ideas could potentially offer a way to view tulkus’ use of cyberspace from a “Buddhist” perspective. One of the aims of this framework is to investigate the potential (from a Buddhist perspective) for cyberspace to be sacralised by the presence of a being such as a tulku, and consider how religious functions and activities seem to be carried out “in” cyberspace. This framework is also a methodological experiment. Rather than using an “off the shelf” theory I plan to construct my methodology using ideas from within the Buddhist tradition. As far as I’m aware, the method of considering material from within the tradition being studied is relatively rare. I hope that this project will demonstrate the general potential for such an approach being used more widely in academia. NB: When I submitted this thesis for examination, I was informed that I should have obscured the names of the Facebook users in the screenshots included in this work. I have done my best to rectify this problem, by obscuring all the names of the followers of the tulkus studied, and removed any reference to them by name in the body of the thesis.</p>

Japanese Monks and Chinese Books: Glimpses of Buddhist Sinology in Early Tokugawa Japan

In the17th and 18th centuries, just as English scholars were reading and writing about their heritage in the continental prestige language of Latin, so too were Japanese members of the Buddhist clergy researching and publishing about the Chinese language heritage of their own religious tradition, drawing both on new printed books, often imported from China, and on much earlier manuscripts and printed texts preserved in their own country. The importation and reprinting of the canon by Ōbaku monks and the subsequent flowering of Zen scholarship is already well-known, but we should consider the efforts of Shingon monks in commenting on the heritage they received from China eight centuries earlier, and even the activities of Nichiren monks, who took steps to promote the legacy of Chinese Tiantai Buddhism. Critical reflection on the Buddhist tradition may not have emerged in Japan until the 18th century, but it did so in the context of a world of scholarship concerning an imported classical language that certainly stood comparison with that of the contemporary Anglophone world.

Small Deity Worship in Sri Lanka: A Comparative Study Based on Hindu and Buddhist Religious Traditions

The People who have not only multi ethnic, multi -religious and multi -languages in Sri Lanka but also, they follow different beliefs and cultural traditions as well. Hindu and Buddhist religious and cultural traditions are very prominent in Sri Lanka. Even though India is the root cause for the prevailing Hindu and Buddhist traditions in Sri Lanka, both the traditions and its worships and beliefs have unique and independent characteristics different from India. Small deity worship comprises of unique and independent characteristics in Sri Lanka. Small Deity worship in Hindu tradition: Kazhippu ritual, temple ritual, Kumara Deiva worship, Vairava worship, Pathini Amman worship, tree worship, Naga thampiran worship and small deity worship in Buddhist tradition: Thovil, Magapirith, katharagama deio, Bahirava, Pathini Deio, Bothi tree, Maga Naga are compared and identified unique and innovative characteristics among them. In this research, historical method, comparative method and descriptive method have been used. Data gathered from field work are considered as primary sources and data gathered from literature, research articles, manuscripts, etc. considered as secondary sources. Knowing origin and background of Hindu and Buddhist religion, identifying characteristics of small deity worship in Hindu and Buddhist tradition in Sri Lanka, discovering unique and innovative characteristics of small deity worship of Hindu and Buddhist traditions and evaluating values revealed by the two traditions are objectives of the research. Research area for this study is Magoya Divisional Secretary and Eravur Pattu Divisional Secretary. The conclusion of the research is that the small deity worships of the above two traditions fulfills psychological needs of the concerned people and small deity worship beliefs and traditions of Hindu and Buddhist religions will continue for long time.