Introduction to my series of posts on Buddhist Philosophy (especially Indian)

I'm going to leave the Middle East to sort itself out for the moment. It seems to be giving it a red hot go and may have some success. Well done, Tunisians and Egyptians! In the meantime, this series should take almost forty posts so let's get started:

I’m going to discuss in the next few posts how the ideas of Buddhism developed (mainly in their areas of origin - mostly in the two major civilisation areas of northern India - the Punjab and the Ganges River valley) and what those ideas were.

This may be viewed as a counterpoint to my series on the ideas and resulting civilisation of Islam. The historical Buddha existed on this earth several centuries before the Common Era but the ideas he promulgated continued to be developed up to and during the time when Islam was also known on the Indian subcontinent. So, a thousand years of significant developments and reactions to invasion and other religious ideas occurred before the ideas now called Buddhism most fully solidified. It may be worth connecting the two areas later. I will also attempt to explore to some extent how North and Central Asian, Tibetan and Sri Lankan civilisations made their contributions.

The main context of Buddhism is, however, Indian religions of the time as they were developing and a developed language: Sanskrit (with a plurality of developing Indian philosophies mainly written in it). So I want to give a holistic view of how the ideas that I will outline and explain in context could come to be held in such high esteem in this context. This approach of enquiry into the coherence of ideas in context was encouraged by the historical Buddha himself. Most of the unusual terms I will bring up will therefore be Sanskrit words (the other early language of Indian Buddhism was Pali and I will sometimes also use Pali words).

One caveat I have to add now is that what is written about a religion over the centuries (and 'Written Buddhism' is my focus) may be seen as reflecting only one “elite” aspect among many aspects that may have subsisted in the religion. However, it is without doubt to my mind the most certain evidence of religious developments over a millennium we have (and of the attempt to make a coherent whole of the ideas of a religion evident). It also reflects non-elite practices and ideas to the extent that it offers commentary upon them. This 'Written Buddhism' may perhaps be regarded as the (allegedly) coherent core around which other ideas developed.

This Buddha was also called Sakyamuni (meaning sage of the Sakya – his royal tribe). Siddhartha was his actual given name and Gautama was his family name. I will usually call him the historical Buddha or Siddhartha in these posts rather than just the Buddha or Buddha or Sakyamuni or Tathagata because, firstly, I am not a Buddhist. Secondly, as Buddhism developed, it came to be understood that Buddhas have existed before the man many people call the Buddha and more Buddhas are expected by most Buddhists in the future (one is expected, by many Buddhists, to arise roughly each 10,000 years). The historical Buddha is the one Buddha known to both history and some Buddhists as the Buddha but he was/is not the Buddha in the sense of being the only Buddha. Rather he was/is the historical Buddha. So I want to avoid the confusion that calling him the Buddha would cause. Also I write was/is because he may be understood by some Buddhists to still exist in some sense but not because I believe that.

Finally, as with other religions, Buddhism encountered schisms and we may be tempted to think of the existence of Buddhisms as some think of the existence of Islams and Christianities as a result, rather than that of sole valid representatives of a religion but I want to seek the core first as a way to understand Buddhism (and therefore also the schisms) better. It is clear that, if we are to believe in the logical coherence of Buddhism (we may not end up wishing to, of course), the historical Buddha, at least, must have validly taught only one coherent set of things and not several contradictory sets of things. So I will focus first (in the next few posts) on the origins.