I think there might be a mistake in the last paragraph: Buddhist texts, like the Upaniads, consider escaping from the rounds of rebirth to be the point of religious practices.
Very interesting... I was puzzled by "cyclic rebirth... is almost unknown amongst Indo-European speakers outside India", though. My impression is that it was wide-spread. There's the Greek metempsychosis (well-documented to a time probably before that of Gautama Buddha), and apparently similar and probably independent beliefs among the Celts (1st century BC) and Norse (the Medieval Elder Edda).
Maybe you mean something more specific by "cyclic rebirth" that wouldn't apply to metempsychosis, for instance?
I suspect extensive Greek influence on Buddhism—drawing on Thomas McEvilley's The Shape of Ancient Thought—and would be inclined to look there as a first resort.
While googling a bit, I found a reference to Mitra Ara's Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian traditions: the genesis and transformation of a doctrine, which might be worth a look. Apparently it "traces the roots of the belief in life after death from the earliest religious beliefs of the Indo-European people, through its first textual emergence among the Indo-Iranians. Tracing the Indo-Iranian concepts of the nature and constitution of man, with special reference to the doctrine of the Soul and its transmigration, the book demonstrates the profound nature of the physical, ethical, spiritual, and psychological ideals embodied in these thought systems as preserved in the Indian and Iranian scriptures. The central issue was death and the journey to the afterlife. Exploring the characteristic features of Indo-Iranian religions provides a better understanding of the development of eschatological beliefs in later religions."
I did not say that rebirth was unknown amongst Indo-Europeans. I said is was *almost* unknown. Scholars are still arguing about what the Greeks believed on the subject - so unclear are the references. The Celts I know little about but they are not mentioned in Obeyesekere's comprehensive work on the subject. Edda hardly constitutes a rebirth eschatology - in the same way that Christ's resurrection does not constitute a rebirth eschatology.
I was thinking of the Indo-Europeans as a whole, amongst whom, so far as I know, only the Indians have a clear and well documented belief in an afterlife involving coming back to the earth. If you're arguing for wide-spread Indo-European belief in rebirth then you'll have to come up with some reputable sources, which I will follow up with interest.
As I lay out in my afterlife taxonomy, a rebirth eschatology is a belief system in which people who die are reborn on earth, though not necessarily immediately or directly.
You might want to read McEvilley a bit more critically. This review for instance suggests that his writing needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The book... "is also remarkable for many misrepresentations, some egregious errors of fact and, consequently, injudicious conclusions.
"McEvilley’s obsession with diffusion makes him see parallels and influences where none exist (and miss real ones)."
"Repeatedly and without adducing any evidence, McEvilley tells us in easy generalizations how the Indoaryans received all kinds of influences c 1500."
and finally: "Nonetheless, this erudite book is worth consulting provided the reader can spot the author’s facile assumptions, careless remarks, sweeping generalizations and unwarranted judgements."
In any case for the pre-Socratic and Socratic periods is not McEvilley arguing for influence in the other direction - i.e. from India to Greece? Another reviewer seems to think so. (p. xxxi). And does he not put the influence from Greece to India in the post-Alexander period (150 years after the death of the Buddha), which is perfectly compatible with history as I understand it. Everyone knows that the Greeks were an influence in Gandhāra from the toga wearing Buddha figures. No surprise there. How "extensive" the influence was is surely a matter for conjecture? "Extensive" suggests that the influence should be obvious to everyone, but it isn't.
You seem to be implying the opposite - that the early Greek philosophers influenced India - which goes against history. Could you check this and get back to me? Since you've made the claim at least twice I think you should say why you think this is something other than wild speculation. Is there is a single concrete example of an idea that can only have come from Greece? Something along the lines of Hell appearing from nowhere in Buddhist texts.
Mitra Ara's book looks like it might be interesting. I'll see if I can track down a copy.
Thanks for this article and for 'Possible Iranian Origins for Sākyas and Aspects of Buddhism' which I've just finished reading. What you say makes a lot of sense and it is a relief to hear something coherent about pre-Buddhist non-Vedic origins.
One clarification: When Witzel says in 'Autochthonous Aryans?'(p5):
'The Rgveda whose geographical horizon is limited to the Panjab and its surroundings'
... I assume he means the Indian Punjab and not the Panjab in central Afghanistan.
He seems to imply similarities of style (p5) between the Avestan texts and the Vedas: that the two traditions are 'close.'
One could speculate that Zoroaster was an innovator/reformer who brought Egyptian ideas, and his own, to a common religious ancestor to Zoroastrianism / the Vedas.
His branch then became Zoroastrianism and the more conservative branch carried on as the Vedic sacrificial tradition.
And the branches re-converged when the brahmanas encountered the sramanas.
Just a thought! It might explain why the brahmins remained so conservative.
It is very difficult to account for the pre-Buddhist origins of Buddhism because there is precious little evidence. My account is still highly speculative and I wouldn't take it too seriously.
My recollection is that Witzel includes Eastern Afghanistan as part of the early Vedic homeland - and after all there is very little difference today! But Punjab/Panjab are both workable transliterations of पंजाब (literally paṃjāb) and when he refers to the Panjab he means India.
One could speculate, but on what evidence and to what end? It's not enough to make up a story.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Christian said...
Hi Jayarava, Could it be that the Buddha realized these things in a way that is beyond discursive thought? Why did the notion of karma have to "come to" Buddhism? Or are you just challenging the idea that it started with the Buddha? I agree that it did not. Why need there be a history leading up to it though for it to be true? Maybe there is one, but why does it matter -- as a Buddhist that is? I've heard it said that devotion is the head of meditation (devotion, by definition, implying that you cannot trace some things back to a starting point -- we have this in science these days too with cyclic models of the Big Bang coming out), and the results of meditation are beyond description -- they are repeatable, but everyone has to verify for themselves if it's true or balony, we just have to go there. Couldn't that be true of the workings of karma as well: if we need proof then we should not believe. That might be what the Buddha taught. Maybe not. But from what little I know, he did not prosthelytize. What I mean is that he never forced this idea on anyone, but he didn't need to prove it either, because it's up to you to have devotion or belief or not.
I personally do not think that the Buddha's ideas are unique to him. I don't think he did either, but that doesn't mean a history of karma had to "come to" the Buddha as in an oral tradition, even if they did, historically. There have been others who have realized these things as well -- but realized them through spiritual attunement (atonement), not through cultural momentum. My apologies if I've missed the point entirely. Your essays challenge me. Thank you. Best regards, Christian
I don't understand your first few sentences. It looks to me that you are trying to assert something, but phrasing it as a series of questions. I'm not sure how you want me to respond. Perhaps I should just ask why you think the way you do, why you choose to express yourself in those terms? Your ideas have histories too. Do you remember when you absorbed that particular set of ideas and the associated jargon? Are these ideas, and this jargon, related to your personal experience, or are they a set of beliefs that you have taken on faith?
I can point out that the Big Bang is not a cyclic model. The universe will continue to expand forever.
Any experience is beyond language in the sense that merely talking about it cannot give another person the same experience. I've dealt with this time and again.
Of course the Buddha proselytised! The suttas are more or less the records of the Buddha going around converting people! Of course he went around proving his point! I don't understand how you could read the suttas and not see this?
Regards Jayarava
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Christian said...
Hi Jayarava, I'm not sure how I expect you to respond. I'll have to think about your questions and get back to you.
See Endless Universe by Steinhardt and Turok for an account of a cyclic theory of the universe. It an interesting read.
Jayarava, you once called yourself an amateur-scholar, I think you are more than that But in what science? In what we in Holland call ‘buddhology’, that’s sure. More general: in the science of the history of ideas (Ideeengeschichte’ in German) But I’m interested in two other sciences
The first is a kind of meta-science, perhaps natural sciende. Then my question is: Is the theory of dharma – as you described it - true? Can that theory be proved or falsified (a la Karl Popper)?
An other scientific question (maybe that’s psychology) why do people like to believe something as karma? Not only today but also 3000 years ago, 2000 years ago etcetera ? And a question connetcted: why do some people prefer the belief in reincarnation more than the belief of a heaven in which one can live forever after death? All questions about whichn I don’t know the answer.
You are very kind, but I am very much an amateur and next to a professional scholar I am embarrassed at how little I understand. Really. I try my best to think clearly and communicate clearly.
I'm interested in Buddhism in practice, Buddhism as a practice which is a branch of Pragmatic Philosophy I think. I'm also interested in the history and evolution of ideas. I quite like the idea that Foucault had of doing archaeology with ideas to discover the bones of what we believe.
As an amateur I don't have to fit into any pigeon hole which is good. In fact my education is in science, especially chemistry, so I have not training as a historian or as a philosopher. Which I'm sure is obvious to many people.
I think there are aspects of the Dharma that are open to falsification, and that can be explored empirically. A lot of people are now exploring the way that meditation changes your brain for instance, or the way that mindfulness can effect pain-management or stress-management. It's a hot topic for research at the moment as a Google Scholar search on mindfulness shows.
Why people believe things is not a simple question with a simple answer. I wrote a lot about this recently. You can see some of the history of my ideas on this blog especially if you start with my essay on rebirth and work backwards.
Belief in an afterlife makes good sense from a naive point of view. Almost everyone who ever lived believed in an afterlife of some sort. What is surprising is that some of us began to question it. I have no idea why some people choose to believe we come back, and some do not. The inability to see how such a choice might be made is one of the reasons I no longer believe in an afterlife.
:-) now, do you know the tribe called Kambos (at the times of the Buddha) and their origin and the Land Kamboja and then the history (mythic) of the origin of Kampuchea (Cambodia). Ohh this wheel of becoming and this tribes.
I guess there was a reason why Buddha did not suggested to investigate to much.
Thanks for you work, honorable jayarava!
_()_ metta & mudita
Thursday, May 02, 2013
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IN THIS ESSAY I am going to present a speculative theory about where the Buddhist idea of karma comes from. It is backed up by some circumstantial evidence, and fits into a larger argument, but on its own might seem a little flimsy. More background can be found in my essay Possible Iranian Origins of Śākyas and Aspects of Buddhism (a draft can be found on academia.edu). As I say in the conclusion of that essay: "Ideas have histories". Buddhists like to maintain the story that both the Buddha and his ideas were entirely historically unique, but I think this is unlikely.
I also think current attempts to put the Buddha's ideas in context are quite limited. The only well attested tradition of the time is the late Vedic tradition, and almost inevitably scholars try to relate Buddhism to Brahmanism. This leads to an overemphasis on this aspect of Buddhism. Here I present an outline of a possible history for the Buddhist version of karma which aims to look beyond the Buddha's Vedic contemporaries. However it is worth looking briefly at his Vedic predecessors first.
In the early and middle period Vedic literature (ca. 1500-800 BCE) the word karma had ritual rather than ethical significance. In the late Vedic literature, dating from probably 2-3 centuries before the Buddha, we begin to find references to one's afterlife destination being dependent on one's actions (karma) in life. BU 4.4.5 explicitly states:
yathākārī yathācārī tathā bhavati| sādhukārī sādhur bhavati| pāpakārī pāpo bhavati| puṇyaḥ puṇyena karmaṇā pāpaḥ pāpena||
However he acts or behaves, he becomes that. Acting right (sādhu) he is right, acting harmfully (pāpa) he is harmful. He is good (puṇya) by doing good actions, and evil by doing evil actions.[1]
These terms—sādhu/puṇya and pāpa—still seem to be related to correct participation in Vedic ritual life rather than ethics. However even at this level the very fact of a right way to behave and wrong way results in different afterlife destinations.
A development within the BU is that a man's actions based on desire (kāma) causes him to cycle between this world and the next world (BU 4.4.6). In the next world the results of actions are exhausted, and it is only in this world that actions are performed. However a man freed from desire has a different fate: brahmaiva sanbrahmāpyeti 'he is only brahman, he goes to brahman'. [2] CU 8.1-2 also appears to list a number of alternative post-mortem destinations based on desires. Giving up desire is part of a renunciate lifestyle in this context, so again this is not quite ethics.
Also both Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad and Chāndogya Upaniṣad propose different post-mortem destinations for those who know about the five fires (pañcāgni-vidyā), those who only practice the ordinary Brahmanical rituals, and those who do neither (BU 6.2, CU 5.2-10). Richard Gombrich (2009) has suggested that certain Pāli texts, particularly the Tevijja Sutta, make allusions to the five fires. He says that this can be interpreted as the Buddha having knowledge of the Upaniṣads. I'm not sure about this any longer, but that is a topic for another essay.
So here are three distinct versions of how behaviour in life affects one's afterlife: right actions (sādhukārin), renunciation of desire (kāma), and special knowledge (vidyā). There are some similarities with Buddhist karma and rebirth here, but only in the sense that all cyclic rebirth eschatologies will seem similar. We should not be surprised to find that Brahmanism has influenced Buddhism. Though it is interesting to note that Michael Witzel has shown that BU and CU were probably composed in different parts of North India, and Signe Cohen highlights the different contexts: BU to some extent represents a challenge to orthodoxy vested in the Ṛgveda, whereas CU is more conservative. However to me (and Richard Gombrich) the CU version of the pañcāgni-vidyā looks like an elaboration of BU.
Another possible source for Buddhist views is Jainism, and Richard Gombrich (2009), citing work by Will Johnson, has explored this connection. The Jain version of karma is in fact closer to the Buddhist version than the Brahmanical is, however it does not distinguish between good and bad actions, but says that all action is harmful. This may suggest that Jainism influenced Buddhism, though Jainism per se is only likely to have been a generation of two earlier. However we need to be cautious about opinions on ancient Jainism. The Jains, according to their own traditions, which are confirmed by modern scholarship, lost the texts that might parallel the Pāli suttas. Our idea about early Jainism are a reconstruction, partly based on the Pāli suttas which contain glimpses of the Jains. Early Jainism, then, is far more doubtful that early Buddhism, and we should know by now that early Buddhism is quite uncertain. Even if we accept the reconstructed versions this only tells us about the situation contemporary with the Buddha, or perhaps a generation earlier.
I want to suggest that both Jainism and Buddhism have roots that go considerably deeper and the emergence of both, and other groups like the Ājivakas, represents the end of a process rather than the beginning of one. Aspects of the Buddhist teachings on morality and karma resemble Zoroastrian concepts. According to leading scholar on the Zoroastrians, the late Mary Boyce, the Zoroastrians defined themselves this way:
“We are those who welcome the good thoughts, good words, and good acts which, here and elsewhere, are and have been realized. We are not those who denigrate good (things).” (Boyce 2004)
Note that they are good in thought, word, and action, and this is very similar to the Buddhist conception of ethics pertaining to actions of body, speech and mind. This connection seems to have been first noticed by Caroline Rhys Davids in the 1920s. [3] Likewise in Zoroastrianism after you die you are judged on your actions. Mary Boyce puts it this way:
"the soul’s fate depends solely on the sum of the individual’s thoughts, words, and acts, the good being weighed against the bad, so that no observances should avail it in any way." (Boyce 1994)
The idea of weighing the heart/soul of the deceased occurs in the Egyptian Book of the Dead, and this seems to have been an influence on the development of Zoroastrianism. Soul weighing is a little different to Buddhist doctrine, but consider what is actually achieved by the two processes: one's afterlife destination is determined by adherence to the law in Egypt, and by to the Dharma in India. Just as for the Brahmins the afterlife becomes divided. Gananath Obeyesekere observes that this seems to happen quite universally. Once right and wrong ways of living have been enunciated:
"There can no longer be a single place for those who have done good and those who have done bad. The otherworld [i.e. the afterlife] must minimally split into two, a world of retribution ('hell') and a world of reward ('heaven')." (Obeyesekere 2002: 79).
The connection may be even stronger than it first appears. Consider the Devadūta Sutta (MN 130, M iii.178) which explains how after death a being who has behaved badly might be reborn in hell (niraya); there they will be seized by the guardians of hell (nirayapālā), dragged before King Yāma and cross-examined about their evil conduct of body, speech and mind. Unable to account for themselves, they are then condemned to horrific tortures which are graphically described. It is emphasised that:
na ca tāva kālaṅkaroti yāva na taṃ pāpakammaṃ byantīhoti.
as long as that evil action is not destroyed, he does not die.
And until he dies he cannot be reborn in another realm. Read in light of a possible connection to Zoroastrianism, this text seems to take on a new significance. There is no Indian precedent for such an idea. Some scholars have pointed to possible precursors to the idea of Hell in the Vedic tradition, but even in the Late Vedic texts the idea is barely formed, and nothing like the elaborations we find in the Pāli texts. In fact the Buddhist idea of being reborn in a place of extreme torture as a way of extirpating evil karma appears as if from nowhere. However like the world of the Vedic fathers it is not a place where karma consequences can be created. Hell, like Heaven is a place of passivity rather than activity.
How could Zoroastrian ideas get all the way to North-East India, without having an impact on the intervening culture, i.e. the orthodox Kuru-Pañcāla Brahmins? I believe that Harvard Indologist Michael Witzel (1997, 2002, 2010) has the answer to this. As I wrote earlier this year the idea that the Śākyas were in fact Scythians (Skt. Śaka), that is steppe dwelling nomads, is usually given short shrift because despite the similarities in the names, the Scythians arrived in India much later ca. 150 BCE. But Witzel has showed, and these similarities with Zoroastrianism themselves form part of the evidence, that the Śākyas probably were related to the Śakas. The Śākyas are not mentioned in the Vedas, or in the Brāhmaṇa and Āraṇyaka literature, which suggests that they arrived in India (via Iran) after about 1000 BCE when the Ṛgveda reached its final form, and before the lifetime of the Buddha (ca. 500 BCE). See Witzel (1997).
Climate change evidence suggests 850 BCE as a pivotal date because it marks the beginning of an abrupt arid period in Western India, and a great westward expansion of the Scythians of the Asian Steppes (van Geel et. al. 2004a, 2004b). The Śākyas were just one of many non-Vedic tribes, who spoke Indo-Aryan dialects, who made the journey east. Alongside them were the Malla, Vajji, Licchavi, Naya, Kālāma, Buli, Moriya, and Vesali. They slotted in around the previous inhabitants from tribes such as Kosala, Kāśi and Videha who migrated somewhat earlier due to the rise of the Kuru tribe in the Northwest (ca. 1200-1000 BCE) and dominated the region. It's quite likely the early migrants interacted with, and ultimately displaced an Austro-Asiatic speaking culture, from which we get the animistic cults (e.g. yakṣas). The Kosala-Videha region was, broadly speaking, Indo-Aryan culturally and linguistically by the Buddha's day. Brahmanism with its Vedic language texts was largely a product of the Kuru-Pañcāla tribes, but Brahmins had begun to have an influence in the region by the 5th century BCE.
So my suggestion is that we see Buddhist (and Jain) karma as part of the culmination of a process of assimilation of Iranian and/or Zoroastrian ideas by the Kosala-Videha tribes in the Central Ganges Plain region, introduced by the Śākyas. The process probably started soon after 850 BCE when climate change affected the environment and set in process a series of migrations across Eurasia and the sub-continent. The emergence of Buddhism and Jainism marks a mature phase of this culture that was soon to be taken over and co-opted by the militaristic Magadhans and their eventual successors the Mauryans. In particular karma may well emerge from the application of the Zoroastrian ideas about morality and the afterlife, to a widespread belief in cyclic rebirth. I suppose cyclic rebirth to be an Indian regional belief since it is almost unknown amongst Indo-European speakers outside India. The simple cycle between this world and the next, becomes differentiated first into good and bad destinations because of ideas of right & wrong; and later into a more possibilities depending on how one lived. Hell is a novel idea in India. Buddhist texts, just like the Upaniṣads, consider escaping from the rounds of rebirth to be the point of religious practices. If this idea were already developing in the Kosala-Videha region when the Upaniṣads were being written then we could see the emergence in Vedic texts as a parallel development.
~~oOo~~
Notes
The Vedic texts, including the Upaniṣads discuss this process in masculine terms, and it is uncertain as to whether women were included.
Following Olivelle. A literal reading would be "only brahman goes to brahman" - which seems to rely on the notion that "I am brahman" (ahaṃ brahmāsmi). Also note that it is doubtful whether women where included in this scheme, so I have not corrected the gender specific language of the texts.
The earliest mention of the idea I have found is in Rhys Davids (1926) where it is cited as though it is a well established fact. Rhys Davids mentions the idea in several subsequent publications as well. Sangharakshita mentions the body, speech and mind connection in The Ten Pillars (1984), p.34. Thanks to Ratnaprabha for drawing my attention to this in a comment on Persian Influences on Buddhism (20 June 2008). Sangharakshita says that the connection occured to him while reading the Zoroastrian Gathas (personal communication 19.1.2012).
Bibliography
Boyce, Mary. 1994. 'Death. 1.' Encyclopædia Iranica. Online version.
Boyce, Mary. 2004. ‘Humata Hūxta Huvaršta.’ Encyclopædia Iranica. Online version.
Gombrich, Richard. 2009. What the Buddha Thought. London, Equinox.
Obeyesekere, Gananath. 2002. Imagining Karma: Ethical Transformation in Amerindian, Buddhist, and Greek Rebirth. University of California Press.
Rhys Davids, C. A. F. 1926. ‘Man as Willer.’ Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies. 4: 29-44. doi: 10.1017/S0041977X00102551
van Geel, B. et. al. 2004a. ‘Climate change and the expansion of the Scythian culture after 850 BC: a hypothesis.’ Journal of Archaeological Science. 31 (12) December: 1735-1742. Online pdf. doi:10.1016/j.jas.2004.05.00
van Geel, B., Shinde, V. and Yasuda, Y., 2004b. 'Solar forcing of climate change and a monsoon-related cultural shift in western India around 800 cal. yrs. BC.' Chapter 17 in: Y. Yasuda and V. Shinde (eds) Monsoon and Civilization. Roli Books, New Delhi, p. 275-279.
Witzel, Michael. 1997. ‘The Development of the Vedic Canon and its Schools: The Social and Political Milieu.’ (Materials on Vedic Śākhās, 8) in Inside the Texts, Beyond the Texts. New Approaches to the Study of the Vedas. (Harvard Oriental Series. Opera Minora, vol. 2.) Cambridge 1997, 257-345. Online.
Witzel, Michael. 2002. INDOLOGY@liverpool.ac.uk, Nov. 5 and 7, 2002
Witzel, Michael. 2010. Indo-Eurasian_research. [Online forum.]
Note (7.7.13) I recently found this in a paper by Michael Witzel.
"Fortunately, the passage contains another clue, the frequently met with concepts of "thought-speech-action" (manas- vāc -karman), a collocation that is found not only in the Veda but also in the closely related Old Iranian texts (manah- vacas - šiiaoθna, Y 34.1-2).
14 Comments
Close this window Jump to comment formInteresting.
I think there might be a mistake in the last paragraph:
Buddhist texts, like the Upaniads, consider escaping from the rounds of rebirth to be the point of religious practices.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Hi Paul
What do you think the mistake might be?
Friday, February 10, 2012
Sorry, mis-read it. Sounded on first reading to me like you were giving the upanisads as an example of a Buddhist text!
Friday, February 10, 2012
Hi Paul
Ah, yes, it could be read that way. I'll rephrase it.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Very interesting... I was puzzled by "cyclic rebirth... is almost unknown amongst Indo-European speakers outside India", though. My impression is that it was wide-spread. There's the Greek metempsychosis (well-documented to a time probably before that of Gautama Buddha), and apparently similar and probably independent beliefs among the Celts (1st century BC) and Norse (the Medieval Elder Edda).
Maybe you mean something more specific by "cyclic rebirth" that wouldn't apply to metempsychosis, for instance?
I suspect extensive Greek influence on Buddhism—drawing on Thomas McEvilley's The Shape of Ancient Thought—and would be inclined to look there as a first resort.
While googling a bit, I found a reference to Mitra Ara's Eschatology in the Indo-Iranian traditions:
the genesis and transformation of a doctrine, which might be worth a look. Apparently it "traces the roots of the belief in life after death from the earliest religious beliefs of the Indo-European people, through its first textual emergence among the Indo-Iranians. Tracing the Indo-Iranian concepts of the nature and constitution of man, with special reference to the doctrine of the Soul and its transmigration, the book demonstrates the profound nature of the physical, ethical, spiritual, and psychological ideals embodied in these thought systems as preserved in the Indian and Iranian scriptures. The central issue was death and the journey to the afterlife. Exploring the characteristic features of Indo-Iranian religions provides a better understanding of the development of eschatological beliefs in later religions."
Friday, February 10, 2012
Hi David
I did not say that rebirth was unknown amongst Indo-Europeans. I said is was *almost* unknown. Scholars are still arguing about what the Greeks believed on the subject - so unclear are the references. The Celts I know little about but they are not mentioned in Obeyesekere's comprehensive work on the subject. Edda hardly constitutes a rebirth eschatology - in the same way that Christ's resurrection does not constitute a rebirth eschatology.
I was thinking of the Indo-Europeans as a whole, amongst whom, so far as I know, only the Indians have a clear and well documented belief in an afterlife involving coming back to the earth. If you're arguing for wide-spread Indo-European belief in rebirth then you'll have to come up with some reputable sources, which I will follow up with interest.
As I lay out in my afterlife taxonomy, a rebirth eschatology is a belief system in which people who die are reborn on earth, though not necessarily immediately or directly.
You might want to read McEvilley a bit more critically. This review for instance suggests that his writing needs to be taken with a grain of salt. The book... "is also remarkable for many misrepresentations, some egregious errors of fact and, consequently, injudicious conclusions.
"McEvilley’s obsession with diffusion makes him see parallels and influences where none exist (and miss real ones)."
"Repeatedly and without adducing any evidence, McEvilley tells us in easy generalizations how the Indoaryans received all kinds of influences c 1500."
and finally: "Nonetheless, this erudite book is worth consulting provided the reader can spot the author’s facile assumptions, careless remarks, sweeping generalizations and unwarranted judgements."
In any case for the pre-Socratic and Socratic periods is not McEvilley arguing for influence in the other direction - i.e. from India to Greece? Another reviewer seems to think so. (p. xxxi). And does he not put the influence from Greece to India in the post-Alexander period (150 years after the death of the Buddha), which is perfectly compatible with history as I understand it. Everyone knows that the Greeks were an influence in Gandhāra from the toga wearing Buddha figures. No surprise there. How "extensive" the influence was is surely a matter for conjecture? "Extensive" suggests that the influence should be obvious to everyone, but it isn't.
You seem to be implying the opposite - that the early Greek philosophers influenced India - which goes against history. Could you check this and get back to me? Since you've made the claim at least twice I think you should say why you think this is something other than wild speculation. Is there is a single concrete example of an idea that can only have come from Greece? Something along the lines of Hell appearing from nowhere in Buddhist texts.
Mitra Ara's book looks like it might be interesting. I'll see if I can track down a copy.
Friday, February 10, 2012
Hi Jayarava,
Thanks for this article and for 'Possible Iranian Origins for Sākyas and Aspects of Buddhism' which I've just finished reading.
What you say makes a lot of sense and it is a relief to hear something coherent about pre-Buddhist non-Vedic origins.
One clarification: When Witzel says in 'Autochthonous Aryans?'(p5):
'The Rgveda whose geographical horizon is limited to the Panjab and its surroundings'
... I assume he means the Indian Punjab and not the Panjab in central Afghanistan.
He seems to imply similarities of style (p5) between the Avestan texts and the Vedas: that the two traditions are 'close.'
One could speculate that Zoroaster was an innovator/reformer who brought Egyptian ideas, and his own, to a common religious ancestor to Zoroastrianism / the Vedas.
His branch then became Zoroastrianism and the more conservative branch carried on as the Vedic sacrificial tradition.
And the branches re-converged when the brahmanas encountered the sramanas.
Just a thought! It might explain why the brahmins remained so conservative.
Mahabodhi
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Hi Mahábodhi
It is very difficult to account for the pre-Buddhist origins of Buddhism because there is precious little evidence. My account is still highly speculative and I wouldn't take it too seriously.
My recollection is that Witzel includes Eastern Afghanistan as part of the early Vedic homeland - and after all there is very little difference today! But Punjab/Panjab are both workable transliterations of पंजाब (literally paṃjāb) and when he refers to the Panjab he means India.
One could speculate, but on what evidence and to what end? It's not enough to make up a story.
Saturday, February 11, 2012
Hi Jayarava,
Could it be that the Buddha realized these things in a way that is beyond discursive thought? Why did the notion of karma have to "come to" Buddhism? Or are you just challenging the idea that it started with the Buddha? I agree that it did not. Why need there be a history leading up to it though for it to be true? Maybe there is one, but why does it matter -- as a Buddhist that is? I've heard it said that devotion is the head of meditation (devotion, by definition, implying that you cannot trace some things back to a starting point -- we have this in science these days too with cyclic models of the Big Bang coming out), and the results of meditation are beyond description -- they are repeatable, but everyone has to verify for themselves if it's true or balony, we just have to go there. Couldn't that be true of the workings of karma as well: if we need proof then we should not believe. That might be what the Buddha taught. Maybe not. But from what little I know, he did not prosthelytize. What I mean is that he never forced this idea on anyone, but he didn't need to prove it either, because it's up to you to have devotion or belief or not.
I personally do not think that the Buddha's ideas are unique to him. I don't think he did either, but that doesn't mean a history of karma had to "come to" the Buddha as in an oral tradition, even if they did, historically. There have been others who have realized these things as well -- but realized them through spiritual attunement (atonement), not through cultural momentum.
My apologies if I've missed the point entirely.
Your essays challenge me. Thank you.
Best regards,
Christian
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Hi Christian,
I don't understand your first few sentences. It looks to me that you are trying to assert something, but phrasing it as a series of questions. I'm not sure how you want me to respond. Perhaps I should just ask why you think the way you do, why you choose to express yourself in those terms? Your ideas have histories too. Do you remember when you absorbed that particular set of ideas and the associated jargon? Are these ideas, and this jargon, related to your personal experience, or are they a set of beliefs that you have taken on faith?
I can point out that the Big Bang is not a cyclic model. The universe will continue to expand forever.
Any experience is beyond language in the sense that merely talking about it cannot give another person the same experience. I've dealt with this time and again.
Of course the Buddha proselytised! The suttas are more or less the records of the Buddha going around converting people! Of course he went around proving his point! I don't understand how you could read the suttas and not see this?
Regards
Jayarava
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Hi Jayarava,
I'm not sure how I expect you to respond. I'll have to think about your questions and get back to you.
See Endless Universe by Steinhardt and Turok for an account of a cyclic theory of the universe. It an interesting read.
Thanks for challenging us.
Christian
Sunday, February 12, 2012
Jayarava, you once called yourself an amateur-scholar, I think you are more than that
But in what science?
In what we in Holland call ‘buddhology’, that’s sure.
More general: in the science of the history of ideas (Ideeengeschichte’ in German)
But I’m interested in two other sciences
The first is a kind of meta-science, perhaps natural sciende. Then my question is:
Is the theory of dharma – as you described it - true? Can that theory be proved or falsified (a la Karl Popper)?
An other scientific question (maybe that’s psychology) why do people like to believe something as karma? Not only today but also 3000 years ago, 2000 years ago etcetera ?
And a question connetcted: why do some people prefer the belief in reincarnation more than the belief of a heaven in which one can live forever after death?
All questions about whichn I don’t know the answer.
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
Hi Joop
You are very kind, but I am very much an amateur and next to a professional scholar I am embarrassed at how little I understand. Really. I try my best to think clearly and communicate clearly.
I'm interested in Buddhism in practice, Buddhism as a practice which is a branch of Pragmatic Philosophy I think. I'm also interested in the history and evolution of ideas. I quite like the idea that Foucault had of doing archaeology with ideas to discover the bones of what we believe.
As an amateur I don't have to fit into any pigeon hole which is good. In fact my education is in science, especially chemistry, so I have not training as a historian or as a philosopher. Which I'm sure is obvious to many people.
I think there are aspects of the Dharma that are open to falsification, and that can be explored empirically. A lot of people are now exploring the way that meditation changes your brain for instance, or the way that mindfulness can effect pain-management or stress-management. It's a hot topic for research at the moment as a Google Scholar search on mindfulness shows.
Why people believe things is not a simple question with a simple answer. I wrote a lot about this recently. You can see some of the history of my ideas on this blog especially if you start with my essay on rebirth and work backwards.
Belief in an afterlife makes good sense from a naive point of view. Almost everyone who ever lived believed in an afterlife of some sort. What is surprising is that some of us began to question it. I have no idea why some people choose to believe we come back, and some do not. The inability to see how such a choice might be made is one of the reasons I no longer believe in an afterlife.
Thanks for reading.
Jayarava
Wednesday, February 15, 2012
:-) now, do you know the tribe called Kambos (at the times of the Buddha) and their origin and the Land Kamboja and then the history (mythic) of the origin of Kampuchea (Cambodia). Ohh this wheel of becoming and this tribes.
I guess there was a reason why Buddha did not suggested to investigate to much.
Thanks for you work, honorable jayarava!
_()_
metta & mudita
Thursday, May 02, 2013