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Buddhism

Gautama Buddha
, commonly known as the Buddha ("the awakened one"). According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha lived and taught in the northern part of the
direct understanding and perception of dependent origination and the Four Noble Truths
.

Two major extant branches of Buddhism are generally recognized by scholars:

Mahayana Buddhism (Sanskrit: "The Great Vehicle"). In Theravada Buddhism, the ultimate goal is the attainment of the sublime state of Nirvana, achieved by practicing the Noble Eightfold Path (also known as the Middle Way), thus escaping what is seen as a cycle of suffering and rebirth.[6] Theravada has a widespread following in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia
.

Mahayana Buddhism, which includes the traditions of

East Asia. Rather than Nirvana, Mahayana instead aspires to Buddhahood via the bodhisattva path, a state wherein one remains in the cycle of rebirth to help other beings reach awakening. Vajrayana, a body of teachings attributed to Indian siddhas, may be viewed as a third branch or merely a part of Mahayana; Tibetan Buddhism, which preserves the Vajrayana teachings of eighth century India,[7] is practiced in regions surrounding the Himalayas, Mongolia[8] and Kalmykia.[9] Tibetan Buddhism aspires to Buddhahood or rainbow body.[10]

Completion stage
.

Buddhists number between an estimated 488 million[web 1] and 535 million,[15] making it one of the world's major religions.

Overview

Definition of Buddhism

  • Buddhism as a religion
  • Buddhism as a philosophy
  • Buddhism as a path of practice
  • Buddhism as a science of mind
  • Buddhism as a persuasion

Practice

Main page: User:Furthershore/sandbox/Buddhist devotion

Taking Refuge

Meditation

Schools and traditions

Main articles: Schools of Buddhism and Buddhahood

Buddhists generally classify themselves as either Theravada or Mahayana.[16] This classification is also used by some scholars[17] and is the one ordinarily used in the English language.[web 2] An alternative scheme used by some scholars[note 2] divides Buddhism into the following three traditions or geographical or cultural areas: Theravada, East Asian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism.

monks in orange robes on stone steps in Cambodia
Young monks in Cambodia

Some scholars

Śrāvakayāna
, Nikaya Buddhism, early Buddhist schools, sectarian Buddhism, conservative Buddhism, mainstream Buddhism and non-Mahayana Buddhism.

Not all traditions of Buddhism share the same philosophical outlook, or treat the same concepts as central. Each tradition, however, does have its own core concepts, and some comparisons can be drawn between them. For example, according to one Buddhist ecumenical organization,

concepts common to both major Buddhist branches
:

Philosophical roots

Further information: User:Furthershore/sandbox/Introduction to Buddhist Concepts
Ellora
in Maharashtra, India

The roots of Classical Buddhism lie in the religious thought of

shramanas. [note 4]

The shramanas circulated a core set of ideas: saṃsāra — the process of rebirth, the process by which one goes from one life to the next; karma (from Sanskrit: "action, work") — the force that drives saṃsāra; and moksha — Freedom, liberation from samsara.[24] The earliest records of the promulgation and development of these ideas is from the shramanas, however, the actual origin of these views is obscure.[25] Vedic Brahminism would later incorporate notions such as samsara, karma, and rebirth as well. [note 5]

Ramatheertham village in Vizianagaram, a district of Andhra Pradesh
, India

This view is supported by a study of the region where these notions originated. Buddhism arose in Greater

aryavarta, the land of the Aryas, was recognized as non-Vedic.[28] Other Vedic texts reveal a dislike of the people of Magadha, in all probability because the Magadhas at this time were not Brahmanised.[29][page needed] It was not until the 2nd or 3rd centuries BCE that the eastward spread of Brahmanism into Greater Magadha became significant. Ideas that developed in Greater Magadha prior to this were not subject to Vedic influence. These include rebirth and karmic retribution that appear in a number of movements in Greater Magadha, including Buddhism. These movements inherited notions of rebirth and karmic retribution from an earlier culture[30][page needed
]

Anakapalle in the Visakhapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh
, India

At the same time, these movements were influenced by, and in some respects continued, philosophical thought within the Vedic tradition as reflected e.g. in the

Ajnanas (agnostics) and the Jains, who stressed that the soul must be freed from matter.[32]
Many of these new movements shared the same conceptual vocabulary—
samsara ("eternal recurrence") and yoga ("spiritual practice").[note 6] The shramanas rejected the Veda, and the authority of the brahmans, who claimed they possessed revealed truths not knowable by any ordinary human means. Moreover, they declared that the entire Brahmanical system was fraudulent: a conspiracy of the brahmans to enrich themselves by charging exorbitant fees to perform bogus rites and give useless advice.[33]

A particular criticism of the Buddha was Vedic animal sacrifice.

rishis, who by severe penances had acquired the power to see by divine eyes.[35] He names the Vedic rishis, and declared that the original Veda of the rishis[36][note 7] was altered by a few Brahmins who introduced animal sacrifices. The Buddha says that it was on this alteration of the true Veda that he refused to pay respect to the Vedas of his time.[37] However, he did not denounce the union with Brahman,[note 8] or the idea of the self uniting with the Self.[39] At the same time, the traditional Hindu itself gradually underwent profound changes, transforming it into what is recognized as early Hinduism
.

Life of the Buddha

stone relief sculpture of horse and men
Relic depicting Gautama leaving home. The Great Departure, c.1–2nd century. (Musée Guimet)
Main article:
Gautama Buddha

Authenticity of Narrative

This narrative draws on the Nidānakathā of the

Buddhacarita, the Lokottaravādin Mahāvastu, and the Sarvāstivādin Lalitavistara Sūtra, give different accounts. Scholars are hesitant to make unqualified claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most accept that he lived, taught and founded a monastic order, but do not consistently accept all of the details contained in his biographies.[41][42]

Sangha. (Painting in Laotian
temple)

According to author Michael Carrithers, while there are good reasons to doubt the traditional account, "the outline of the life must be true: birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death."[43] In writing her biography of the Buddha, Karen Armstrong noted, "It is obviously difficult, therefore, to write a biography of the Buddha that meets modern criteria, because we have very little information that can be considered historically sound... [but] we can be reasonably confident Siddhatta Gotama did indeed exist and that his disciples preserved the memory of his life and teachings as well as they could."[44][dubious – discuss]

Early life

The evidence of the early texts suggests that Siddhārtha Gautama was born in a community that was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the northeastern Indian subcontinent in the fifth century BCE.[45] It was either a small republic, in which case his father was an elected chieftain, or an oligarchy, in which case his father was an oligarch.[45]

Vajrashila a tree shrine with gates and accolytes outside
The Vajrashila, where Gautama sat under a tree and became enlightened, Bodh Gaya, India, 2011

Shortly after the birth of young prince Gautama, an astrologer named Asita visited the young prince's father, Suddhodana, and prophesied that Siddhartha would either become a great king or renounce the material world to become a holy man, depending on whether he saw what life was like outside the palace walls. Śuddhodana was determined to see his son become a king, so he prevented him from leaving the palace grounds. But at age 29, despite his father's efforts, Gautama ventured beyond the palace several times. In a series of encounters—known in Buddhist literature as the four sights—he learned of the suffering of ordinary people, encountering an old man, a sick man, a corpse and, finally, an ascetic holy man, apparently content and at peace with the world. These experiences prompted Gautama to abandon royal life and take up a spiritual quest.

Quest for Liberation

Dhamek Stupa shrine in Sarnath, India, built by Ashoka where the Buddha gave his first sermon
Dhamek Stupa in Sarnath, India, where the Buddha gave his first sermon. It was built by Ashoka

Gautama first went to study with famous religious teachers of the day, and mastered the meditative attainments they taught. But he found that they did not provide a permanent end to suffering, so he continued his quest. He next attempted an extreme asceticism, which was a religious pursuit common among the śramaṇas, a religious culture distinct from the Vedic one. Gautama underwent prolonged fasting, breath-holding, and exposure to pain. He almost starved himself to death in the process. He realized that he had taken this kind of practice to its limit, and had not put an end to suffering. So in a pivotal moment he accepted milk and rice from a village girl and changed his approach. He devoted himself to anapanasati meditation, through which he discovered what Buddhists call the Middle Way (Skt. madhyamā-pratipad):[46] a path of moderation between the extremes of self-indulgence and self-mortification.[web 5][web 6]

Gold colored statue of man reclining on his right side
Buddha statue depicting Parinirvana. (Mahaparinirvana Temple, Kushinagar, Uttar Pradesh, India)

Gautama was now determined to complete his spiritual quest. At the age of 35, he famously sat in

path of awakening he had discovered, traveling throughout the northeastern part of the Indian subcontinent,[47][48] and died at the age of 80 (483 BCE) in Kushinagar, India. The south branch of the original fig tree available only in Anuradhapura Sri Lanka is known as Jaya Sri Maha Bodhi
.

History

Main article: History of Buddhism

The history of Indian Buddhism may be divided into five periods:

Vajrayana Buddhism
).

Earliest teachings

Further information: User:Furthershore/sandbox/Introduction to Buddhist Texts

Information of the oldest teachings may be obtained by analysis of the oldest texts. One method to obtain information on the oldest core of Buddhism is to compare the oldest extant versions of the Theravadin Pali Canon and other texts.[note 9] The reliability of these sources, and the possibility to draw out a core of oldest teachings, is a matter of dispute.[52][page needed][53][page needed][54][page needed][55][page needed] According to Vetter, inconsistencies remain, and other methods must be applied to resolve those inconsistencies.[50][note 10]

According to Schmithausen, three positions held by scholars of Buddhism can be distinguished:[59]

  1. "Stress on the fundamental homogeneity and substantial authenticity of at least a considerable part of the Nikayic materials;"[note 11]
  2. "Scepticism with regard to the possibility of retrieving the doctrine of earliest Buddhism;"[note 12]
  3. "Cautious optimism in this respect."[note 13]

Pre-sectarian Buddhism

Main article: Pre-sectarian Buddhism

Pre-sectarian Buddhism is the earliest phase of Buddhism, recognized by nearly all scholars. Its main scriptures are the

nirvana.[66] Some scholars disagree, and have proposed many other theories.[67][68][69]

Early Buddhist schools

Main articles: Early Buddhist schools, Buddhist councils, and Theravada

According to the scriptures, soon after the

Upāli, another disciple, recited the monastic rules (vinaya). Most scholars regard the traditional accounts of the council as greatly exaggerated if not entirely fictitious.[note 14]Richard Gombrich noted Sariputta led communal recitations of the Buddha's teaching for preservation in the Buddha's lifetime in Sangiti Sutta (Digha Nikaya #33), and something similar to the First Council must have taken place to compose Buddhist scriptures.[70]

According to most scholars, at some period after the Second Council the Sangha began to break into separate factions.

Mahasanghika
tradition places it much later, nearly 100 BCE.

The root schism was between the

Mahāsāṅghikas. The fortunate survival of accounts from both sides of the dispute reveals disparate traditions. The Sthavira group offers two quite distinct reasons for the schism. The Dipavamsa of the Theravāda says that the losing party in the Second Council dispute broke away in protest and formed the Mahasanghika. This contradicts the Mahasanghikas' own vinaya, which shows them as on the same, winning side. The Mahāsāṅghikas argued that the Sthaviras were trying to expand the vinaya and may also have challenged what they perceived were excessive claims or inhumanly high criteria for arhatship. Both parties, therefore, appealed to tradition.[71]

The Sthaviras gave rise to several schools, one of which was the Theravāda school. Originally, these schisms were caused by disputes over vinaya, and monks following different schools of thought seem to have lived happily together in the same monasteries, but eventually, by about 100 CE if not earlier, schisms were being caused by doctrinal disagreements too.[72]

Following (or leading up to) the schisms, each Saṅgha started to accumulate an

Suttas, according to schematic classifications. These Abhidharma texts do not contain systematic philosophical treatises, but summaries or numerical lists. Scholars generally date these texts to around the 3rd century BCE, 100 to 200 years after the death of the Buddha. Therefore the seven Abhidharma works are generally claimed not to represent the words of the Buddha himself, but those of disciples and great scholars.[note 16] Every school had its own version of the Abhidharma, with different theories and different texts. The different Abhidharmas of the various schools did not agree with each other. Scholars disagree on whether the Mahasanghika school had an Abhidhamma Pitaka or not.[note 16][73]

Early Mahayana Buddhism

Main article:
Mahāyāna
Buddhist monk. 2nd—3rd century. Musée Guimet

Several scholars have suggested that the Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, which are among the earliest Mahāyāna sūtras,[74][75] developed among the Mahāsāṃghika along the Kṛṣṇa River in the Āndhra region of South India.[76]

The earliest Mahāyāna sūtras to include the very first versions of the

A.K. Warder believes that "the Mahāyāna originated in the south of India and almost certainly in the Āndhra country."[80]

Anthony Barber and Sree Padma note that "historians of Buddhist thought have been aware for quite some time that such pivotally important Mahayana Buddhist thinkers as

Jaggayyapeṭa "can be traced to at least the third century BCE, if not earlier."[82] Akira Hirakawa notes the "evidence suggests that many Early Mahayana scriptures originated in South India."[83]

There is no evidence that Mahāyāna ever referred to a separate formal school or sect of Buddhism, but rather that it existed as a certain set of ideals, and later doctrines, for bodhisattvas.

early schools of Buddhism, and therefore each bhikṣu or bhikṣuṇī adhering to the Mahāyāna formally belonged to an early school. This continues today with the Dharmaguptaka ordination lineage in East Asia, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda ordination lineage in Tibetan Buddhism. Therefore Mahāyāna was never a separate rival sect of the early schools.[86] From Chinese monks visiting India, we now know that both Mahāyāna and non-Mahāyāna monks in India often lived in the same monasteries side by side.[87]

Large empty outline of a person in a rock cliff showing Bamiyan before and after destruction
Buddhas of Bamiyan: Vairocana before and after destruction by the Taliban in 2001

The Chinese monk Yijing who visited India in the 7th century CE, distinguishes Mahāyāna from Hīnayāna as follows:[88]

Both adopt one and the same Vinaya, and they have in common the prohibitions of the five offences, and also the practice of the Four Noble Truths. Those who venerate the bodhisattvas and read the Mahāyāna sūtras are called the Mahāyānists, while those who do not perform these are called the Hīnayānists.

Much of the early extant evidence for the origins of Mahāyāna comes from early Chinese translations of Mahāyāna texts. These Mahāyāna teachings were first propagated into China by

Akṣobhya Buddha, which were probably composed in the 1st century BCE in the south of India.[90][note 18]

Late Mahayana Buddhism

During the period of Late Mahayana Buddhism, four major types of thought developed:

Tathagatagarbha, and Buddhist Logic as the last and most recent.[92] In India, the two main philosophical schools of the Mahayana were the Madhyamaka and the later Yogacara.[93] According to Dan Lusthaus, Madhyamaka and Yogacara have a great deal in common, and the commonality stems from early Buddhism.[94] There were no great Indian teachers associated with tathagatagarbha thought.[95]

Vajrayana (Esoteric Buddhism)

Main article: Vajrayana

Scholarly research concerning Esoteric Buddhism is still in its early stages and has a number of problems that make research difficult:[96]

  1. Vajrayana Buddhism was influenced by Hinduism, and therefore research must include exploring Hinduism as well.
  2. The scriptures of Vajrayana have not yet been put in any kind of order.
  3. Ritual must be examined as well, not just doctrine.

Development of Buddhism

Main article: Timeline of Buddhism
map showing diffusion of Buddhism at the time of emperor Ashoka from India
Buddhist proselytism at the time of emperor Ashoka (260–218 BCE).
Indo-Greek king Menander, who, according to Buddhist tradition records in the Milinda Panha, converted to the Buddhist faith and became an arhat in the 2nd century BCE . (British Museum
)

Buddhism may have spread only slowly in India until the time of the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, who was a public supporter of the religion. The support of Aśoka and his descendants led to the construction of more stūpas (Buddhist religious memorials) and to efforts to spread Buddhism throughout the enlarged Maurya empire and even into neighboring lands—particularly to the Iranian-speaking regions of Afghanistan and Central Asia, beyond the Mauryas' northwest border, and to the island of Sri Lanka south of India. These two missions, in opposite directions, would ultimately lead, in the first case to the spread of Buddhism into China, and in the second case, to the emergence of Theravāda Buddhism and its spread from Sri Lanka to the coastal lands of Southeast Asia.

This period marks the first known spread of Buddhism beyond India. According to the

Hellenistic kingdoms of the Mediterranean. It is a matter of disagreement among scholars whether or not these emissaries were accompanied by Buddhist missionaries.[97]

The gradual spread of Buddhism into adjacent areas meant that it came into contact with new ethnical groups. During this period Buddhism was exposed to a variety of influences, from Persian and Greek civilization, to changing trends in non-Buddhist Indian religions—themselves influenced by Buddhism. Striking examples of this syncretistic development can be seen in the emergence of Greek-speaking Buddhist monarchs in the Indo-Greek Kingdom, and in the development of the Greco-Buddhist art of Gandhāra. A Greek king, Menander, has even been immortalized in the Buddhist canon.

The Theravada school spread south from India in the 3rd century BCE, to Sri Lanka and

Burma and later also Indonesia. The Dharmagupta school spread (also in 3rd century BCE) north to Kashmir
, Gandhara and Bactria (Afghanistan).

The Silk Road transmission of Buddhism to China is most commonly thought to have started in the late 2nd or the 1st century CE, though the literary sources are all open to question.[98][note 19] The first documented translation efforts by foreign

Buddhist monks in China were in the 2nd century CE, probably as a consequence of the expansion of the Kushan Empire into the Chinese territory of the Tarim Basin.[100]

In the 2nd century CE, Mahayana Sutras spread to China, and then to Korea and Japan, and were translated into Chinese. During the Indian period of Esoteric Buddhism (from the 8th century onwards), Buddhism spread from India to Tibet and Mongolia.

Buddhism today

Main article: Timeline of Buddhism:Common Era
Buddhist monk in Siberia in robes leaning on railing looking at temple
Buryat Buddhist monk in Siberia
Top-Ten Countries with the Highest Percentage of Buddhists (2010)[101]
Country Estimated Buddhist population Buddhists as % of total population
 Cambodia 13,701,660 96.90%
 Thailand 64,419,840 93.20%
 Burma 38,415,960 80.10%
 Bhutan 563,000 74.70%
 Sri Lanka 14,455,980 69.30%
 Laos 4,092,000 66.00%
 Mongolia 1,520,760 55.10%
 Japan 45,807,480 or 84,653,000 36.20% or 67%[102]
 Singapore 1,725,510 33.90%
 Taiwan 4,945,600 or 8,000,000 21.10% or 35%[103]

By the late Middle Ages, Buddhism had become virtually extinct in India, although it continued to exist in surrounding countries. It is now again gaining strength worldwide.[104][105] China and India are now starting to fund Buddhist shrines in various Asian countries as they compete for influence in the region.[web 7]

Most Buddhist groups in the West are nominally affiliated with at least one of these three traditions:

Formal membership varies between communities, but basic lay adherence is often defined in terms of a traditional formula in which the practitioner takes refuge in The

Sangha (the Buddhist community). At the present time, the teachings of all three branches of Buddhism have spread throughout the world, and Buddhist texts are increasingly translated into local languages. While in the West Buddhism is often seen as exotic and progressive, in the East it is regarded as familiar and traditional. Buddhists in Asia are frequently well organized and well funded. In countries such as Cambodia and Bhutan, it is recognized as the state religion and receives government support. Modern influences increasingly lead to new forms of Buddhism
that significantly depart from traditional beliefs and practices.

color map showing Buddhism is a major religion in Tibet, China, and Indochina
Map showing regions where Buddhism is a major religion

Overall there is an overwhelming diversity of recent forms of Buddhism.[note 20]

Demographics

Main article: Buddhism by country
purple Percentage of Buddhists by country, showing high in Burma to low in United States
Percentage of Buddhists by country, according to the Pew Research Center, as of 2010.

Buddhism is practiced by an estimated 488 million,[web 1] 495 million,[106] or 535 million[15] people as of the 2010s, representing 7% to 8% of the world's total population.

China is the country with the largest population of Buddhists, approximately 244 million or 18.2% of its total population.[web 1] They are mostly followers of Chinese schools of Mahayana, making this the largest body of Buddhist traditions. Mahayana, also practiced in broader East Asia, is followed by over half of world Buddhists.[web 1]

According to a demographic analysis reported by Peter Harvey (2013):[15] Mahayana has 360 million adherents; Theravada has 150 million adherents; and Vajrayana has 18,2 million adherents. Seven million additional Buddhists are found outside of Asia.

According to Johnson and Grim (2013), Buddhism has grown from a total of 138 million adherents in 1910, of which 137 million were in Asia, to 495 million in 2010, of which 487 million are in Asia.[106] According to them, there was a fast annual growth of Buddhism in Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon and several Western European countries (1910–2010). More recently (2000–2010), the countries with highest growth rates are Qatar, the United Arab Emirates, Iran and some African countries.[107]

Late 20th century Buddhist movements

A number of modern movements or tendencies in Buddhism emerged during the second half of the 20th Century, including the

Western Buddhist
traditions.

In the second half of the 20th Century a modern movement in Nichiren Buddhism: Soka Gakkai (Value Creation Society) emerged in Japan and spread further to other countries. Soka Gakkai International (SGI) is a lay Buddhist movement linking more than 12 million people around the world, and is currently described as "the most diverse"[110] and "the largest lay Buddhist movement in the world".[web 8]

See also

Notes

  1. ^ "Buddhism". (2009). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 26, 2009, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online Library Edition
  2. ^ (Harvey 1990),(Gombrich,1984); Gethin (1998), pp. 1–2, identifies "three broad traditions" as: (1) "The Theravāda tradition of Sri Lanka and South-East Asia, also sometimes referred to as 'southern' Buddhism"; (2) "The East Asian tradition of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, also sometimes referred to as 'eastern' Buddhism"; and, (3) "The Tibetan tradition, also sometimes referred to as 'northern' Buddhism."; Robinson & Johnson (1982) divide their book into two parts: Part One is entitled "The Buddhism of South Asia" (which pertains to Early Buddhism in India); and, Part Two is entitled "The Development of Buddhism Outside of India" with chapters on "The Buddhism of Southeast Asia", "Buddhism in the Tibetan Culture Area", "East Asian Buddhism" and "Buddhism Comes West; Penguin handbook of Living Religions, 1984, page 279; Prebish & Keown, Introducing Buddhism, ebook, Journal of Buddhist Ethics, 2005, printed ed, Harper, 2006
  3. ^ See e.g. the multi-dimensional classification in Encyclopedia of Religion[18]
  4. ^ According to Masih:[23] "Alongside Hinduism was the non-Aryan Shramanic culture with its roots going back to prehistoric times."
  5. ^ Padmanabh S. Jaini states:[26] "Yajnavalkya's reluctance and manner in expounding the doctrine of karma in the assembly of Janaka (a reluctance not shown on any other occasion) can perhaps be explained by the assumption that it was, like that of the transmigration of soul, of non-brahmanical origin. In view of the fact that this doctrine is emblazoned on almost every page of sramana scriptures, it is highly probable that it was derived from them."

    Govind Chandra Pande:[27] "Early Upanishad thinkers like Yajnavalkya were acquainted with the sramanic thinking and tried to incorporate these ideals of Karma, Samsara and Moksa into the vedic thought implying a disparagement of the vedic ritualism and recognising the mendicancy as an ideal."
  6. ^ Encyclopædia Britannica Online. Buddhism: The foundations of Buddhism, the cultural context. Retrieved 19-07-2009.
  7. Vâsettho, Kassapo, and Bhagu
    " in P. 245 The Vinaya piṭakaṃ: one of the principle Buddhist holy scriptures ..., Volume 1 edited by Hermann Oldenberg
  8. ^ Hāṇḍā: "Even so have I, monks, seen an ancient way, an ancient road followed by the wholly awakened ones of olden time....Along that have I done, and the matters that I have come to know fully as I was going along it, I have told to the monks, nuns, men and women lay-followers, even monks, this Brahma-faring brahmacharya that is prosperous and flourishing, widespread and widely known become popular in short, well made manifest for gods and men."[38]
  9. Mahisasaka, Dharmaguptaka and other schools,[50][51] and the Chinese Agamas and other surviving portions of other early canons.[citation needed
    ]
  10. ^ Exemplary studies are the study on descriptions of "liberating insight" by Lambert Schmithausen,[56] the overview of early Buddhism by Tilmann Vetter,[53] the philological work on the four truths by K.R. Norman,[57] the textual studies by Richard Gombrich,[55] and the research on early meditation methods by Johannes Bronkhorst.[58]
  11. A.K. Warder[subnote 1] and Richard Gombrich.[61][subnote 2]
  12. ^ A proponent of the second position is Ronald Davidson.[subnote 3]
  13. ^ Well-known proponent of the third position are J.W. de Jong,[63][subnote 4] Johannes Bronkhorst[subnote 5] and Donald Lopez.[subnote 6]
  14. ^ Charles Prebish (2005). "Councils: Buddhist Councils". In Lindsay Jones (ed.). Encyclopedia of Religion. New York: Macmillan.
  15. ^ See Journal of the Pāli Text Society, volume XVI, p. 105
  16. ^ a b "Abhidhamma Pitaka." Encyclopædia Britannica. Ultimate Reference Suite. Chicago: Encyclopædia Britannica, 2008
  17. ^ "The most important evidence — in fact the only evidence — for situating the emergence of the Mahayana around the beginning of the common era was not Indian evidence at all, but came from China. Already by the last quarter of the 2nd century CE, there was a small, seemingly idiosyncratic collection of substantial Mahayana sutras translated into what Erik Zürcher calls 'broken Chinese' by an Indoscythian, whose Indian name has been reconstructed as Lokaksema."[89]
  18. ^ "The south (of India) was then vigorously creative in producing Mahayana Sutras" Warder[91]
  19. Hou Hanshu, and p. 31 for a translation of it.[99]
  20. ^ See Philosophy East and West, volume 54, page 270

Subnotes

  1. ^ According to A.K. Warder, in his 1970 publication "Indian Buddhism", from the oldest extant texts a common kernel can be drawn out.[51] According to Warder, c.q. his publisher: "This kernel of doctrine is presumably common Buddhism of the period before th great schisms of the fourth and third centuries BC. It may be substantially the Buddhism of the Buddha himself, although this cannot be proved: at any rate it is a Buddhism presupposed by the schools as existing about a hundred years after the parinirvana of the Buddha, and there is no evidence to suggest that it was formulated by anyone else than the Buddha and his immediate followers."[60]
  2. ^ Richard Gombrich: "I have the greatest difficulty in accepting that the main edifice is not the work of a single genius. By "the main edifice" I mean the collections of the main body of sermons, the four Nikāyas, and of the main body of monastic rules."[55]
  3. ^ Ronald Davidson: "While most scholars agree that there was a rough body of sacred literature (disputed)(sic) that a relatively early community (disputed)(sic) maintained and transmitted, we have little confidence that much, if any, of surviving Buddhist scripture is actually the word of the historic Buddha."[62]
  4. ^ J.W. De Jong: "It would be hypocritical to assert that nothing can be said about the doctrine of earliest Buddhism [...] the basic ideas of Buddhism found in the canonical writings could very well have been proclaimed by him [the Buddha], transmitted and developed by his disciples and, finally, codified in fixed formulas."[63]
  5. ^ Bronkhorst: "This position is to be preferred to (ii) for purely methodological reasons: only those who seek nay find, even if no success is guaranteed."[64]
  6. ^ Lopez: "The original teachings of the historical Buddha are extremely difficult, if not impossible, to recover or reconstruct."[65]

References

  1. ^ Wells 2008.
  2. ^ Roach 2011.
  3. ^ Lopez 2001, p. 239.
  4. ^ Lopez, Donald. "Buddha: Founder of Buddhism". Encyclopedia Britannica. Retrieved 6 March 2016.
  5. ^ Guang Xing (2005). The Three Bodies of the Buddha: The Origin and Development of the Trikaya Theory. Oxford: Routledge Curzon: pp.1 and 85
  6. ^ Gethin 1998, pp. 27–28, 73–74.
  7. ISBN 0-691-05779-6. {{cite book}}: |first= has generic name (help
    )
  8. ISBN 978-1-55939-282-2
    .
  9. ^ "Candles in the Dark: A New Spirit for a Plural World" by Barbara Sundberg Baudot, p305
  10. ISBN 978-1-55939-282-2
    .
  11. ^ Williams 1998, pp. 275f.
  12. ^ Robinson 1998, p. xx.
  13. ^ Harvey 2013, p. 36-8.
  14. ^ Padmasambhava 2004, p. 111.
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External links

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