Whose Buddhism Is Truest?

[camerata]

Whose Buddhism is Truest?

No one’s—and everyone’s, it turns out.

Long-lost scrolls shed some surprising light.

Linda Heuman

Two thousand years ago, Buddhist monks rolled up sutras written on birch bark, stuffed them into earthen pots, and buried them in a desert. We don’t know why. They might have been disposing of sacred trash. Maybe they were consecrating a stupa. If they meant to leave a gift for future members of the Buddhist community—a wisdom time capsule, so to speak—they succeeded; and they could never have imagined how great that gift would turn out to be.

Fragments of those manuscripts, recently surfaced, are today stoking a revolution in scholars’ understanding of early Buddhist history, shattering false premises that have shaped Buddhism’s development for millennia and undermining the historical bases for Buddhist sectarianism. As the implications of these findings ripple out from academia into the Buddhist community, they may well blow away outdated, parochial barriers between traditions and help bring Buddhism into line with the pluralistic climate of our times.

Full article.

[JurgenG]

Very interesting. Thank you for posting.

[camerata]

"I am a Mahayana practitioner; my partner practices in the Theravada tradition. The challenge of accommodating differences in the Buddhist family is an occasional cloud that hovers over our dinner table."

[rockyysdt]

These newly found manuscripts, he declared, strike the coup de grâce to a traditional conception of Buddhism’s past that has been disintegrating for decades. It is now clear that none of the existing Buddhist collections of early Indian scriptures—not the Pali, Sanskrit, Chinese, nor even the Gandhari—“can be privileged as the most authentic or original words of the Buddha.”

We now know that if there ever was a point of convergence in the Buddhist family tree—the missing link, the single original and authentic Buddhist canon—it is physically lost in the era of oral transmission. We have not yet found, and probably will not ever find, evidence for it.

These scrolls are incontrovertible proof that as early as the first century B.C.E., there was another significant living Buddhist tradition in a separate region of India and in an entirely different language from the tradition preserved in Pali.

Nobody holds the view of an original canon anymore,” Oskar von Hinüber, one of the world’s leading scholars of Pali, told me.

I understood that adherents of Theravada promoted this form of Buddhism as the closest to the original teachings of the Buddha.

Is the Theravada tradition no longer the authoritative yardstick from which to learn what the Buddha taught?

Edited May 11, 2012 by rockyysdt

[rockyysdt]

Consider why scholars might think this. First of all, there are certain practical difficulties of oral transmission in a time before digital recording. How could 500 monks have agreed on 45 years of the Buddha’s words?

Von Hinüber also points out that the sutras themselves record a deep and persistent quarrel between the Buddha’s attendant, Ananda, and Mahakasyapa, who presided over the Council and was the principal disciple at the time of the Buddha’s death. He suggests that it would be Pollyannaish to imagine that the Council (if it even occurred) was politic-free and harmonious.

“There are many indications that [the stories of the First Council] are not correct in the way of a historical report. But they tell us something that is interesting and important,” says von Hinüber. “Buddhists themselves were aware of the fact that at some point in history their texts must have been shaped by somebody into the standard form they now have, beginning Thus have I heard. Who this was, we don’t know.”

Interestingly, built into the traditional account of the First Council is the story of one monk who arrived late. He asked the others what he had missed. When they told him how they had formalized the Buddha’s teachings, he objected. He insisted that he himself had heard the Buddha’s discourses and would continue to remember them as he had heard them.

“This is a very important story,” says von Hinüber, “because it shows that Buddhists themselves were aware of the fact of diverging traditions.”

The Buddhist canons as they exist today are the products of historical contingencies. They resound with the many voices that have shaped them through time. But orthodoxy requires the opposite, a wall you can’t put your fist through: singular, unchanging, findable truth. Buddhism’s textual root wasn’t singular, and it wasn’t unchanging. As it turns out, it wasn’t so findable, either.

Does this mean that everything is up in the air?

• Moment to moment vs re birth into many lives.
  
• Literal vs metaphorical.
  
• Real vs metaphysical.
  

Even a tiny misinterpretation can send you tangentially from the path!

Edited May 11, 2012 by rockyysdt

[Xangsamhua]

A very interesting article.

That Buddhism may have multiple roots, or something like plaits that loop over each other on the way from multiple origins to a more concentrated end-point, seems reasonable given the tenuousness of communications in the 5th and 4th centuries BCE. The vinaya probably helped to retain some coherence at least in the main teachings, but the potential for slippage in the oral tradition plus the apparent quite early emergence of differing interpretations sugests that diversity in recitation and interpretation began to appear not long after the Buddha's parinirvarna.

That blurring of the boundaries between various canonical traditions is evident as far back as the period of the Gandharan scrolls raises the question of what blurring there was between Buddhist teaching and that of related and competing teachings in the early years. It's quite evident to me, looking at the Tibetan traditions, for example, that they are influenced by Bon and Yoga and Advaita, or, if not influenced, they have "commingled" with them, to use the author's term, so the more attractive features of popular and philosophical Brahmanism and Jainism, for example, may well have exercised some pull on the Sangha and Dhamma in the years following the Buddha's passing.

In Thailand we often comment on the commingling of the Theravada tradition with pre-Buddhist folk religion, though we seem to say less about the very open incorporation of Hinduism into the religious culture of Thai Buddhism, especially the cult of Indra. And yet it's very open and visible. Bangkok, after all, is the "impregnable city of the God Indra", amongst other things. Even Krishna has a high profile here. General Krit Sivara (กฤษณ์ สีวะรา) comes to mind, and at my workplace we have a man named Kritsanet (กฤษเนตร = "Krishna guides"). The tendency of religious ideas it seems is to borrow from each other, even in the process of meiosis.

It's very hard to keep ideas and teachings watertight, from each other and from the prevailing culture. Orthodoxy, as the author and the scholars point out, has an ambiguous place in Buddhism.

Edited May 11, 2012 by Xangsamhua

[JurgenG]

Enlightenment is a personal journey.

You have a starting point, the four noble truths. After that you're on your own.

The different traditions just give you hints when you are a bit confused on the way.

That's the way I see it anyway.

[rockyysdt]

Enlightenment is a personal journey.

You have a starting point, the four noble truths. After that you're on your own.

What about the triple gem?

The Buddha.

The Dharma.

The Sangha.

Who guides you can be an issue, but traveling on your own can be hazardous.

Edited May 12, 2012 by rockyysdt

[cdnvic]

"I am a Mahayana practitioner; my partner practices in the Theravada tradition. The challenge of accommodating differences in the Buddhist family is an occasional cloud that hovers over our dinner table."

My wife's family doesn't think I'm a "real" Buddhist for the same reasons

[khaowong1]

"I am a Mahayana practitioner; my partner practices in the Theravada tradition. The challenge of accommodating differences in the Buddhist family is an occasional cloud that hovers over our dinner table."

My wife's family doesn't think I'm a "real" Buddhist for the same reasons

Yes, I get this all the time. Because I'm an American, I can't be a real Buddhist monk. More of a novelty. Oh well.

I get back at them a little, when I tell them that the Buddha wasn't Thai either.

Edited May 13, 2012 by khaowong1

[hookedondhamma]

"I am a Mahayana practitioner; my partner practices in the Theravada tradition. The challenge of accommodating differences in the Buddhist family is an occasional cloud that hovers over our dinner table."

My wife's family doesn't think I'm a "real" Buddhist for the same reasons

Yes, I get this all the time. Because I'm an American, I can't be a real Buddhist monk. More of a novelty. Oh well.

I get back at them a little, when I tell them that the Buddha wasn't Thai either.

I get that alot too, KhaoWong. Or, I can't study Pali. Or, I can't chant. Gotta love the falang blinders. I think it comes from some sort of hidden insecurity, probably jealousy for the real insistent ones. <---- that can be taken as a joke or not

Is that you in your avatar, by the way?

Edited May 13, 2012 by hookedondhamma