Jayarava, many thanks for this interesting post! Just a little note “a latere” on “2. The Name Gautama”, which I refer from K.R. Norman’s book “A Philological Approach to Buddhism”, PTS (p. 84). Norman discusses the possibility (already pointed out by O. von Hinüber, “Linguistic Considerations on the Date of the Buddha”, in H. Bechert, “The Dating of the Historical Buddha”, Göttingen 1991) that Māyā were not the first name of Buddha’s mother, rather a particular variant – perhaps due to phonetic peculiarities of some dialect, operative with all probability in West Magadha, towards the Kālsī area – for mātā, that is “mother”. :-) k
Thanks for the tip. It's a while since I looked at that book. Norman lives not far from me, and one of my friends has met him! I love reading his work.
The mystery continues. I've noticed a few mentions that some kṣatriya families took the gotra name of their priests, but I haven't found the original research, nor anything in the Pāli to back this up. I suspect a late development which aimed at prestige; but then the same is true of claiming kṣatriya status and we're back going in circles.
May be you already know this site, in any case here you will find Norman's "Collected Papers" in pdf up to the VII vol.: http://www.istb.univie.ac.at/cgi-bin/istb_website/db/db.cgi?uid=default&tb=istb_archivetool&thisorder=&button=1&keyword=norman+collected+papers&mh=10000&bool=and&sb1=&so1=asc&sb2=&so2=asc&sb3=&so3=asc&view_records=Suchen. If you live not so far from him, you could try to contact him for discussing this "mystery" of the name "shiftings". :-) k
Thanks for the link I didn't know about that. Very useful!
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Anonymous said...
Dear Sir,
I came to know about your site through twitter. I liked it very much. Since you have deep knowledge about Buddhism I would like to clear some of my "doubts" about Buddhism from you.
Firstly, there is "widespread" perception among many folks that Buddhism is not an "original" religion. It's has it roots in Hinduism. In fact, it had originated from Hinduism. I would like to know is this true ? Please shed light some light on this.
Secondly, what was the 'first' faith of Gautama ? Was he an avatar of lord Vishnu ? As some people say quoting Holy Hindu texts.
These two are my honest questions and doubts. Please do reply, sir.
Buddhism is wholly original in the sense that it rests on a totally new breakthrough - expressed in the concept of dependent-origination which is not found in any other religious teachings; no hint of it appears in any Vedic text. The Buddha met and debated with many Brahmins, but he rejected the fundamental ideas that Hinduism embraced. He may have practised with Jains for a period when he starved himself almost to death, but again he rejected that way.
No one can say what the 'original faith' of Gautama was. The idea that he was an avatār of Viṣṇu is a story invented by Hindus. Indian religion is full of this kind of thing. Buddhist texts show that Brahmā, Indra and other Vedic gods worshipped the Buddha, and later Śiva converted to Buddhism - so really we can say that all Hindu Gods worship the Buddha and know that they are inferior to him. That is what our holy texts say! Viṣṇu is never mentioned in Pāli texts - he hadn't been invented at that time apparently.
However those 'holy' Hindu texts, like Buddhist texts, were written by men with agendas. One of the agendas of the people who believe in God is to control other people - to control what they think and how they act. The Buddha rejected belief in God as foolish, and empty. He said the Brahmins knew nothing for certain and were the 'blind leading the blind'. Their three vedas are a wasteland, a desert, a misfortune!
J., Your last response to that comment was worthy of a blog in itself. I'd like to hear more about what makes Buddhism distinctive, and whether those distinctions make it better, truer or more effective than other philosophies-&- religions.
Sometimes I tell people that Buddhism is the only religion aside from Daoism (of some kinds at least), that advocates pliability (flexibility) as a positive virtue, and that discourages rigid adherence to a set of ideas. You think?
Thanks. I'll give some thought to doing it as a blog. A lot of it comes down to practical considerations. Buddhism isn't necessarily 'truer' - in the sense of having true doctrines. Some of the doctrines are clearly not true, in the Western sense of the word, or from the point of view of other truth values. In a way it's not even about truth. Effectiveness is what is important, but then we have to be clear what is meant by effective. How many enlightened people do you know. If the goal of practice is to be enlightened, and no one you know is enlightened, then how can the practices be said to be effective? On the other hand personal experiences tells me that Buddhist practice is very helpful on many levels - more or less than other types of practices? I know virtuous Christians, virtuous Hindus, virtuous Atheists.
Your other point is quite complex I think. Any kind of adherence, let alone rigid adherence is critiqued. Though of course there is a definite right view and wrong view as well - quite unequivocally. History has shown that Buddhists are not immune to dogmatism. Also those schools of Buddhist thought which emphasise flexibility are often the ones with the strongest Taoist influences!
Thanks for the ideas! I have my next few posts written or outlined, but I'm always fishing for new ideas.
Jayarava, as far as your last answer is concerned, I agree with you, and when asked on similar subjects I always refer to the passage in the Pali Canon in which Gotama says that if his doctrine does not lead the practitioner to nibbāna, after an accurate investigation of the characteristics of the dhamma (is this dhamma deep? is it difficult to reach? is it conducive to spiritual emancipation? etc.) itself, s/he must find his/her own different way, AS Gotama himself did with the doctrines of Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, which at a certain point he has considered useless, i.e., not really useful for reaching nibbāna (sorry but I do not remember by heart the exact place of this passage). This is, I think, an important - and quite peculiar to Buddhism, at least in the Indian cultural area - demonstration of non-dogmatism, which demonstrates the interest Buddhism has (or should have) primarily towards individual freedom, than towards some tenets considered fundamental and unchangeable... of course history and historical events are always another pair of shoes than philosophy and ethical message! :-) k
I have a question that may be naive and/or off-topic -- but seems logically prior to the discussion. Namely: what reason do we have for considering Siddhartha Gautama to be a historical (actually-existing) person at all?
Most historians seem to take this for granted, but (without trying very hard) I haven't found the basis for it. In fact, with the arguable exception of the Ashokan columns, I haven't found any knock-down reason to believe that Buddhism itself predates the 1st Century BCE.
I have only gotten interested in this question recently, after discovering that many famous people in Tibetan religious history, whom I had assumed historical, probably weren't. I don't see this as a problem, or as invalidating the religion in any way; but it seems that it can sometimes be useful to sort out objective and visionary history.
I am quite ignorant of the early history of Buddhism, because the Pali canon is politely ignored in the Tibetan traditions I study. But (with again the possible exception of the Ashokan pillars) there doesn't seem to be any clear archaeological evidence for Buddhism BCE. And the written Pali scriptures seem to be clearly CE; and to the limited extent I've read about them, it seems that their supposed history could be mythology and propaganda. (This is not intended to derogate the religious traditions based on them in any way; the insights they contain should stand or fall on their own merits, not on the basis of their history.)
I wonder if you know what evidence outside scripture there is for the historicity of the Buddha, or indeed for Buddhism BCE? Or what reason there is to accept the Pali history as accurate? Either a summary or a pointer to work(s) on the topic, or both, would be very helpful. Thanks!
It's a very good and apposite question in fact. One that still exercises some scholars today - though not many Buddhists. The short answer is that we have no proof, and precious little evidence for the Buddha; or for Buddhism prior to the 4th century CE. The fact that we cannot even be sure about his name is somewhat discouraging!
My take on this would take a while to organise and articulate - it will have to wait until I have some time and space to write it.
But we don't really need to know such things. Buddhists are, or should be, pragmatists. We have the instructions and the practices to get one with; which if engaged in do transform us. We know this much, and this is more than enough. If the history is only stories it does not detract from the methods themselves, which continue to be applied with great success in the present.
I'll try to write something on this topic soon. It is one that has featured in the writing of Greg Schopen especially. Richard Gombrich (not a Buddhist) has articulated some coherent views on why he believes that the Buddha must have lived, and roughly when we think he did (See especially 'What the Buddha Thought'); and his friend Johannes Bronkhorst has taken many public potshots at him for taking such a position. Not much of this is accessible to a general reader unfortunately - the debates are often in expensive academic books, and journal articles.
The archaeology of India is far from completely explored and understood. But the picture becomes slowly and gradually clearer.
Something to think about is the opposite question: how would you explain the phenomena we do have hard evidence for, if there had not been someone who became a Buddha and taught a coherent set of ideas and practices, some centuries before Asoka?
I will give some thought to tackling this problem in a blog soon, but it's quite complex and I'm busy with other projects at the moment.
Thank you for your helpful reply! I will follow up on the references.
I agree that the history of Buddhism doesn't affect its current validity. But it's still fascinating, because history illuminates current practice.
I was surprised by "prior to the 4th Century CE". I thought the Gandharan sculptures were unambiguously Buddhist and dateable to the 1st Century CE. If not, the uncertainty reaches even further forward than I had realized!
Your last question is one I have thought about, although I am ignorant of the historical data. If I had an academic position I would not dare say more. Since I don't, I will speculate wildly:
Maybe historians have accepted the Buddha's historicity on the grounds that someone must have founded Buddhism. This idea is probably based on the examples of Jesus and Mohammed. But you can't generalize from two examples, and anyway their own historicity is questionable.
It seems likely that religions usually arise gradually, as a collaboration of many people, in a cultural context in which they make sense and solve some social problem.
Perhaps Buddhism developed gradually out of multiple Shramana lineages that shared some doctrines and practices, exchanging ideas, each innovating, in competition with each other for followers. Some lineages had "Bodhi" as a goal, implying "Buddha" as anyone who attained it. Then some religious entrepreneur invented the back-story about a heroic prince who attained Bodhi after first trying out competing lineages and finding they didn't work. This story was such an effective marketing tool that other lineages adopted it.
On this account, there was no early Buddhist schism (as per the Pali canon). Rather, coopting the Buddha-myth tended to unify differing lineages -- particularly in the view of outsiders, who defined religions in terms of worshippers of God X or Y.
Data-free speculation, but perhaps food for thought.
I got four versions of your reply and was unsure which to publish so opted for the most recent one.
The 4th C CE figure is one that gets bandied about, but you are right that Gandhāra pushes it back a bit. I accept that Buddhism most likely started in the 5th century in North-East India as a result of one visionary. I can't prove this of course.
I disagree about the committee theory of religions. Committees are never very creative, they are by nature conservative (because of the nature of group dynamics). Look at more modern cults (Moonies, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, or even the Amish, and Mennonites) and you'll see plenty of Founders. You also have Zarathustra, Mahāvīra, K'ung-fu-tzu,
Tribal religions (such as Hinduism and Judaism) grow up over centuries it is true. But usually it is one visionary who starts a new religion if it is a universal religion. Note that even within Hinduism some of the more important cults rely on single individuals like Śaṅkara or Ramakṛṣṇa. Within Buddhism major movements seem to have started with individuals - take the case of Japan for instance: Kūkai, Saicho, Dogen, Shinran all started new cults that moved in new directions. In Tibet you get foundation figures like Padmasambhva, Atisa, Tsongkapa. In India Nāgarjuna, Vasubandhu,
However if one person's vision is to continue after them, to expand, make converts and flourish, then that does take an organisation.
Sorry for the four copies of the comment. With the first three, I got a "too long" error, so I kept shortening it. Apparently those reached you anyway.
Your list of examples is impressive and I am nearly persuaded! I am tempted to say more, but since I'm just appallingly ignorant about the early history, I think I'll shut up now instead.
Thanks, by the way, for your blog in general. I always find it interesting and it often gets me started thinking about something unexpected.
Yes I have the same problem with some of my comments. It's a problem Google are working on, but the comments themselves do get through.
Glad you enjoy the blog. It's usually something I've been thinking about to start with, but often the comments take me in unforeseen directions which is fun.
"If yona means 'Greek', then MN 93.6 cannot have been written before this date."
I'm sorry, I'm not understanding your logic here. Are you positing that there is no way the folks in Gotama's neighborhood could have an awareness of Ionia prior to Alexander's invasion? If so, why would that be?
@David: My impression that the Buddha was an historical person is because I have never seen a committee come up with such a consistent insight. Granted it takes a little digging under the dust of words to find it, but it would be miraculous for so many words to have been passed on without additions, and the additions themselves are consistent (though inconsistent with the fundamental points). In other words, we can see when the committee stepped in, adding their curliques and sparkles because they don't fit with the original teaching.
You're right. It is something of an assumption. But the world was a big place and Greece was a very long way away. It just seems very unlikely to me that with all of the intervening countries that the folks in Bihar could have knowledge of Greeks and their society. I would guess, having been there, the same would generally be true in Bihar today. Almost certainly there was no direct contact as Greece was separated from India by the Greek's arch-enemies the Persians - so they couldn't have gone in person before Alexander.
Finally I know of no other evidence to suggest any contact, no physical evidence before the Indo-Bactrian period in Gandhāra which is some centuries after Alexander and about a century after Aśoka.
The suttas talk about ocean-going vessels -- sending a bird out to find land, for example. They also seem to have an awareness of places further south on the subcontinent. The Greeks could easily have contact with south India via trade on the coast. Part of the education of the upper classes would no doubt be knowledge of the extent of the world. I would be surprised if the Buddha lived after Alexander, which by your argument he'd have to be for the new information to have traveled so far -- since Alexander didn't make it past the Indus, right? Sure wish there was more archaeological data available for the subcontinent.
Yes. There was no doubt contact across the Indian ocean. A great deal in later centuries especially. But look at a map - it's a bloody long way to Greece from the Arabian Peninsular (2000+ miles from Aden to Athens!). And no Suez Canal. "could easily" does not equal "did". Have you any source to suggest that the Greeks plied there trade that way, across the desert? Or for that matter that there was any real commerce between North and South India at the time we are talking about?
Where do you take you evidence for education of the "upper classes" from? I'm not aware of any text from the time which suggests this. Certainly Brahmanical education did not seem to trend in this direction.
No, the Buddha lived well before Alexander. You seem to be assuming the Buddha wrote the Pāli Canon. I am not. I am assuming that it continued to be composed for at least 2 or 3 generations after his death in approx. 400 BCE. I think you need to read the context of the mention of the yonas again - they were an outlying culture paired with Kamboja, probably in Afghanistan. The connection is not thought by any scholar I am aware of to be with Greece, but with Greek descended Bactrians.
Alexander did cross the Indus, but halted at the Beas River, well inside the present day western border of India.
Have you anything other than speculation to suggest contact with the Greeks pre-Alexander? I know of none, and the authorities I checked on the yona/ionian connection - such as Romila Tharpar and A.L. Basham seemed not to know of any either.
The field would appear to be wide open to prove some contact between Magadha and Greece before Alexander, and I look forward to seeing the history books rewritten once you have published ;-)
Ah, I misunderstood, thrown by the word "written", apologies: I was thinking you were dating the Buddha (does he send flowers?). As for Magadha having commerce with Greeks that's not what I suggested. Direct commerce is not required between the Greeks and the Magadhans for the Buddha to have knowledge of them. Information travels great distances even when people only walk as far as the next village and back home again. In fact unless the Bactrian theory has the Bactrians visiting Magadha, the way information travels is part of that argument as well. My point is simply this: just because the earliest contact we're reasonably sure of now, is from around 327 BCE, that does not mean that it *is* the earliest. I have no concrete evidence for there being earlier contact but there's not a lot of concrete evidence of any sort from the Buddha's time and place that's not of the most general nature. The best sources of what was known, and who had commerce with whom at the time, comes from Vedic and Pali literature and while that's unreliable, so are theories about monks having inserted a reference to Yonian masters and slaves in suttas later.
I am sure the reason I take exception is because when I began reading the suttas they struck me as primarily filled with a great deal of self-contradictory guidelines on how to live a life and it was apparent to me the whole mass was thoroughly corrupted by the handling it took to get it from then to now. But as I've continued to stick with it, more and more, I've come to see that there is a great deal of consistency and I begin to suspect that a nearly superhuman amount of effort went into passing on -- as near as dammit -- what the Buddha actually said, or at least would have if he spoke the language(s) it was translated into, or at least what the translators thought he said and meant. Unless I can see a reason someone would insert the Yonian reference, or a pattern of similar insertions, or find it inconsistent with the teaching in some way, I will tend to err on the side of "the Buddha knew about a country with only masters and slaves" rather than "this is a late insertion."
"Where do you take your evidence for education of the "upper classes" from? I'm not aware of any text from the time which suggests this. Certainly Brahmanical education did not seem to trend in this direction." Batchelor's latest book has some theorizing on whether the Buddha was educated in Taxila or not -- darned if I can lay my hands on my copy though (I've been looking for it for weeks!) -- it's in the appendix at the back if you should want to have a look at it. Part of the argument seems to have been that others were educated there.
So yes. The argument about the Bactrian 'Yona' partly rests on proximity - they are 1000's of miles closer geographically, and some centuries closer to a far reaching Greek empire. Between India and Greece was a very large empire which was very hostile to Greece, and eventually smashed by Alexander of Macedon. Given the hostility between Persia and Greece you'd have to come up with a plausible way the Greeks to get around that, or some reason why their enemies the Persians transmitted such (value neutral) information about Greeks. You would also need to locate the Kamboja, who are always paired with Yona, in the Mediterranean as well when most scholars locate them around Kabul or in the Hindu Kush.
The argument does not rest on the pattern of social organisation. You have in no way convinced me that such knowledge might have been transmitted to North-East India before Alexander. I've made a study of Persian influences which provide a contrast - there is only a very tiny hint of Persian influence and they, were the dominant power in the west for centuries, and ruled as far as the Indus during the entire lifetime of the Buddha. In fact the Persians are not named in the Canon as far as I know. So what you are arguing for is mention of a culture some 1000's of miles further away, when the powerful next-door neighbours are absent. Occam's razor must be applied. And prejudices about what the texts represent must be put aside.
It is quite obvious that there is both consistency and inconsistency in the texts. If you ignore one of those TWO facts then you come to conclusions which are unbalanced. It is clear to me that the composition of the Pāli Canon took place over several generations, that the Pāli recension is a translation, that Pāli itself changes over the course of the composition. Stop and think about that: a language supposedly created for transmitting the Buddha's words, supposedly fixed, in fact changes in the way that all spoken languages do. It simply cannot have been written in one place and time - it must have been written in many places, and over several generations at least. One sees also multiple tellings of the same stories (e.g. DN 13 vs MN 98 vs Sn 3.9) which suggests to me multiple lineages remembering one story differently - yes, it is one story, but clearly over time the telling of it has diverged until all thee versions were collated. So we have to acknowledge the variations we find in Pāli language and literature. However there is also a clear continuity which helps to highlight the anomalies. And the anomalies tell us more about the textual history than the consistencies - it's a matter signal to noise.
BTW It's not enough to simply read the Pāli recension. One must take into account the Chinese, the Gāndhārī, and the Sanskrit parallels. There is a steady stream of articles nowadays comparing Pāli and Chinese, particularly by Bhikkhu Anālayo. A trickle of articles on Gāndhārī, but some published texts for instance the Gāndhārī Dharmapada can be consulted. The variations are minor, but present, and cannot be accounted for simply by translation.
The tradition that Indian kings sent their sons to Taxila for education only exists in the Pāli commentaries, which are only vaguely connected with the time of the Buddha and reflect a much later time - probably the lifetime of Buddhaghosa. The idea that the Buddha was the son of a king is clearly hagiography and the idea that he was a kṣatriya is doubtful. He was probably brought up in an environment which did not acknowledge, or perhaps even know about, Brahmanical class prejudice. Hence, perhaps, his refusal to acknowledge it later on. So best of luck to Bachelor but he'd have to come up with some new information in order to make the existing facts fit such a hypothesis.
I'm enjoying your contributions. It helps me to sharpen up my arguments when they are challenged.
Sorry if you've been getting my posts twice, once long and two short (like Morse code). The error doesn't give any indication it comes through!
Yes, there are other factors than translation shifting meanings, though I suspect translating from this language or dialect to that while trying to convey one's understanding was the largest influence -- with that "conveying one's own understanding" being key. Mis-remembering would be a big factor -- especially in pericopes getting moved around. Lots of things would get lost when push came to shove and with too few to do the memorizing we'd dropped the difficult pieces we can't explain well. But adding a tiny piece that wasn't in the original would seem unusual behavior to me. Have any guesses as to how that would come about?
Oh and, you said, "You have in no way convinced me that such knowledge might have been transmitted to North-East India before Alexander." Just to aid in developing my tone of voice, here, I'm not actually trying to convince you of anything. I'm running my understanding of things by you so that you can school me. If you find it helps sharpen your arguments, well, grateful to be of service. ; )
Which is not to say I never have a position I take strongly -- I do have a few views on the contents of the canon that I'll stand up for -- just not many, and this isn't one of them.
You can tell I spend a lot of time mulling over the things that you've said by the number of times I come back to post "and furthermore"s.
You said, "It simply cannot have been written in one place and time - it must have been written in many places, and over several generations at least."
The problem I have is again with the use of the word "written" because I can't tell if you mean "copied down and changed in the process" or "originated" or "intentionally revised". What exactly does having the many layers of language showing in the suttas tell us? Does it tell us that the first written drafts all came from different areas and times? Or that this version we have was last revised in a different area and time from where it originated? Is it as neat as each individual sutta having language that seems consistent with one area or time? (I don't think so) or is it rather than within a sutta we see philological layers of language representing its passage through time and space?
When you say "It is clear to me that the composition of the Pāli Canon took place over several generations" are you saying "origination of the composition"? or "origination and revisions"? Do you have a working theory (or two, or more) of how the development of the suttas went? Do you think it is likely that there was ever a time when the suttas were internally consistent enough, and accurate enough to the original teachings, that they would have been given the Buddha's seal of approval? Has your study given you a feel for any of that?
Sorry I've reached overload and don't the time or mental space to keep up the discussion on so many fronts. I'm writing a book, writing tomorrow's post, and preparing a talk for Sunday week.
I've probably been inconsistent and confusing in my use of "written, composed" etc. The texts were composed verbally, and transmitted over several hundred years before being written. Spontaneous composition on the basis of a rough outline is a feature of oral literature. I think multiple oral lineages are represented in the Canon because stories are repeated with slightly different details.
The layers in time are written about by much better scholars than me and I accept that there are layers. One can also see at times clumsy editing. But the written canon probably represents the collated oral tradition - though when it was collated is anyone's guess. The tradition says that it was immediately after the death of the Buddha - in the time it took everyone to converge on Rājagṛha.
The Buddha's seal of approval? Not sure what that might mean.
I do think that the evidence points back to mainly a single common source, but the that source was situated in a broad cultural context, that is also evident. The background determines how we see the foreground to some extent. I'm mainly interested in the possibility that Brahmanical thinking provided background, though see tomorrow's post on this as I have found some new reasons to be doubtful about strong claims in this area.
So tomorrow I plan to move on, to take questions and comments on the current post if there are any, and let this and the other discussion go. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I have other priorities that need attending to.
I appreciate the time you've taken, Jayaraya, and look forward to hearing more about your book.
Friday, September 10, 2010
[Image]Here are two follow up notes to previous essays, one on the -e ending in mantras, another on the name Gotama; and lastly a brief note on dating the Canon.
1. The -e Ending in Mantras.
In March 2009 I wrote Words in Mantras That End in -e. In that essay I revisited some of the ideas about what the -e ending might signify, especially with respect to the Heart Sūtra mantra. Kern, Conze and other Sanskritists have seen it as a feminine vocative singular, though of course there are other grammatical possibilities. [1] I speculated that the -e ending was simply a masculine nominative singular, and that the mantras were composed in a region of India which employed that ending as opposed to Classical Sanskrit -as/-aḥ or Pāli -o. Recently I stumbled on an article by Signe Cohen which adds something to the picture. I know Cohen from her excellent linguistic analysis of the Upaniṣads: Text and Authority in the Older Upaniṣads. This book is particularly important for the understanding it brings of the internal struggles apparent especially in the Bṛhadāranyka Upaniṣad which has Yajurveda sages in direct competition and victorious over Ṛgveda sages. However in 2002 Cohen published a short article on the -e ending:
On the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit/Middle Indic Ending "-e" as a 'Magadhism', Acta Orientalia Vol. 63 (2002), p.67-9.This article points out that although the -e form for the masculine nominative singular does indeed occur in the North East of India, it is in fact far more widespread. This has partly been obscured as editors of Sanskrit texts have 'corrected' the text for critical editions. Patrick Olivelle complains of the same problem with the Upaniṣads in his article:
'Unfaithful transmitters: philological criticism and critical editions of the Upaniṣads,' in Language Texts and Society, Firenze University Press, 2005. (p. 285f) [originally published in Journal of Indian Philosophy 26, 1998: 173f.]
Western Editors, believing Indian pandits to be incompetent, silently emended unusual spellings. However as Olivelle points out, those pandits were far from incompetent, likely to be well versed in Pāṇini, and to know a 'wrong' form when they saw one. Indian scholars tended to preserve dialectical and archaic variants, being inherently more conservative in relation to texts they saw as sacred. To the European scholar of a certain era nothing but their own objectivity was sacred. While we may not accept the pandits explanations of such variant forms (which are frequently ascribed to the peculiarities of Vedic or given mystical significance) they were at least not so over-confident as to 'correct' them. As such, modern critical and printed editions of the Upaniṣads often obscure the history of the text by removing evidence, and reproducing previously corrected texts without question.
Cohen notes that in fact the -e form is found all over North India, and especially in Sanskrit loan words in Tocharian. She concludes:
"The common assumption that the -e ending is an Eastern Dialect form must be seriously questioned. Rather than being a specifically Eastern Dialectical feature found sporadically in other parts of India due to eastern influence, it appears that the -e ending was widespread, especially in Buddhist Sanskrit, that it must be considered a standard form, next to the -o ending." [p. 68; my italics]My conjecture is that Buddhist mantras were composed in Prakrit or Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit rather than Classical Sanskrit, and that words ending in -e in mantras are simply nominative singular forms, the gender of the words in the mantra having no relationship to the gender of the deity - and in the case of the Heart Sūtra there is no deity anyway.
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2. The Name Gautama
In my essay What Was the Buddha's Name? I drew attention to the quirk of history which left the Buddha, a kṣatriya by tradition but possibly a non-āryan, with an ostentatiously Brahmin gotra-, or clan-name: Gautama (meaning 'descended from Gotama, the one with the most cows go'). However more than half a century ago D.D. Kosambi offered a different take on this subject in a review published in 1953:
D.D. Kosambi. 'Brahmin Clans'. Journal of the American Oriental Society, Vol. 73, No. 4 (Oct. - Dec., 1953), pp. 202-208.He points to two brief Pāli passages which suggest that Gautama (Pāli: Gotama) is not the Buddha's gotra name. The first is from the Therīgāthā verses of the Buddha's maternal aunt and foster mother. She says (Th 2 162)
Bahūnaṃ vata atthāya, māyā janayi gotamaṃ;
Truly for the many, Māyā gave birth to GotamaKosambi's point here is that the names Māyā and Gotama are on the same level - i.e. they are both first names. This is to read the text quite literally, and I'm a bit doubtful about doing that. Compare for instance the case of the Brahmin boy Uppatissa, son of Rūpasārī, better known as Sāriputta 'son of (Rūpa)sārī'.[2] However Kosambi points out that neither does the Buddha's wife become known as Gotamī in any tradition. The fact that Mahāpajāpati, his mother's sister, is called Gotamī also suggests that it is not the Buddha's clan-name since the names pass pass down patrilineally (though I think Kosambi here is thinking in terms of Brahminical social rules which required Brahmins to marry outside their gotra). Kosambi also notes that bhikkhus are sakiyaputta not gotamaputta. He does not attempt to explain why the future Buddha might be named after Vedic sages however, which still strikes me as odd.
Kosambi's other text is the Pabbajjā Sutta [Sn 3.1] in which King Bimbisāra asks the Buddha where he is from. The Buddha replies that he comes from the country of Kosala, and:
Ādiccā nāma gottena, sākiyā nāma jātiyā;
Tamhā kulā pabbajitomhi, na kāme abhipatthayaṃ.
Called Ādiccā by clan, called Sākiya by caste [jāti]
I went forth from that family, not longing for pleasures.
The phrase only occurs once in the canon, but elsewhere the Buddha says that the Sākiya consider rājā okkāka their ancestor [Ambaṭṭha Sutta, DN 3, PTS D i.92-3] and Pāli okkāka is Sanskrit ikṣvāku a king of the ādityā [P. ādiccā] gotra. The suggestion then is that the Buddha's name was in Sanskrit Gautama Ādityā; and Pāli Gotama Ādiccā. The Buddha is also sometimes called Āṅgirasa which according to the Dictionary of Pāli Names was a tribe which included the Gautama gotra. My reading of some of the DOPN references suggests that āṅgirasa was being used as an adjective (e.g. 'shiny like the sun') rather than a name. Against the passage above Kosambi also cites the Mahāpadāna Sutta [Dn 14, PTS ii.3]
Ahaṃ, bhikkhave, etarahi arahaṃ sammāsambuddho gotamo gottena ahosiṃ.
I bhikkhus, now worthy, fully awakened, was of the Gotama gotra. [3]This phrase occurs 3 times in the suttas, all in the Mahapadāna. Kosambi refers to this as "the first interpretation of Gotama as the Buddha's gotra name... obviously a late formation under Brahmin influence". Indeed it is so obvious that Kosambi provides no evidence for his conjecture, nor does he consider the possibility that both statements about gotra are "late formations". Contrarily we find the name Gotama being used in the last two chapters of the Sutta-nipāta which are generally considered to be the oldest layers of the Pāli Canon.
It is still a puzzle as to why the Buddha even has a gotra name, let alone a Brahmin one (which both Gautama and Ādityā are). He was not a Brahmin. I don't think Kosambi solved the mystery, but he provided an interesting additional view point. One last observation of my own is that though the Buddha meets Brahmins from many other gotra lineages, he never seems to meet a Gautama Brahmin. This is despite the fact that the two ancestors Gotama and Bharadvāja are mentioned together in Bṛhadāranyka Upaniṣad 2.2.4, and Gautama the Buddha meets more than a dozen Brahmins from the Bhāradvāja lineage, who mostly seem to live in Kosala (see e.g. DN 3, 13, 27, 32, but throughout the nikāyas).
18 Aug 2011
I've been looking at Brahmins in the Canon and thinking about the Buddha's Brahmin surname. No other males with the gotra name "Gautama" are found in the Pāli Canon, though there are several women. I think the facts we have might be explained if the Buddha's mother and her sister were of the Gautama clan, and married Sudhodana who was a Śākya. Gautama in other words is actually Gautamaputra, Son of Gautamī; on the same model as Śāriputra is the Son of (his mother) Śārī.
6 Sept. Extra note[Image]
Snodgrass, vol.2 p. 471
In the Garbhadhātu Maṇḍala of the Shingon school, associated with the Mahāvairocana Abhisaṃbodhi Tantra (MAT), there is a figure called Gautama (or Gotama; Japanese: Kudonsen 瞿曇仙). This is the Vedic Gautama and he attends on the god Agni. Adrian Snodgrass suggests that he is the subject of many hymns in the Ṛgveda, though this is not correct as far as I know. He is, however, credited as the author of some of them. Snodgrass translates from Dainichikyōsho (Śubhakarasiṃha's commentary on the MAT):
"The hermit-ascetic Gotama [sic], flying in the sky at well, let fall two drops of sweat upon the earth, and the earth gave birth to sugar cane. Warmed by the sun, the sugar cane gave birth to two children, who became Śākya kings"*
These two are the progenitors of the clan which 'Siddhartha' was born into. Gautama has a consort called Gautamī. I have not yet found the connection between the 'sugar cane' clan (Kansho) and the Śākya clan, though it may rest on a Chinese (mis)translation. In any case it that MAT includes the Vedic Gautama alongside the many other Vedic gods and important figures. Note that this story glosses over the fact that Gautama is a brahmaṇa, while the Buddha is usually referred to as a kṣatriya.
* see Snodgrass, Adrian. The Matrix and Diamond World Mandalas in Shingon Buddhism, vol. 2, p. 470.
~~~~
3. Dating the Canon.
The Assalāyana (MN 93) is a lengthy discussion between the eponymous Brahmin and the Buddha about the claim by Brahmins to be the best class (brāhmaṇo'va seṭṭho vaṇṇo). [4] Amongst the various arguments the Buddha puts forward is the relativist argument that some countries only have two classes, viz. ayyo and dāsa, i.e. noble and slave. [MN 93.5] These two countries (janapada) referred to are Yona and Kamboja. Various maps put Kamboja in different places, but it was supposedly north and west of Gandhāra. Shrimali centres it on the Kabul River (which flows through the Hindu Kush mountains from what is now Afghanistan to join the Indus) [5] Yona is thought to refer to Bactrian Greeks even further west. As the DOPN says:
The name is probably the Pāli equivalent for Ionians, the Baktrian Greeks. The Yonas are mentioned with the Kambojas in Rock Edicts v. and xii of Asoka, as a subject people, forming a frontier district of his empire. These Greeks are thought to have been descendants of garrisons left by Alexander of Macedon. And this gives us our date. [6] At the time of the Buddha the Persian Achaemanids ruled as far east as the Indus River - i.e. including Gandhāra. We can confidently date Alexander's Indian campaign as part of his assault on and destruction of the Achaemanid Empire, to 327-326 BCE. If yona means 'Greek', then MN 93.6 cannot have been written before this date. Dates of the Buddha are less certain but the most recent research points to his death being circa 400 BCE, some 70 odd years before Alexander. Greek cultural influence remained for some time with post-Mauryan Dynasty Gandhāra being ruled by what is termed an 'Indo-Greek' dynasty from ca. 180 BCE - 10 CE. Greek aesthetic ideals heavily influenced Gandhāra art for some centuries, so that the first anthropomorphic images of the Buddha, produced in that region during the Kushan period (ca. 75-241 CE) showing obvious Hellenistic features.
~~||~~
Notes
for instance -e can signify a masculine or neuter locative singular of a noun or past-participle in -a, such as gata (past-participle of gacchati).
I don't want to multiply examples needlessly but Moggallana's given name was Kotila (after his village, just as Upatissa was called after his village). Kassapa (tortoise) is a very common name in Pāli perhaps because it was a gotra name as well. It seems that calling people by clan or family names, or epithets was a common practice.
Note that Walsh translates this as a present (I am) when the verb is clearly past-tense; the Buddha left his clan, class, and caste behind when he went forth.D ii.148. Note that he continues "the other class is defective" (sometimes in this pericope the plural is used 'the other classes'). The Pāli being: hīno añño vaṇṇo. Here the term hīna is clearly being used pejoratively in a caste context. See also my Hīnayāna Reprise.
Shrimali, Krishna Mohan. The Age of Iron and the Religious Revolution : c.700-c.350 BC. (A People's History of India: 3A). New Dehli, Tulika Books. 2007. Map p.85.I haven't found any reference to this fact, but I presume someone else has already noticed this.
29 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formJayarava, many thanks for this interesting post!
Just a little note “a latere” on “2. The Name Gautama”, which I refer from K.R. Norman’s book “A Philological Approach to Buddhism”, PTS (p. 84). Norman discusses the possibility (already pointed out by O. von Hinüber, “Linguistic Considerations on the Date of the Buddha”, in H. Bechert, “The Dating of the Historical Buddha”, Göttingen 1991) that Māyā were not the first name of Buddha’s mother, rather a particular variant – perhaps due to phonetic peculiarities of some dialect, operative with all probability in West Magadha, towards the Kālsī area – for mātā, that is “mother”.
:-) k
Sunday, August 01, 2010
HI Krishna
Thanks for the tip. It's a while since I looked at that book. Norman lives not far from me, and one of my friends has met him! I love reading his work.
The mystery continues. I've noticed a few mentions that some kṣatriya families took the gotra name of their priests, but I haven't found the original research, nor anything in the Pāli to back this up. I suspect a late development which aimed at prestige; but then the same is true of claiming kṣatriya status and we're back going in circles.
Sunday, August 01, 2010
May be you already know this site, in any case here you will find Norman's "Collected Papers" in pdf up to the VII vol.: http://www.istb.univie.ac.at/cgi-bin/istb_website/db/db.cgi?uid=default&tb=istb_archivetool&thisorder=&button=1&keyword=norman+collected+papers&mh=10000&bool=and&sb1=&so1=asc&sb2=&so2=asc&sb3=&so3=asc&view_records=Suchen.
If you live not so far from him, you could try to contact him for discussing this "mystery" of the name "shiftings".
:-) k
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Thanks for the link I didn't know about that. Very useful!
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Dear Sir,
I came to know about your site through twitter. I liked it very much. Since you have deep knowledge about Buddhism I would like to clear some of my "doubts" about Buddhism from you.
Firstly, there is "widespread" perception among many folks that Buddhism is not an "original" religion. It's has it roots in Hinduism. In fact, it had originated from Hinduism. I would like to know is this true ? Please shed light some light on this.
Secondly, what was the 'first' faith of Gautama ? Was he an avatar of lord Vishnu ? As some people say quoting Holy Hindu texts.
These two are my honest questions and doubts. Please do reply, sir.
Regards and thanks.
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
Buddhism is wholly original in the sense that it rests on a totally new breakthrough - expressed in the concept of dependent-origination which is not found in any other religious teachings; no hint of it appears in any Vedic text. The Buddha met and debated with many Brahmins, but he rejected the fundamental ideas that Hinduism embraced. He may have practised with Jains for a period when he starved himself almost to death, but again he rejected that way.
No one can say what the 'original faith' of Gautama was. The idea that he was an avatār of Viṣṇu is a story invented by Hindus. Indian religion is full of this kind of thing. Buddhist texts show that Brahmā, Indra and other Vedic gods worshipped the Buddha, and later Śiva converted to Buddhism - so really we can say that all Hindu Gods worship the Buddha and know that they are inferior to him. That is what our holy texts say! Viṣṇu is never mentioned in Pāli texts - he hadn't been invented at that time apparently.
However those 'holy' Hindu texts, like Buddhist texts, were written by men with agendas. One of the agendas of the people who believe in God is to control other people - to control what they think and how they act. The Buddha rejected belief in God as foolish, and empty. He said the Brahmins knew nothing for certain and were the 'blind leading the blind'. Their three vedas are a wasteland, a desert, a misfortune!
I hope that addresses some of your doubts.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Tuesday, August 03, 2010
J., Your last response to that comment was worthy of a blog in itself. I'd like to hear more about what makes Buddhism distinctive, and whether those distinctions make it better, truer or more effective than other philosophies-&- religions.
Sometimes I tell people that Buddhism is the only religion aside from Daoism (of some kinds at least), that advocates pliability (flexibility) as a positive virtue, and that discourages rigid adherence to a set of ideas. You think?
-Dan
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Hi Dan
Thanks. I'll give some thought to doing it as a blog. A lot of it comes down to practical considerations. Buddhism isn't necessarily 'truer' - in the sense of having true doctrines. Some of the doctrines are clearly not true, in the Western sense of the word, or from the point of view of other truth values. In a way it's not even about truth. Effectiveness is what is important, but then we have to be clear what is meant by effective. How many enlightened people do you know. If the goal of practice is to be enlightened, and no one you know is enlightened, then how can the practices be said to be effective? On the other hand personal experiences tells me that Buddhist practice is very helpful on many levels - more or less than other types of practices? I know virtuous Christians, virtuous Hindus, virtuous Atheists.
Your other point is quite complex I think. Any kind of adherence, let alone rigid adherence is critiqued. Though of course there is a definite right view and wrong view as well - quite unequivocally. History has shown that Buddhists are not immune to dogmatism. Also those schools of Buddhist thought which emphasise flexibility are often the ones with the strongest Taoist influences!
Thanks for the ideas! I have my next few posts written or outlined, but I'm always fishing for new ideas.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Wednesday, August 04, 2010
Hi all!
Jayarava, as far as your last answer is concerned, I agree with you, and when asked on similar subjects I always refer to the passage in the Pali Canon in which Gotama says that if his doctrine does not lead the practitioner to nibbāna, after an accurate investigation of the characteristics of the dhamma (is this dhamma deep? is it difficult to reach? is it conducive to spiritual emancipation? etc.) itself, s/he must find his/her own different way, AS Gotama himself did with the doctrines of Āḷāra Kālāma and Uddaka Rāmaputta, which at a certain point he has considered useless, i.e., not really useful for reaching nibbāna (sorry but I do not remember by heart the exact place of this passage). This is, I think, an important - and quite peculiar to Buddhism, at least in the Indian cultural area - demonstration of non-dogmatism, which demonstrates the interest Buddhism has (or should have) primarily towards individual freedom, than towards some tenets considered fundamental and unchangeable... of course history and historical events are always another pair of shoes than philosophy and ethical message!
:-) k
Friday, August 06, 2010
Hi,
Another very interesting post.
I have a question that may be naive and/or off-topic -- but seems logically prior to the discussion. Namely: what reason do we have for considering Siddhartha Gautama to be a historical (actually-existing) person at all?
Most historians seem to take this for granted, but (without trying very hard) I haven't found the basis for it. In fact, with the arguable exception of the Ashokan columns, I haven't found any knock-down reason to believe that Buddhism itself predates the 1st Century BCE.
I have only gotten interested in this question recently, after discovering that many famous people in Tibetan religious history, whom I had assumed historical, probably weren't. I don't see this as a problem, or as invalidating the religion in any way; but it seems that it can sometimes be useful to sort out objective and visionary history.
I am quite ignorant of the early history of Buddhism, because the Pali canon is politely ignored in the Tibetan traditions I study. But (with again the possible exception of the Ashokan pillars) there doesn't seem to be any clear archaeological evidence for Buddhism BCE. And the written Pali scriptures seem to be clearly CE; and to the limited extent I've read about them, it seems that their supposed history could be mythology and propaganda. (This is not intended to derogate the religious traditions based on them in any way; the insights they contain should stand or fall on their own merits, not on the basis of their history.)
I wonder if you know what evidence outside scripture there is for the historicity of the Buddha, or indeed for Buddhism BCE? Or what reason there is to accept the Pali history as accurate? Either a summary or a pointer to work(s) on the topic, or both, would be very helpful. Thanks!
David
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Hi David
It's a very good and apposite question in fact. One that still exercises some scholars today - though not many Buddhists. The short answer is that we have no proof, and precious little evidence for the Buddha; or for Buddhism prior to the 4th century CE. The fact that we cannot even be sure about his name is somewhat discouraging!
My take on this would take a while to organise and articulate - it will have to wait until I have some time and space to write it.
But we don't really need to know such things. Buddhists are, or should be, pragmatists. We have the instructions and the practices to get one with; which if engaged in do transform us. We know this much, and this is more than enough. If the history is only stories it does not detract from the methods themselves, which continue to be applied with great success in the present.
I'll try to write something on this topic soon. It is one that has featured in the writing of Greg Schopen especially. Richard Gombrich (not a Buddhist) has articulated some coherent views on why he believes that the Buddha must have lived, and roughly when we think he did (See especially 'What the Buddha Thought'); and his friend Johannes Bronkhorst has taken many public potshots at him for taking such a position. Not much of this is accessible to a general reader unfortunately - the debates are often in expensive academic books, and journal articles.
The archaeology of India is far from completely explored and understood. But the picture becomes slowly and gradually clearer.
Something to think about is the opposite question: how would you explain the phenomena we do have hard evidence for, if there had not been someone who became a Buddha and taught a coherent set of ideas and practices, some centuries before Asoka?
I will give some thought to tackling this problem in a blog soon, but it's quite complex and I'm busy with other projects at the moment.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Sunday, August 08, 2010
Thank you for your helpful reply! I will follow up on the references.
I agree that the history of Buddhism doesn't affect its current validity. But it's still fascinating, because history illuminates current practice.
I was surprised by "prior to the 4th Century CE". I thought the Gandharan sculptures were unambiguously Buddhist and dateable to the 1st Century CE. If not, the uncertainty reaches even further forward than I had realized!
Your last question is one I have thought about, although I am ignorant of the historical data. If I had an academic position I would not dare say more. Since I don't, I will speculate wildly:
Maybe historians have accepted the Buddha's historicity on the grounds that someone must have founded Buddhism. This idea is probably based on the examples of Jesus and Mohammed. But you can't generalize from two examples, and anyway their own historicity is questionable.
It seems likely that religions usually arise gradually, as a collaboration of many people, in a cultural context in which they make sense and solve some social problem.
Perhaps Buddhism developed gradually out of multiple Shramana lineages that shared some doctrines and practices, exchanging ideas, each innovating, in competition with each other for followers. Some lineages had "Bodhi" as a goal, implying "Buddha" as anyone who attained it. Then some religious entrepreneur invented the back-story about a heroic prince who attained Bodhi after first trying out competing lineages and finding they didn't work. This story was such an effective marketing tool that other lineages adopted it.
On this account, there was no early Buddhist schism (as per the Pali canon). Rather, coopting the Buddha-myth tended to unify differing lineages -- particularly in the view of outsiders, who defined religions in terms of worshippers of God X or Y.
Data-free speculation, but perhaps food for thought.
David
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Hi David
I got four versions of your reply and was unsure which to publish so opted for the most recent one.
The 4th C CE figure is one that gets bandied about, but you are right that Gandhāra pushes it back a bit. I accept that Buddhism most likely started in the 5th century in North-East India as a result of one visionary. I can't prove this of course.
I disagree about the committee theory of religions. Committees are never very creative, they are by nature conservative (because of the nature of group dynamics). Look at more modern cults (Moonies, Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Scientologists, or even the Amish, and Mennonites) and you'll see plenty of Founders. You also have Zarathustra, Mahāvīra, K'ung-fu-tzu,
Tribal religions (such as Hinduism and Judaism) grow up over centuries it is true. But usually it is one visionary who starts a new religion if it is a universal religion. Note that even within Hinduism some of the more important cults rely on single individuals like Śaṅkara or Ramakṛṣṇa. Within Buddhism major movements seem to have started with individuals - take the case of Japan for instance: Kūkai, Saicho, Dogen, Shinran all started new cults that moved in new directions. In Tibet you get foundation figures like Padmasambhva, Atisa, Tsongkapa. In India Nāgarjuna, Vasubandhu,
However if one person's vision is to continue after them, to expand, make converts and flourish, then that does take an organisation.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Tuesday, August 10, 2010
Hi Jayarava,
Sorry for the four copies of the comment. With the first three, I got a "too long" error, so I kept shortening it. Apparently those reached you anyway.
Your list of examples is impressive and I am nearly persuaded! I am tempted to say more, but since I'm just appallingly ignorant about the early history, I think I'll shut up now instead.
Thanks, by the way, for your blog in general. I always find it interesting and it often gets me started thinking about something unexpected.
Cheers
David
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Hi David
Yes I have the same problem with some of my comments. It's a problem Google are working on, but the comments themselves do get through.
Glad you enjoy the blog. It's usually something I've been thinking about to start with, but often the comments take me in unforeseen directions which is fun.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
"If yona means 'Greek', then MN 93.6 cannot have been written before this date."
I'm sorry, I'm not understanding your logic here. Are you positing that there is no way the folks in Gotama's neighborhood could have an awareness of Ionia prior to Alexander's invasion? If so, why would that be?
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
@David: My impression that the Buddha was an historical person is because I have never seen a committee come up with such a consistent insight. Granted it takes a little digging under the dust of words to find it, but it would be miraculous for so many words to have been passed on without additions, and the additions themselves are consistent (though inconsistent with the fundamental points). In other words, we can see when the committee stepped in, adding their curliques and sparkles because they don't fit with the original teaching.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
You're right. It is something of an assumption. But the world was a big place and Greece was a very long way away. It just seems very unlikely to me that with all of the intervening countries that the folks in Bihar could have knowledge of Greeks and their society. I would guess, having been there, the same would generally be true in Bihar today. Almost certainly there was no direct contact as Greece was separated from India by the Greek's arch-enemies the Persians - so they couldn't have gone in person before Alexander.
Finally I know of no other evidence to suggest any contact, no physical evidence before the Indo-Bactrian period in Gandhāra which is some centuries after Alexander and about a century after Aśoka.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
The suttas talk about ocean-going vessels -- sending a bird out to find land, for example. They also seem to have an awareness of places further south on the subcontinent. The Greeks could easily have contact with south India via trade on the coast. Part of the education of the upper classes would no doubt be knowledge of the extent of the world. I would be surprised if the Buddha lived after Alexander, which by your argument he'd have to be for the new information to have traveled so far -- since Alexander didn't make it past the Indus, right? Sure wish there was more archaeological data available for the subcontinent.
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Yes. There was no doubt contact across the Indian ocean. A great deal in later centuries especially. But look at a map - it's a bloody long way to Greece from the Arabian Peninsular (2000+ miles from Aden to Athens!). And no Suez Canal. "could easily" does not equal "did". Have you any source to suggest that the Greeks plied there trade that way, across the desert? Or for that matter that there was any real commerce between North and South India at the time we are talking about?
Where do you take you evidence for education of the "upper classes" from? I'm not aware of any text from the time which suggests this. Certainly Brahmanical education did not seem to trend in this direction.
No, the Buddha lived well before Alexander. You seem to be assuming the Buddha wrote the Pāli Canon. I am not. I am assuming that it continued to be composed for at least 2 or 3 generations after his death in approx. 400 BCE. I think you need to read the context of the mention of the yonas again - they were an outlying culture paired with Kamboja, probably in Afghanistan. The connection is not thought by any scholar I am aware of to be with Greece, but with Greek descended Bactrians.
Alexander did cross the Indus, but halted at the Beas River, well inside the present day western border of India.
Have you anything other than speculation to suggest contact with the Greeks pre-Alexander? I know of none, and the authorities I checked on the yona/ionian connection - such as Romila Tharpar and A.L. Basham seemed not to know of any either.
The field would appear to be wide open to prove some contact between Magadha and Greece before Alexander, and I look forward to seeing the history books rewritten once you have published ;-)
I appreciate the time you are taking to respond.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Tuesday, September 07, 2010
Ah, I misunderstood, thrown by the word "written", apologies: I was thinking you were dating the Buddha (does he send flowers?). As for Magadha having commerce with Greeks that's not what I suggested. Direct commerce is not required between the Greeks and the Magadhans for the Buddha to have knowledge of them. Information travels great distances even when people only walk as far as the next village and back home again. In fact unless the Bactrian theory has the Bactrians visiting Magadha, the way information travels is part of that argument as well. My point is simply this: just because the earliest contact we're reasonably sure of now, is from around 327 BCE, that does not mean that it *is* the earliest. I have no concrete evidence for there being earlier contact but there's not a lot of concrete evidence of any sort from the Buddha's time and place that's not of the most general nature. The best sources of what was known, and who had commerce with whom at the time, comes from Vedic and Pali literature and while that's unreliable, so are theories about monks having inserted a reference to Yonian masters and slaves in suttas later.
I am sure the reason I take exception is because when I began reading the suttas they struck me as primarily filled with a great deal of self-contradictory guidelines on how to live a life and it was apparent to me the whole mass was thoroughly corrupted by the handling it took to get it from then to now. But as I've continued to stick with it, more and more, I've come to see that there is a great deal of consistency and I begin to suspect that a nearly superhuman amount of effort went into passing on -- as near as dammit -- what the Buddha actually said, or at least would have if he spoke the language(s) it was translated into, or at least what the translators thought he said and meant. Unless I can see a reason someone would insert the Yonian reference, or a pattern of similar insertions, or find it inconsistent with the teaching in some way, I will tend to err on the side of "the Buddha knew about a country with only masters and slaves" rather than "this is a late insertion."
"Where do you take your evidence for education of the "upper classes" from? I'm not aware of any text from the time which suggests this. Certainly Brahmanical education did not seem to trend in this direction." Batchelor's latest book has some theorizing on whether the Buddha was educated in Taxila or not -- darned if I can lay my hands on my copy though (I've been looking for it for weeks!) -- it's in the appendix at the back if you should want to have a look at it. Part of the argument seems to have been that others were educated there.
Thanks for tolerating my rants.
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
So yes. The argument about the Bactrian 'Yona' partly rests on proximity - they are 1000's of miles closer geographically, and some centuries closer to a far reaching Greek empire. Between India and Greece was a very large empire which was very hostile to Greece, and eventually smashed by Alexander of Macedon. Given the hostility between Persia and Greece you'd have to come up with a plausible way the Greeks to get around that, or some reason why their enemies the Persians transmitted such (value neutral) information about Greeks. You would also need to locate the Kamboja, who are always paired with Yona, in the Mediterranean as well when most scholars locate them around Kabul or in the Hindu Kush.
The argument does not rest on the pattern of social organisation. You have in no way convinced me that such knowledge might have been transmitted to North-East India before Alexander. I've made a study of Persian influences which provide a contrast - there is only a very tiny hint of Persian influence and they, were the dominant power in the west for centuries, and ruled as far as the Indus during the entire lifetime of the Buddha. In fact the Persians are not named in the Canon as far as I know. So what you are arguing for is mention of a culture some 1000's of miles further away, when the powerful next-door neighbours are absent. Occam's razor must be applied. And prejudices about what the texts represent must be put aside.
It is quite obvious that there is both consistency and inconsistency in the texts. If you ignore one of those TWO facts then you come to conclusions which are unbalanced. It is clear to me that the composition of the Pāli Canon took place over several generations, that the Pāli recension is a translation, that Pāli itself changes over the course of the composition. Stop and think about that: a language supposedly created for transmitting the Buddha's words, supposedly fixed, in fact changes in the way that all spoken languages do. It simply cannot have been written in one place and time - it must have been written in many places, and over several generations at least. One sees also multiple tellings of the same stories (e.g. DN 13 vs MN 98 vs Sn 3.9) which suggests to me multiple lineages remembering one story differently - yes, it is one story, but clearly over time the telling of it has diverged until all thee versions were collated. So we have to acknowledge the variations we find in Pāli language and literature. However there is also a clear continuity which helps to highlight the anomalies. And the anomalies tell us more about the textual history than the consistencies - it's a matter signal to noise.
BTW It's not enough to simply read the Pāli recension. One must take into account the Chinese, the Gāndhārī, and the Sanskrit parallels. There is a steady stream of articles nowadays comparing Pāli and Chinese, particularly by Bhikkhu Anālayo. A trickle of articles on Gāndhārī, but some published texts for instance the Gāndhārī Dharmapada can be consulted. The variations are minor, but present, and cannot be accounted for simply by translation.
The tradition that Indian kings sent their sons to Taxila for education only exists in the Pāli commentaries, which are only vaguely connected with the time of the Buddha and reflect a much later time - probably the lifetime of Buddhaghosa. The idea that the Buddha was the son of a king is clearly hagiography and the idea that he was a kṣatriya is doubtful. He was probably brought up in an environment which did not acknowledge, or perhaps even know about, Brahmanical class prejudice. Hence, perhaps, his refusal to acknowledge it later on. So best of luck to Bachelor but he'd have to come up with some new information in order to make the existing facts fit such a hypothesis.
I'm enjoying your contributions. It helps me to sharpen up my arguments when they are challenged.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
although Blogger gives you an error message, your longs posts, and mine (!) get through. So no need to break them up or send them twice. JR
Wednesday, September 08, 2010
Sorry if you've been getting my posts twice, once long and two short (like Morse code). The error doesn't give any indication it comes through!
Yes, there are other factors than translation shifting meanings, though I suspect translating from this language or dialect to that while trying to convey one's understanding was the largest influence -- with that "conveying one's own understanding" being key. Mis-remembering would be a big factor -- especially in pericopes getting moved around. Lots of things would get lost when push came to shove and with too few to do the memorizing we'd dropped the difficult pieces we can't explain well. But adding a tiny piece that wasn't in the original would seem unusual behavior to me. Have any guesses as to how that would come about?
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Oh and, you said, "You have in no way convinced me that such knowledge might have been transmitted to North-East India before Alexander." Just to aid in developing my tone of voice, here, I'm not actually trying to convince you of anything. I'm running my understanding of things by you so that you can school me. If you find it helps sharpen your arguments, well, grateful to be of service. ; )
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Which is not to say I never have a position I take strongly -- I do have a few views on the contents of the canon that I'll stand up for -- just not many, and this isn't one of them.
Thursday, September 09, 2010
You can tell I spend a lot of time mulling over the things that you've said by the number of times I come back to post "and furthermore"s.
You said, "It simply cannot have been written in one place and time - it must have been written in many places, and over several generations at least."
The problem I have is again with the use of the word "written" because I can't tell if you mean "copied down and changed in the process" or "originated" or "intentionally revised". What exactly does having the many layers of language showing in the suttas tell us? Does it tell us that the first written drafts all came from different areas and times? Or that this version we have was last revised in a different area and time from where it originated? Is it as neat as each individual sutta having language that seems consistent with one area or time? (I don't think so) or is it rather than within a sutta we see philological layers of language representing its passage through time and space?
When you say "It is clear to me that the composition of the Pāli Canon took place over several generations" are you saying "origination of the composition"? or "origination and revisions"? Do you have a working theory (or two, or more) of how the development of the suttas went? Do you think it is likely that there was ever a time when the suttas were internally consistent enough, and accurate enough to the original teachings, that they would have been given the Buddha's seal of approval? Has your study given you a feel for any of that?
Thursday, September 09, 2010
Hi Star
Sorry I've reached overload and don't the time or mental space to keep up the discussion on so many fronts. I'm writing a book, writing tomorrow's post, and preparing a talk for Sunday week.
I've probably been inconsistent and confusing in my use of "written, composed" etc. The texts were composed verbally, and transmitted over several hundred years before being written. Spontaneous composition on the basis of a rough outline is a feature of oral literature. I think multiple oral lineages are represented in the Canon because stories are repeated with slightly different details.
The layers in time are written about by much better scholars than me and I accept that there are layers. One can also see at times clumsy editing. But the written canon probably represents the collated oral tradition - though when it was collated is anyone's guess. The tradition says that it was immediately after the death of the Buddha - in the time it took everyone to converge on Rājagṛha.
The Buddha's seal of approval? Not sure what that might mean.
I do think that the evidence points back to mainly a single common source, but the that source was situated in a broad cultural context, that is also evident. The background determines how we see the foreground to some extent. I'm mainly interested in the possibility that Brahmanical thinking provided background, though see tomorrow's post on this as I have found some new reasons to be doubtful about strong claims in this area.
So tomorrow I plan to move on, to take questions and comments on the current post if there are any, and let this and the other discussion go. I appreciate your enthusiasm, but I have other priorities that need attending to.
Best Wishes
Jayarava
Thursday, September 09, 2010
I appreciate the time you've taken, Jayaraya, and look forward to hearing more about your book.
Friday, September 10, 2010