A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy

Steven M. Emmanuel, Steven M. Emmanuel

• Publisher: Wiley-Blackwell
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781118323885
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Philosophy
• Subtopic: Eastern Philosophy

A Companion to Buddhist Philosophy is the most comprehensive single volume on the subject available; it offers the very latest scholarship to create a wide-ranging survey of the most important ideas, problems, and debates in the history of Buddhist philosophy.

• Encompasses the broadest treatment of Buddhist philosophy available, covering social and political thought, meditation, ecology and contemporary issues and applications
• Each section contains overviews and cutting-edge scholarship that expands readers understanding of the breadth and diversity of Buddhist thought
• Broad coverage of topics allows flexibility to instructors in creating a syllabus
• Essays provide valuable alternative philosophical perspectives on topics to those available in Western traditions

Part I

Conceptual Foundations

1

The Philosophical Context of Gotama’s Thought

Stephen J. Laumakis

Some Fundamental Problems

Although it is de rigueur to begin any account of Buddhism with the “received” biography of its founder, Siddhattha Gotama, or, as he is more commonly known, the Buddha or the Awakened One, there are at least a half dozen fundamental problems with this practice. First, like Jesus and Socrates, the Buddha never wrote anything – about either himself or his teachings. Second, his supposed teachings were compiled anywhere from a hundred to a few hundred years after his death. Third, the canonical teachings that ultimately informed the “received” view of his life contain numerous conflicting and, in fact, contradictory accounts of his life. Fourth, there is no scholarly doubt that the supposed teachings of the Buddha underwent various changes, editions, and developments as they passed from an oral tradition to a written record. Fifth, there are ongoing scholarly debates over exactly what – if anything at all – can be said with any degree of certainty with respect to what the man who became the Buddha actually thought or taught given the previous issue. And, sixth, the “received” view of his life fails to consider the historical and intellectual contexts in and from which his supposed teachings emerged.

If the foregoing problems were not enough to make one stop and think about what we really know about the Buddha and his teachings, there is the additional question about whether what the Buddha thought and taught is philosophy, religion, both, or neither.

Nevertheless, despite these problems, recent scholarship has begun to shed some light on the social, cultural, historical, and intellectual contexts in and from which the Buddha and Buddhism arose. In order to take advantage of this work and sidestep the thorny issues associated with the supposed biography of the Buddha and the debate over whether Buddhism is a philosophy, a religion, both, or neither, this essay will instead provide an account of his intellectual biography by analyzing the philosophical context in and from which his thought and teachings emerged.

Indian “Views” of Reality

As I have argued elsewhere (Laumakis 2008), perhaps one of the easiest ways of understanding the basic elements of classical Indian thought – and Siddhattha Gotama’s reaction to it – is to think of them as a collection of intellectual insights in a series of transitions in what we might call the “Indian Way” of seeing and understanding reality (Koller 2006). Conceived of in this way, it is helpful to think of the ancient Indians as offering us at least three distinct conceptual frameworks or “views” of reality.

The first “view,” what we might call the understanding of the Dasyus, or the pre-Aryan or “pre-Vedic view” of things, seems to have countenanced belief in many gods, nature worship, fertility rituals, concerns about purification, and some basic ideas about both an afterlife and the possibilities of reincarnation. According to some scholars, the last two points, in particular, appear to be anchored in simple observations about the cycle of birth–life–death in nature, the phases of the moon, the seasons of the year, and obvious family resemblances. Recent archeological evidence also supports the claim that the Dasyus appear to have been vegetarians who engaged in ascetic practices and yogic meditation.

The second Indian “view,” the understanding of the Aryans and the Vedas, builds upon this early view of things and seems to have formalized it with ritual sacrifices and celebrations, the production of sacred texts (supposedly not composed by humans) – concerned with the “wisdom” of poet-seers and hearers to whom it was revealed, and liturgical formulae and chants about what had been seen and heard. This second view also contains the “philosophical” (or merely human) reflections and speculations of the Upanishads.

The third and final “view,” what we might call the post-Vedic understanding of reality, is actually a more sustained, careful, and detailed working out of the individual elements of the pre-Vedic and Vedic views of things. This rather complex understand­ing of reality includes a clarification and specification of the roles of the gods (or a denial of their existence) and their relation to the ultimate, single source of all things (i.e., Brahman), a delineation of the details of the var

a/color and caste systems, an account of the stages of life (i.e., studying under a teacher or being a student; returning home to marry and raise a family as a householder; relinquishing daily affairs to one’s son by retiring and beginning meditative practices; and, finally, leaving home to live and die in the forest as an ascetic) and the various aims of life (i.e., dharma/virtue or moral righteousness, artha/wealth and success, kāma/pleasure and fulfilling material desires, and mok

a/liberation or achieving salvation). It also contains more serious reflection on the cyclical nature of birth–life–death (samsara) and the notions of rebirth and the prospects of release or liberation from this cosmic cycle.

At a more fine-grained level of consideration, this third “view” includes what scholars have identified as the nine darśanas (“schools” or “viewpoints”) of classical Indian thought – i.e., Sā

khya, Yoga, Mīmā

sā, Vedānta, Nyāya, Vaiśe

ika, Jain, Cārvāka, and Buddhist views (See Mohanty 2000, 153–8). Finally, it involves an elucidation of the notions and relations of the “self” and society and social regulation through the ideas of norms, duties, obligations, virtues, karma, and Dharma.

Indian Philosophy and/or Indian Religion?

What begins to emerge from this series of “views” is, I think, a rather rich and complex understanding of reality that includes features that are both “philosophical” and “religious”/“theological”¹ in the typical Western senses of these terms. In fact, before delving into the philosophical details of these views, I think it is possible to get a preliminary sense of the intellectual context and cultural milieu that supported the social and philosophical development of Siddhattha Gotama and his emergence as the historical Buddha.

For example, the Dasyu beliefs in many gods, nature worship, and fertility and purification rituals are clearly (by common Western standards) “religious” kinds of beliefs. These same “religious”/“theological” beliefs are also part of the “Vedic view” of the Aryans who formalized them with ritual texts and the Brahmanical priesthood. But it is also important to recall that this same “Vedic view” includes the purely “philosophical” reflections and arguments of the Upanishads. In fact, when conceived of as a whole, it is useful to think of the Vedas as a complex, simultaneously religious and philosophical reconciliation, merging the pre-Vedic and Aryan views of reality.

The Vedas themselves contain virtually every element and theme of the “pre-Vedic view” of the Dasyus as well as the wisdom of their own seers and hearers: hymns for deities, rules for fire sacrifices, music, poetry, magic rituals, and ideas about

ta (order), karma (Skt karma: action and its consequences), samsara, and the afterlife.

The Upanishads, on the other hand, continue to develop these themes in a more strictly “philosophical” or purely rational way. In fact, it is this philosophical working out of the same themes and their logical implications as the “post-Vedic view” of reality that provides the immediate historical, cultural, and intellectual context within which the life and teachings of Siddhattha Gotama were formed.

As a result, I think it is safe to say that the “post-Vedic view” that was formed both during and after the life of Siddhattha is what we in the West would call “Indian philosophy” strictly and properly speaking. It is to a finer-grained analysis of this context that we now turn our attention.

Siddhattha Gotama’s Cultural and Intellectual Context

Like many great thinkers, Gotama was born into a rich, complex, and dynamic social and historical setting. On the one hand, he inherited an Indian culture rich in philosophical and religious beliefs and practices. Not only were his contemporaries interested in securing the material goods necessary both for basic subsistence and for making one’s way through the various stages of life noted above, but they were also profoundly interested in trying ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Blackwell Companions to Philosophy
• Title page
• Copyright
• Dedication
• Notes on Contributors
• Acknowledgments
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I Conceptual Foundations
• Part II Major Schools of Buddhist Thought
• Part III Themes in Buddhist Philosophy
• Part IV Buddhist Meditation
• Part V Contemporary Issues and Applications
• Further Reading
• Index