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Early Indian and Theravada Buddhism - Soteriological Controversy and Diversity (Hardcover, New)
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Early Indian and Theravada Buddhism - Soteriological Controversy and Diversity (Hardcover, New)
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The context for the first part of this study is the community
(sangha) of early Buddhism in India, as it is reflected in the
religion's canon composed in the Pali language, which is preserved
by the Theravada tradition as the only authentic record of the
words of the Buddha and his disciples, as well as of events within
that community. This book does not assert that the Pali Canon
represents any sort of "original" Buddhism, but it maintains that
it reflects issues and concerns of this religious community in the
last centuries before the Common Era. The events focused on in part
one of this study revolve around diversity and debate with respect
to proper soteriology, which in earliest Buddhist communities
entails what paths of practice successfully lead to the religion's
final goal of nibbana (Sanskrit: nirvana). One of the main theses
of this study is that some of the vocational and soteriological
tensions and points of departure of the early community depicted in
the Pali Canon have had a tendency to crop up in the ongoing
Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka, which forms the second part of
the study. In particular, part two covers first a vocational
bifurcation in the Sri Lankan that has existed at least from the
last century of the Common Era to contemporary times, and second a
modern debate held between two leading voices in Theravada
Buddhism, on the subject of what constitutes the right meditative
path to nibbana.With a few notable exceptions, both members of
Theravada Buddhism and the scholars who have studied them have
maintained that the Pali Canon, and the ongoing tradition that has
grown out of it, has a singular soteriology. The aim of this study
is to deconstruct tradition, in the simple sense of revealing the
tradition's essential multiplicity. Prior to this study, past
scholarship--which preferred to portray early Indian and Theravada
Buddhsim as wholly rationalist systems--has shied away from giving
ample treatment on the noble person who possesses supernormal
powers. This book examines the dichotomy between two Theravada
monastic vocations that have grown out of tensions discussed in
part one. The bifurcation is between the town-dwelling scholar monk
and the forest-dwelling meditator monk. Scholars have certainly
recognized this split in the sangha before, but this is the first
attempt to completely compare their historical roles side by side.
This is an important book for collections in Asian studies,
Buddhist studies, history, and religious studies.
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