Mahayana V Theravada discussion again (this time with the advantage of knowing a bit more about both)

I will now, cautiously, re-examine the alleged contrasts between ‘the earlier Buddhism’ and Mahayana Buddhism, to some extent in the light of the intervening information that I’ve been posting. If I could trust that I knew how to put workable tables on this blog I would but I don’t so I’ll just go through the dichotomies one by one.

The earlier Buddhism seems to have had an individualist orientation as opposed to the group orientation of Mahayana. The ideal was essentially the aloof quest to become an Arhat whereas with Mahayana it became a quest motivated by compassion to become the Bodhisattva ideal.

The earlier Buddhism, too, was focused on the role and separation of the religious orders in contrast with the many upaya that gave many laypeople more roles in Mahayana Buddhism than they ever might have possessed earlier. Some of the Mahayana sutras may be read as actually being anti-clerical. One sutra lauded the wisdom of a 12 year old girl in a story (in a hint of contrast with its relative lack in many monks – this also hints at a less sexist Buddhism (though the earlier Buddhism wasn't especially sexist either)).

The new system even had a third role or way (yana) in the Tibetan rites, that of the yogi hermit – neither lay nor bound by any rules of the vinaya (usually seeking Arhathood). Even within lay Tibetan ranks, certain high roles were also able to be established so that in a sense a post-Vatican II-like era of formalised lay involvement in “Church” government began.

It is reasonable to argue that a similar transformation appears to be occurring today and over the last 200 odd years in the Theravada-tradition countries although its inspiration is apparently recent and arguably Western. The idea of permitting married priests has still also arisen only in the Mahayana tradition (in parts of East Asia).

The earlier Buddhism was focused on psychology somewhat to the exclusion of cosmological questions whereas the Mahayana Buddhists were taught cosmology in substantially greater detail.

Self-effort was a teaching that stood out in the earlier Buddhism. The goal was to be one’s own philosopher. Mahayana Buddhism in various forms provided one on the other hand with useful incantations that might make it possible to commune with and learn from mystic teachers in other realms. So Buddhism became an easier religion to get on in, then, with the aid of others (even in other realms).

The very earliest Buddhism also (mostly) resisted ritual whereas the Mahayana rite embraced it much more fully.

The final contrast was cultural. The earlier Buddhism was conservative and exclusive but Mahayana Buddhism was liberal and inclusive. Its very existence was counted a liberal change by the conservative earlier forms. New skilful means were permitted to be learned from other religions, as alluded to in an earlier post. It is still possible in the Theravada tradition, however, though less common, to also have other religions. Exchanges arguably might even occur between Mahayana Buddhism and Western psychology (and do, in fact, with either side contributing to undermining ‘blockages’ in the other).

The reality is that there are progressive and conservative forces in both traditions but the contrasts do stand up to at least some extent. But the final picture is of course much more complex.

Fleshing out further the Sangha story, how the Canons came about and what they are

The first council of the sangha arranged for the remembrance of the vinaya and the suttas virtually immediately upon Siddhartha’s death. The disciple Ananda was noted as being the best at remembering what was required to be remembered. A second council occurred exactly 100 years later.

The vinaya and suttas were first written down in Pali in Sri Lanka in the first Century BCE as the first two pitaka (baskets) of the Pali Canon (also the only complete surviving canon written in an Indic language). The third basket was the abhidhamma Pitaka. Altogether they are the three baskets -the Tripitaka.

The vinaya consists essentially of stories of how Siddhartha developed the rules for his religious 'orders' in the context of his many years of organising them and some of the actual rules. They are together seen as providing a form of precedent in legal terms for the future development of rules for religious orders.

The oral recitation for so many centuries, though, of the vinaya and vows (together the pratimoksa – way to (towards) liberation) especially appears to be the reason for the development of the different solidified traditions of the different orders. The religious had to be able to recite their orders' particular pratimoksas. I mentioned this division in an earlier post as it posed problems for some women seeking to be nuns of certain orders, today. The orders do not consider the other orders heretical, however. This was also why at least the early Mahayana monks were not excluded from their communities as long as they could recite and aim to live by their correct pratimoksa (independent thought wasn’t a problem as long as the rules of the order were still known, adhered to as much as possible and chanted as required).

The suttas are also called the Nikayas (Nikaya being Pali for group (as the suttas were grouped) – the corresponding Sanskrit word used for the sutras of its canon is “agama”). They are of course the discourses of Siddhartha concerning matters other than the organisation and commitments of the religious orders and often begin with the introduction “thus I have heard”.

The abhidhamma is the work of early scholars at systematising the teachings of Siddhartha. In the canons, it’s not much more than groupings of lists (matrkas) that Siddhartha made with some brief exposition. Theravadans claim their abhidhamma pitaka was all recited at the first council virtually as is and hence may be regarded as the word of Siddhartha Gautama along with the vinaya and suttas, as he had only very recently passed on.

Incidentally, they also claim that a form of Pali was Siddhartha's spoken language. Scholars consider this claim to be unlikely to be meritorious. Philologists believe (based on the two earliest Canons) that he would have spoken a North Indian language now largely lost to us called Magadhi. He did require that his ideas be translated into local languages and this canon is also the first written example of this. There was certainly no powerful Buddhist belief that the truth could only be fully revealed in one language such as Arabic (or Greek or Latin), for example.

The second oldest canon which unfortunately doesn’t survive in its entirety is believed to have been first written in Sanskrit (the most important language of learning in India at the time) in the first century CE. It survives in a sense in its Tibetan and Chinese forms today as the Tibetan and Chinese Canons (also often called Tripitaka as their source had the same basic organisation into three ‘baskets’: vinaya, sutras and abhidharma) but also in fragments in Sanskrit. The school of Buddhist thinkers that were responsible for having it written in Sanskrit were called the Sarvastivada and it was apparently written in the Kashmir region of what is now modern Pakistan.

The later canons were organised somewhat differently and were based on translated collections essentially from the Sanskrit and with commentaries.

We have one Canon written on woodblock in China in 868 CE. Korea and Japan have extant editions dating from around the 14^th Century. The Chinese Canon appears to have had Korean and Japanese input and additional material.

The Tibetan Canon came in at least two waves due to oppression of Buddhists in India. A Classical Tibetan written language was created especially from the Tibetan vernacular for the purpose of creating the Canon finalised in the 14^th Century after the conclusion of the second wave. It first began to be compiled in some form in the first wave of the 8^th Century. Some of its source material may have been originally written in Chinese and some in Sanskrit. Versions of the finalised Canon were also produced on woodblock in the 15^th Century.

Sometimes the whole of Buddhist teaching of a particular view is also called its Tripitaka and Tripitaka is also a title of honour for a learned Buddhist (remember Monkey). The Tripitaka is all also regarded as the word of the historical Buddha although, with regard to the third pitaka, at least, this is still in dispute among both Buddhists and experts. Followers of the two earliest canons would regard the abhidharma part of their canon as words of Siddhartha.

Morality (Sila)

Religions usually seem to be divided across battlelines between what I'll call legalist and gnostic camps (think Wahhabism v Sufism or Fundamentalist v liberal Christianity or Gnosticism). The less-well-educated are expected and/or encouraged by 'religious authorities' to follow the laws without question but certain other groups will see the law as designed only for that group with alleged limited capacity for real understanding.

In Buddhism, this idea of two forms of the religion is quite formally discussed. Siddhartha taught a number of moral lessons and everybody is really expected to begin the path by attempting to know and follow the precepts derived from them.

In addition, monks and nuns are expected to follow their vinaya as part of the additional work required for gnosis. But basic Buddhist morality comes first. Morality and, as part of that, disciplining one’s desires are believed to aid in the settling of the mind required for effective meditation for gnosis. This settling of the mind is compared to the settlement of muddy water that enables one to see through it to a reality beyond it. The best of morality comes only to a Buddha, though, the ultimate knower, as it comes from true insight rather than slavish adherence to precepts however well-grounded the precepts might be seen to be from the beginning. The religious are also partly intended as the guardians of these initial moral precepts for the rest of the sangha.

The rules for the religious are thus more Spartan from the first as they are meant to promote awareness as well as correct behaviour from the get-go. Short term or long term monastic vows taken by people who then return to the laity are common in various parts of the modern Buddhist world, though. They may even be taken for a single special day.

An interesting feature of the system today is that there is now virtually a complete absence of orthodox full nuns in all but the Taiwanese tradition (there are a few full nuns in Burma and possibly in Sri Lanka). There have been seven major accepted traditions of nuns. Part of the reason women can not now be orthodox full nuns is that if an order is not continuous from the time of Siddhartha it is not considered orthodox so if for any historical reason the final convent in any tradition is lost and the final full nun dies without ordaining any successors (in the presence of four other full nuns of the tradition) there can be no legitimate successors. So here is an example of strict legalism preventing women today who follow the Thai Theravada tradition from becoming full nuns in their tradition. A very knowledgeable monk in the Thai Theravada tradition (when in Bundanoon) issued an opinion, though, that Thai Theravada nuns may be invested by full nuns of the Taiwanese tradition. On the basis of this advice, an investiture occurred recently which is expected to be challenged in Thailand. It remains unlawful in Thailand to describe oneself as a nun. The Thai tradition ended in around the 11^th Century probably in line with a local patriarchal governmental prohibition of the time. Lines of monks have also been in danger of dying out over the centuries especially in times of oppression in some areas.

How did it become what it became (and for whom)?

So how did Buddhist philosophy develop? They had the example of a man’s life, what he taught and themselves in relation to the world to consider. The foremost dictum for Buddhists has always been that Buddhists take refuge in three jewels: the Buddha (perhaps partly in the way Christians see Jesus as still in some sense living in and for them – the term may refer to any or all of the Buddhas), the Dharma (the way, the method, the religion) and the Sangha (the community of monks and nuns and also other lay Buddhists). It is the 'shahada' of Buddhism.

The monks and nuns still live by monastic rules (vinaya) based on those laid down by Siddhartha. Part of the duty of monks in particular ‘naturally’ came to be to be the foremost interpreters of Buddhism as a philosophy and what they wrote about in developing that vinaya and their abhidharma forms the basis of what we now know of the history of the development of Buddhist thought.

Lay people were generally seen as having little chance of being a Bodhisattva in this life; their job was to seek to be good so that they might hope to be a novice monk in a future life (especially in the time of the next Buddha) and part of that being good was respecting the monks. The laypeople seek to earn merits (punya) often by Dana (giving) especially to monks and nuns, as they have virtually from time immemorial. The merit level required to avoid hell is apparently quite high.

Merit can also be earned by performing rituals in a temple and one idea goes that a family may walk many miles to a temple for this purpose even though they possess a motor vehicle so that others might witness this act of devotion, become happy and thereby earn merit themselves in some way.

Siddhartha specifically approved veneration and circumambulation of the tombs of enlightened ones and even arranged for his own remains to be divided into eight sections so that they might be venerated in many places at once. The funerary-remains monuments venerated by Buddhists are known as Stupas.

The fashion for them in India apparently caught on especially under king Asoka. He is himself supposed to have had 4,000 Stupas built and to have officially approved the four main places of Buddhist pilgrimage: the place of Siddhartha's enlightenment (Buddhagaya), the place of his first teaching (Isipatana) and the places of his birth (Lumbini) and final parinibbana (Kusinagara). At least two of the columns indicating the locations of the four places are still extant having been apparently lost and rediscovered only in the 19^th Century.

According to some scholars, the Hindu liking for pilgrimages appears to have developed at around the time of Asoka’s reign as a result of his influence.

The epistemology, metaphysics and ethics that the monks (rarely nuns) came up with was the abhidharma and I’ll get into its development over the centuries a bit later. Together the sutras (discourses) of Siddhartha, the vinaya (rules) of the religious and the abhidharma in a sense sum up what it is to be Buddhist for three distinct classes of people: respectively, laypeople, the novice religious and Bodhisattvas.

Now on (in the next four posts) to some more detail of the Four Noble Truths as elucidated by the abhidharma.