Philological odds and ends I

Regular readers will know that I find words and the way they communicate meaning to us a fascinating subject. So I am always on the look out for interesting etymologies and derivations. In other posts I have mentioned alternate ways of understanding: yathābhūta, brahmacarya, dharaṇī, upādāna, ariyasacca, brahmavihara, and hīnayāna. There are one or two stories about words, that don't quite rate a post on their own, but that I would like to share.


Tathāgata

This is how the Buddha most often refers to himself. So you'd think that it would be clear and well understood, in fact the PED notes that in Pāli texts even non-Buddhists were supposed to understand it. However Buddhaghosa gives as many as eight possible derivations, of which two are most common. Firstly it is analysed as tathā + gata. Tathā is an adverb meaning "thus, so, in that way, likewise". Gata is a past-participle formed on the verbal root gam - gam if you don't know is wildly irregular, as a first person singular it is gacchāmi, as in "buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi". So this interpretation tells us that the noun means "thus-gone". This is not very helpful. Sometimes we are told that it means that the Tathāgata has gone to nibbāna, but this assumes that nibbāna is somewhere you can go, and this is not sustainable. PED notes that Mrs Rhys Davids suggested "he who has won through to the truth", but this is quite a leap from thus-gone.

A second, even less likely explanation analyses the word as tathā + āgata. This rests on a sandhi rule which says that ā + ā = ā, so it's not impossible. Āgata is again a past-participle, and means "come" (the ā- prefix indicates motion towards). In this case tathāgata is said to mean "thus-come", presumably a reference to the fact that a Tathāgata has manifested in the world (which has a Mahāyāna ring to it).

Prof. Richard Gombrich offers a way out. He points out (in the 2006 Numata lectures soon to be published as What the Buddha Thought by Equinox Publications) that as the second member of this kind of compound -gata loses its usual meaning and means simply 'being'. He gives an example from Coulson's Teach Yourself Sanskrit citragatā nārī means not "the woman has gone into the picture, but "the woman in the picture". On this model Gombrich suggests that tathāgata means something like "one like that". The fact the Buddha referred to himself as "one like that" is indicative of the impossibility of fully explaining his enlightened experience. Gombrich also notes that the term can apply to any enlightened person, for example at MN 1.140 :

Bhikkhus, when the gods... seek a bhikkhu who is liberated in mind, they cannot find anything... One thus gone (i.e. tathāgata) is untraceable here and now. (Alagaddūpama Sutta = MN 22, Ñāṇamoli, p.233)

On the same model we might say that another common epithet for the Buddha, sugata, probably means "one who is good or well".


Sūtra

I'm not sure who first realised that sūtra is a hyper-sanskritisation. I have seen it in a book by K.R. Norman who is an expert philologist and has published many detailed etymologies, but it seems to have become common knowledge. The story here is that the Buddhist use of the Sanskrit word sūtra is based on the mistaken notion that the Prakrit (especially Pāli) word sutta derives from the Sanskrit word sūtra. This is understandable since Pāli resolves almost all conjunct consonants to double consonants. But if you ever look at a Brahminical sūtra you can easily see that they are an entirely different genre of texts, with more in common with abhidhamma style texts - they are terse, almost like bullet points. There is none of the narrative style of the Buddhist sūtras. It is far more likely that sutta derives from another Sanskrit word, sūkta. Both sūkta and sūtra resolve to sutta in Pāli. Sūkta means well spoken from su + ukta. Su, as above, means "good or well". Ukta is a past participle formed (irregularly) on the verbal root vāc - speech or words. Sūkta is a name for the verses of the Vedas and it seems likely that this is another case of conscious imitation of Brahmins by Buddhists - other examples include Tevijja the Buddha's three kinds of special knowledge vs the three Vedas; and the three fires of greed, hatred and delusion vs the three sacred fires of the Vedic sacrificial enclosure. So the use sūtra by Buddhists derives from the early Prakrit traditions, and is called a hyper-sanskritisation because it seems like an over compensation - picking a familiar word and using that to make it sound pukka.

Śramaṇa

A śramaṇa (Pali samaṇa) was an ascetic practitioner in ancient India. In Buddhists texts they are very frequently contrasted with brāhmaṇa, the Brahmins, both ascetic and householders. The Buddha practised with śramaṇa teachers before his enlightenment and learnt meditation techniques from them. The root of the word is śrām meaning "to exert oneself, to labour, toil", but also "weariness". Incidentally it is the 'r' in the Sanskrit that forces the 'n' to become retroflex 'ṇ' and this is retained in the Pāli 'samaṇa'. Śrāma then, is toil, and a śramaṇa (short 'a' in this case) is one who toils, i.e. 'a toiler'. It can be used in various contexts so that Vedic texts for instance sometimes talk about exerting oneself in sexual intercourse, but most relevant to Buddhism is the exertion at tapas or the generation of heat, an ancient Vedic metaphor for ascetic practice. We also find it in the word āśrama (Anglicized to "asharam") - meaning a place of striving. What makes the word śramaṇa particularly interesting is that it found its way into English via quite a tortuous route.

Probably in its Prakrit form ṣamaṇa it was introduced into central Asia, where for instance in Tocharian it became ṣamāne. From where it made it's way to Chinese as sha men ( 沙门 or perhaps 沙弥 ) - a general term for Buddhist monks. Siberians then seem to have borrowed the word to describe their "shamans". It survives in the Evenki language, a member of the Tungus group of languages in Siberia as šamān. From here it entered the Russian vocabulary as shamán. In German this became schamane and then finally it was adopted in English in the familiar spelling, shaman, in 1698. The route is somewhat speculative, but plausible and makes for a good tale! This etymology is assembled from many sources, which contain a variety of spellings!

Loka

Loka is a word that gets quite a workout in Buddhist Pāli and Sanskrit. It is usually translated simply as 'world' but this can disguise its the background and connotations. The Sanskrit grammarians like to derive words as far as possible from notional verb roots. Loka is derived from the root lok. It means to see behold or perceive. It may be familiar to you in another form. In the name Avalokiteśvara it occurs in the word "avaloka" meaning 'look upon', hence the name in this form means "the Lord (īśvara) who looks upon [suffering beings with compassion]." Because of a fluidity around the syllables 'ra' and 'la' it is also related to the root rok meaning "light, lustre, brightness". The earliest uses, in the Ṛgveda, give the suggestion of a clear space in which one can see - perhaps a forest clearing. So the word has always had the connotation of perception and perceptual range - the world is just what one can see or percieve. It may be that this is an old Indo-European metaphor because we use world in this sense as well: e.g. "a world of his own". One of the Buddha's epithets in the Buddha Vandana is "lokavidhu" - knower of the world, ie one who knows his 'own world', or the 'perceptual world. In English the word comes to us, via Latin, in terms like location, local, and locus.


Gahapati/Gṛhapati

This is a term that is typically translated as house-holder but Jan Nattier points out that the implications of it are hidden by that translation. The term literally means house (gṛha) lord (pati) and she notes that there is a general consensus on translating it. However the context of use reveals that it indicates considerable financial means - Edgerton actually suggested "capitalist" in his dictionary of Buddhist Sanskrit. The term is also mentioned in lists of castes alongside brahmaṇa and kṣatriya, and the people to whom it is applied are usually merchants or guild leaders - Anathapiṇḍika's brother-in-law for instance is called gahapati. Nattier concludes that it most likely applies to someone of considerable influence and power, perhaps a "leading citizen" but who is not a member of the two higher castes. (Nattier, p.22ff.)


References

• Ñāṇamoli. 1995. The Middle Length discourses of the Buddha. Boston : Wisdom Publications.
• Nattier, Jan. 2003. A few good men : the bodhisattva path according to 'The inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). Honolulu : University of Hawai'i Press.

See also:

• Philological Odds and Ends II: cakravartin, cintāmaṇi, yoniso manasikara, pāramitā, etymology.
• Philological Odds and Ends III: bodhisattva, anagārikā, samyak/mithyā (Pāli sammā/micchā)
• Philological Odds and Ends IV: vrata, mitra, kavi

Ego... Again

I have written a number of times on the subject of 'ego' (Ego in the Spiritual Life, The Problem of Self-preoccupation, Anatta in Context). On the whole I seem to take a different line to mainstream Buddhist teachers. After a discussion recently I wanted to revisit this subject. Regular readers will know that for the past year or so I have been developing a particular take on the Dharma. My approach stems from my answer the the question: "What is it that arises in dependence in causes?" My answer is that the emphasis in the early Buddhist texts is that it is dharmas that arise in dependence on causes, and that in this context dharmas should be understood as mental objects, that is the mental equivalent of the objects of the physical senses. And having pursued this line of enquiry through my practice I have some faith that it is a very useful approach.

Today I was talking with a friend today who was insistent that it is "egotism, and self absorption" that causes us to make the kinds of errors that cause us suffering. I want to explore this idea again in the light of my recent thinking. I believe that this idea has it's origins in the refrain:

yad anattā taṃ netaṃ mama neso ‘haṃ asmi na meso attāti

That which is non-self, this is not mine, it is not 'I', it is not my self.

We find this phrase again and again in the suttas, but it doesn't stand alone. It is said in reference to the process of cognition or experience: the khandhas, i.e. the apparatus of experience; or about the objects of the senses, i.e. the contents of sensory experience. Sue Hamilton points out that although the lists are enumerated separately the overall emphasis is the identification with experience as a whole. It should be noted that in the Pāli texts the Buddha never categorically denies the existence of a self. So, rehearsing the argument: the Buddha explained that the apparatus and contents of experience are impermanent, and therefore unsatisfactory, and therefore non-self, and thus we are mistaken if we identify ourselves with them. I have already explained (Anatta in Context) that in my view this can, and perhaps should, be linked to the search for the Absolute (brahman) through the Self (ātman) which was a feature of many śramaṇa sects as well as most brāhmaṇa sects. The Buddha seems to have eschewed the search for absolutes of either existence or knowledge, although some later Buddhist philosophers went down the road of looking for them.

So how would I characterise the problem of egotism? Firstly we could say that egotism is self absorption; and secondly it is tied up with seeing the self as a manifestation of the Absolute. My earlier post on selflessness deals with the problem of self absorption, and I have dealt with absolutist thinking as well. Here I want to look at the perception of selfhood in relation to dharmas.

Why do we experience a self? This is a very vexed and difficult question, and one that has been addressed in many different ways with many different results depending on starting assumptions and method of argument. I like the idea put forward by Antonio Damasio in his book The Feeling of What Happens. Damasio proposes that the mental map of the body and it's processes underlies the sense of self. The process of maintaining the body in an optimum state requires us to be aware of how the body is now, and how it is changing. The basic question the system must answer "is the current state better or worse for survival?" When we add to this awareness of mental states, and awareness of being aware, then something like a sense of being a self contained, self aware 'being' emerges. Continuity is important in keeping the body in it's optimum state. Note that sentience or even consciousness is not required for this because even a single celled organism is capable of maintaining it's internal state as close to optimum as the environment will allow. And this is part of the reason I like Damasio. No extra entity - no homunculus or 'little person in the head' as he calls it - is necessary for this maintenance, but a sense of continuity emerges from the complexity of the task in the case of higher animals. An awareness over time, and under different conditions, gives us survival fitness. The fact that we are aware of being in relation to the past, and with reference to possible futures is what gives us a sense of personal continuity. Damasio points out that the state of awareness that underlies this is not in fact continuous itself, but is constantly being constructed and reconstructed. The upshot is that we are capable of very complex and long term behaviour in order to maximise our wellbeing. We need not go to the extreme of logical positivist inspired behaviouralism and claim that there is no such thing as mind and that there is only behaviour. We may not fully understand consciousness as we experience it, but we need not dismiss it, or dismiss those aspects which we don't understand as non-existent! My point is that self-awareness helps us survive, and gives us choices. Damasio's theory doesn't take into account our social nature for instance, and the extent to which identity and behaviour are influenced by social factors.

It's important to be clear that anyone who abandons concern for their own wellbeing, and/or acts to harm themselves is not admirable. Selflessness has it's limits - we must be concerned for our wellbeing at some level. Although there may be times when one might sacrifice one's life for another, on the whole we need to care for ourselves. Someone who does not maintain a positive sense of self may allow others to manipulate them, or to exploit them. We have to make decisions about how we behave under various circumstances. To do this we must have a sense of what is important to ourselves, a sense of personal values. There are all too many horrific examples of what happens when we abdicate moral responsibility to others. In short we must be a self, must be a strong and positive self, in order to function well as an individual and in society. Selfishness on the other hand is a lack of awareness of others. The counterpoint between self and other, and how we impact on one another is addressed in the first three of the six perfections.

Where the Buddha helps is in identifying the mistaken conclusions we come to on the basis of our self-awareness. Self awareness comes from bodily sensations, and from mental experiences and representations of sensations. The problem of egotism then boils down to coming to wrong conclusions about the nature of experience. We might seek to re-experience previous pleasures, or to experience new pleasures. I suppose we have all done this and so we know the answer to the question of whether or not it works. Pleasure can't be sustained, no experience can be. Similarly we go to extraordinary links to insulate ourselves from suffering - we may even cut ourselves off from society and community in order to do this. And again, having tried to escape suffering we know that it doesn't work. The Buddha asks us to pay attention to those doubts that come up when our attempts to organise the universe to our satisfaction fail to pay off. Rather than coming up with a yet more elaborate plan for happiness we need to stop, as far as we can, and pay attention to how experience actually works. One of the things that I've noticed is how little control I have over what goes on around me - I can't stop myself from having experiences. Some are pleasant, some are not, most are kind of neutral, but the flow of experience is never ending, except perhaps in the deepest stages of sleep. Even in the very attenuated and refined experience of meditation there is experience - which was the subject of my post on Communicating the Dharma.

So for me it is not that helpful to characterise our fundamental problem in terms of ego, or egotism. Egotism is an effect not a cause. It is an effect of a mistaken relationship to our moment to moment experience. And to my mind the place to attack the problem is at the root. Indeed this is a common Buddhist metaphor - don't muck about pruning the tree of craving, pull out the roots of it! I don't think we address being self-referential if we don't address the nature of the experience of self, and this draws ironically us away from the personal. I'm not likely to enjoy having someone trying to undermine my sense of self, or tell me that my self is bad. However I can see the logic of the error in judgement with relation to the senses, and I'm drawn to trying to deal with this problem.

In fact although the rhetoric is quite different the methods are more or less the same: ethics and meditation. But so often an attack on ego has a ring of unkindness about it. It's as though we are being blamed for causing the problem in the first place. I recall a well known Zen Roshi who wrote about suicide that it is fundamentally a selfish and egotistical act! I was struck by the insensitivity of this so-called 'master'! I believe that if they really understood the choice that no one would choose suffering, or that in good circumstances anyone would see suicide as a solution to their problems. We suffer through ignorance not through informed choice, and sometimes that suffering can feel unbearable. So blame is hardly appropriate.

Similarly I don't think that examining cause and effect in the world is necessarily going to help much, although more than one of my colleagues have argued against me on this point. Sure, gravity makes things fall, for instance, and erosion will eventually wear away a mountain. The objects of experience do change if we wait long enough. But if the problem at it's root is our moment to moment relationship to experience, and if our experience is changing in each moment, then oughtn't we to look at the experience rather than the object of experience for insight? Another way of saying it might be to examine statements like "no thing arises" - this is common in Mahāyāna circles and is recorded in the first line of the Arapacana acrostic. In which sphere is this true? I think this is a straightforward proposition if we are talking about the realm of experience; but it is nonsensical if we are focussing on the objects of experience. And unfortunately many Buddhists end up saying nonsensical things about the objective pole of experience!

The problem is not ego in relation to the objects of experience, not even ego per se, it is the very nature of experience itself that is the root of our problems. This is where we can make a real difference.

Asoka, Pāli, and some red herrings.

A few weeks ago I read a reference to a book on Indo-Aryan languages. I found the book in the University library and was immediately struck by the entry on Pāli. Pāli, the book says, is essentially a western Middle Ind0-Aryan dialect. This raised a number of questions for me if only because the Buddha lived in the East of India. So what was going on?

The Indo-Aryan languages are divided roughly into three periods. Old Indo-Aryan (OIA) is represented by the Vedic language of the Ṛgveda, but includes Classical Sanskrit. The Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) languages began to appear in inscriptions around the time of the Buddha - circa the 5th century BCE. These are often referred to as Prakrits and include Pāli. Although it's often assumed that all Indo-Aryan languages can be traced to Vedic, this is unlikely. Pāli and other Prakrits have antecedents in archaic OIA languages which existed in parallel to Vedic, but which are no longer extant. New Indo-Aryan (NIA) languages are the modern North Indian languages such as Hindi, Gujarati and Bengali.

The claim that Pāli is a western MIA dialect rests on its similarity to an Aśokan rock edict in Girnar (in modern day Gujurat). Girnar incidently was originally Girinagar or "Hill Town". This similarity between the Girnar edict and Pāli seems to have been originally noticed by Ettiene Lamotte. King Aśoka (c 272-231 BCE), whose empire centred on the town of Pāṭaliputra (present day Patna) had a number of these edicts carved into rocks around India, and also made some impressive stone pillars which carried inscriptions. The inscriptions cover a range of subjects including Aśoka's renunciation of violence, and his desire that everyone should live by the "dhamma". History tells us that Aśoka's grandfather, Chandragupta, had become a Jain ascetic late in life and it seems as though Aśoka might have emulated him in becoming a Buddhist.

The edicts are carved in a number of languages. In Bactria and Afghanistan they are in Greek or Aramaic because these were the local languages - legend says that Chandragupta Maurya was inspired in part by glimpsing Alexander on his rampage through Asia and into India, and it was Alexander who left Greek speaking people behind in that region. Aramaic was a relic of the Persians whom Alexander defeated. The other edicts are in forms of MIA. In Gāndhāra, the north-west of what is now Pakistan, the local dialect is now known as Gāndhārī. In the west another unnamed dialect was used. Finally in the east and south edicts were carved in what has come to be called Māgadhī - the language of Māgadha, and presumably of Aśoka himself.

It is usually said that Aśoka himself sent missions to far flung places to spread Buddhism, and especially that he sent one of his sons, Mahinda, down to Sri Lanka. The connection with Sri Lanka is very important because it was there that the texts were written down in Pāli. So at first glimpse it seemed that there was a puzzle here: why would Aśoka send missionaries bearing a collection of texts in a strange dialect? Why weren't the texts in Māgadhī? Theravāda legend says that Pāli is Māgadhī, but this idea has not been taken seriously by scholars for some decades.

In 1978 the great philologist K. R. Norman wrote:

"One thing is certain. The Pāli canon is not in the language of Aśoka's own capital; for the basic features of Māgadhī (s for all three sibilants, la for ra, and nominative singular in -e) are either lacking completely, or merely sporadic. (p.30)

The view finds authoritative support in Salomon's Indian Epigraphy where he reviews the writing in the Aśokan edicts. So until quite recently there seemed to be a consensus that Pāli was not Māgadhī and that it most closely resembles the language of the Girnar edict which is in the west, in what is present day Gujarat. So I began to construct a scenario which would account for this. Firstly I wondered whether the texts were in Pāli when they arrived in Sri Lanka - there is no account of their having been translated however. Next I discovered the traditional account in the Mahāvaṃsa, chapter thirteen of which tells that Asoka spent time in Avanti - a western province - where he was governor before taking up the throne in Māgadha. Here he had his son Mahinda with a local woman. Could this account for the language? I later discovered that Mahinda's origins in Avanti had already been considered as an answer to the language problem by Ettiene Lamotte (this is cited in one of K.R. Norman's many articles on the subject).

I also began to explore the history of the time. Asoka was not the last emperor of the Mauryan dynasty, but it did not long survive his death. And inscriptions in Māgadhī cease around this time. The Mauryan dynasty continued for a few decades until the last Mauryan king was assassinated by one of his generals who then founded the Śunga Dynasty. The Śungas are obscure but thought to be Brahmins who came from none other than the Avanti area in western India. It began to seem likely that the Śungas might have spread a western dialect into the East, and helped it to become the lingua franca in the last two centuries BCE. In fact the western dialect is found as far afield as Orissa and Amarāvati.

This seemed quite a likely answer to the question until I received replies to queries which I had sent to Dr Lance Cousins, and Prof. Richard Gombrich. Both said that the scholarly consensus is that Pāli is in fact Māgadhī, albeit heavily Sanskritised, and that Girnar also is best explained as a Sanskritised and partially localised version of Māgadhī. They both recommended reading more of K. R. Norman's recent work on this subject. This is no great hardship as Norman is a fascinating writer.

What Prof. Norman did was to compare in minute detail the language, spelling and writing of the edicts and construct a scenario which could account for the similarities and differences. Norman points out that the features of the Girnar inscription were not confined to the west, and that in fact there are many differences between the Girnar inscription and Pāli. In spoken language there was a general movement away from Sanskrit, with each local dialect or Prakrit changing at different paces. Different features of dialects could change at different rates as well. But at the same time Sanskrit was a powerful literary influence so that written texts were Sanskritised, or made to conform more to Classical Sanskrit. Asoka's edicts were written texts. Most likely they were dictated to a scribe who then made copies to be sent out to the regions to be carved into stone. Some edicts are clearly made from the same original, but show considerable variation in the skill and attention to spelling of the scribe or stone mason. Sometimes a local scribe has modified the original to be more Sanskrit, or more like the local dialect, and sometimes both. Sometimes he was just kak-handed, and sometimes working in a confined space that distorted the letters.

So by 1994 Norman's opinion had changed:

"It is clear that any conclusions about the origin of Pāli which are based upon the regional geography of the Aśokan inscriptions must be examined very carefully, and can be disregarded is they conflict with other evidence." and "If we disregard the evidence of the Aśokan inscriptions and assume that the situation in the second century reflects the pattern of dialect distribution in the third century, then it would be open to us to conclude that the dialect upon which Pāli was based had its home much nearer Magadha. " (p.8)

So it seems that the mystery is solved and ironically that the Theravāda legends were right all the time. Pāli is Māgadhī. Although over the years the written form of Pāli has been Sanskritised. This was partly under the influence of Sanskrit inspired Pāli grammar texts from Burma. We do know that Pāli continued to evolve because Buddhaghosa's Pāli is noticeably different from the language of the suttas.

A further red herring is revealed in Norman's 2004 paper on the Aśokan envoys. It's generally stated that Aśoka sent missionaries to convert people to Buddhism. Norman shows however that although Aśoka did send missions, they were not Buddhist missions but political missions. Aśoka was trying to convince people to give up war, not convert to Buddhism. Buddhist missions were sent, but these mainly went to different places, and sent different kinds of people, namely bhikkhus. And they were sent by Moggaliputta Tissa, not by Aśoka. Norman says:

There is every reason for thinking that the Buddhists did not even know of Aśoka's dhamma and his dūtas [envoys], otherwise we might have expected them to mention Aśoka in connection with the thera [ie religious] missions, in the same way that they mention him in connection with the third saṅgitī [i.e. council]." (2004: p.196)

We seem to have conflated two stories here which when one reads the evidence closely are distinct. Why? Norman speculates that it is because scholars have not read the edicts themselves and so are lead by other writers (who themselves may not have read them). Unless we make the effort to learn the languages then there is no way for us to know for ourselves!

This whole subject is a fascinating case study in the dynamics of scholarship of this type. This has all happened within my lifetime. It shows that just because something is in a book, even what appears to be an authoritative book (such as an impressive university text on languages), and backed up by other authoritative sources, it must still be evaluated. It is possible even for careful and talented scholars, familiar with the languages of the texts, to be in error - how much more so for those with no Pāli, Sanskrit or Prakrit (etc) relying on others to interpret texts for them. It shows how difficult it can be to be well informed on a subject, although writing in 2003 I wonder if Cardona and Jain can really be excused for not being cognisant of Norman's articles. The Pali Text Society have conveniently collected Norman's articles into eight hard bound volumes but these are not likely to be in your local library. Many of the articles are quite readable, but it's better to have some background in Indian history, geography, and languages. Not many of us have the time or inclination to do what needs to be done, so we have a tendency to propagate urban myths and hearsay.

• Cardona , George and Jain, Dhanesh (eds). 2003. The Indo-Aryan Languages. London : Routledge.
• Norman, K. R. - in Collected Works (dates are the original publication date):
  • Aśokan envoys and Buddhist Missionaries. 2004. (Vol VIII, p.183)
    
  • The Aśokan inscriptions and the Prakrit dialect geography. 1994. (Vol. VI, p.1)
    
  • The Language in which the Buddha taught. (vol.II, p.84):
  • The Role of Pāli in early Sinhalese Buddhism. 1978. (Vol II, p.30)
    
  • The Dialects in which the Buddha preached. 1991. (vol.II, p.128):
  • The Origin of Pali and its place among the Indo-European Languages. 1992. (vol.III, p.225):
• Salomon, Richard. 1998. Indian epigraphy : a guide to the study of inscriptions in Sanskrit, Prakrit, and the other Indo-Aryan languages. Oxford University Press.

Did King Ajātasattu Confess to the Buddha, and did the Buddha Forgive Him?

In lieu of a blog post this week I would like to draw your attention to my recent publication in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics: Did King Ajātasattu Confess to the Buddha, and did the Buddha Forgive Him? In this article I explore a passage from the Sāmaññphala Sutta (DN 2). This is the well known account of the meeting between King Ajātasattu and the Buddha. At the end of the discourse the king becomes a lay disciple and then confesses to the Buddha that he has killed his father, King Bimbisāra. The article begins with a translation problem. Although the action clearly describes a confession, the word often translated as confession - paṭikaroti - means no such thing. In trying to establish what the word does mean I looked at every occurrence in the suttas, and the Pāli commentaries on them, showing that the text uses a stock phrase (or pericope) which is employed in many different settings. This highlighted a feature of Buddhist confession which is distinct from religious confession in the west - that it does not involve reparation or making amends (despite what the translators say!).

In order to better understand what is happening I locate the action in the context of the early Buddhist theory of karma, and in the broader religious context of the day. The latter was deeply concerned with ritual purity, and, having been polluted with the return to ritual purity. The Buddha reinterpreted ritual purity as ethical purity, and confession in early Buddhism is a way of returning to ethical purity. The results of karma cannot be avoided, hence there is no reparation, no requirement to make amends in the confession. However through spiritual practice - including ethical purity - one can avoid creating new karmic results (kamma-vipaka), but crucially one can also reduce the impact of karmic consequences. I believe this is because we become more emotionally robust through spiritual practice, and that we are more able to contain painful vedanā (experience, sensation, feeling). To put it another way we are less likely to be blown off course by the worldly winds. The king however is doomed to rebirth in hell because patricide is an "unforgivable" offence. In fact this fate is undone in later version of the story which are preserved in Chinese translations of the sutta and a Sanskrit frgament. Here the charisma of the Buddha is such that it help Ajātasattu escape his fate. This change is one that deserves more attention but I don't speak Chinese!

Having established what the story is telling us I revisit the phrase 'yathadhamma paṭikaroti' around which the action hinges. I have shown by this point that previous translators (T W R Rhys Davids, Maurice Walsh) have misunderstood this term, and that the Pali-English Dictionary has also misunderstood it. There is no sense of "making amends" in any of the suttas which use this phrase, only of returning to ethical purity. In fact the phrase is difficult to translate into English and I have tentatively suggested that "Dharmically counteract" at least accurately renders the sense of the Pāli. Being an unattractive phrase it is unlikely to catch on, but I couldn't think of anything better.

A subsidiary issue arises in that some translators (Piya Tan, Ñāṇamoli) have understood Ajātasattu to be asking forgiveness and the Buddha to be offering forgiveness. I show that this does not make sense in the context, and it does not make sense in terms of Buddhist doctrine. The king is merely asking the Buddha to acknowledge his resolution to be ethical in the future, and the Buddha acknowledges the intention as an intention. Nothing more.

In early Buddhism confession is mostly associated with the bhikkhu sangha, but as my article shows confession clearly was part of a more general religious landscape with laypeople and even non-Buddhists confessing evil actions. One minor point which I make is that it is the actions which are done foolishly, in confusion, and unskillfully (yathābālaṃ yathāmūḷhaṃ yathā-akusalaṃ). Most translators change the adverb into an adjective describing the person rather than the action. This is consistent with Judeo-Christian ideas of culpability, but not with Buddhist views.

I hope this little precis will encourage people to read the whole article. Those with no Pāli at all may find the first couple of pages a bit daunting, but it soon settles down to discussing the implications, so don't be discouraged!


P.S. some of the ideas that emerged while researching this article have already appeared in blog posts: follow the link to other blog posts on confession.

Rethinking Indian History

In discussing the time of the Buddha it is axiomatic, especially in Buddhist accounts, that Brahminism was the main religion of the Āryan peoples who dominated the Ganges valley at that time. Buddhism is sometimes seen as a reaction against Brahmin orthodoxy, or even as a reform movement within it. While the latter view is clearly ridiculous, the former is backed up by many satirical and polemical texts which have Brahmins, and and their religion, in their sights. I have written about some of these before. The Brahmins are credited with the ideas of karma and rebirth, and with the idea of ātman as an immutable essence of the person. Also at this time, often viewed as an offshoot of Brahmanism were the Śramaṇa movements which denied the Vedic authorities and held a wild variety of views about the world and pursued a variety of religious practices, the most characteristic being severe austerity. Recently scholars have proposed a different model of India in the 5th century BCE in which the Brahmins were not dominant in the Magadha region and, in fact, did not become so until around the beginning of the common era.

Prof. Johannes Bronkhorst, building on a lifetime of Indological research, proposes that although speaking Indo-Āryan languages the Magadhans - centred around the area of modern day Bihar - were culturally distinct from the Brahmins of the western Kuru-pañcala region - the area around modern day Delhi. Bronkhorst suggests that, in fact, Brahmins saw the eastern Ganges valley region as wild and highly undesirable. Brahmins were moving Eastwards, none the less, and creating the conditions to extend their hegemony.

The idea of two cultures eventually merging is supported by archaeological evidence in the form of styles of pottery. One of the features which differentiated the Magadhans was the making of round funeral mounds (precursors of the stūpa). The Brahmins, who preferred square mounds, left negative comments about them in their texts. The two cultures preferred, at least for some time, different styles of government. A feature of Māgadha, for instance, was the small oligarchical state. It was in this kind of state, where a small number of senior men governed, that the Gotama the Buddha was said to have been born. Other Māgadhan states were more like city states ruled over by a king. Geoffrey Samuel, who has independently proposed a two culture model, suggests that the two regions developed contrasting images of kingship: the warrior king (cakravartin) and the wisdom king (dharmarājā) were associated with the western and eastern ends of the Ganges Valley.

Meanwhile, in Māgadha the śramaṇa tradition was developing a series of new religious ideas which were to revolutionise the Brahmin world view. It was in Māgadha that the three notions which came to define Indian religion were developed: karma, rebirth, and ātman (the immutable Self). Contrary to the received tradition, Bronkhorst argues that the early Upaniṣads show the Brahmins in the process of assimilating these ideas. They show at times, for instance in the Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad (BU), a form of rebirth (actually redeath, punarmṛtyu) not linked to karma; and then in the same text, in a section believed to be later in time, a version of rebirth linked to actions in life. In the first chapter of BU ātman often means simply "body".

The Jains believed that all actions - both voluntary and involuntary - accumulated 'dust' on the jīva or soul. This weighs the soul down to earth. Austerity can burn up old karma, allowing the soul to be lightened and eventually liberated. They therefore pursued self-mortification to extremes. It was this kind of practice which the Buddha is said to have engaged in during his time as an ascetic. The Ājivakas, although believing in the notion of karma, did not believe that it could be mitigated, and so were more or less fatalistic - one could be liberated but it would take 8,400,000 aeons whatever you did. However, both believed that, actions having consequences, the best thing to do was not to act, and this taken to the extreme resulted in lying down and dying from starvation or thirst. A less extreme version of this was to refrain from moving for long periods of time, and to reduce food to an absolute minimum - the basis of their austerity practices. It was the Ājivakas who first developed the idea of a 'self' which did not participate in the actions of the person, and was not sullied by the consequences of such actions - although it was still bound to continual rebirth.

Karma, Rebirth, and an independent eternal self were to become the pre-occupations of the Brahmins as we see in the Bhagavadgītā, a text which seems to define modern Hinduism if any text can. Brahmins gave rebirth their own spin. Karma changed from being the special ritual actions associated with the sacrifice, to being actions performed in accordance with one's caste duty (dharma). The self is shown by Kṛṣṇa to be untouched by actions and thus it is Arjuna's caste duty to slaughter his relatives in battle, and he is not to worry since the ātman (either his or his relatives') cannot be killed or stained by the apparently 'sinful' action of murder. What emerges in the earliest Upaniṣads is a kind of hybrid of the old Vedic sacrificial religions - with the gods Indra, Soma, Agni at the centre - and the new ideas which featured Brahman as a kind of universal principle, and as time went on as Brahmā a creator god.

Signe Cohen has shown that the Upaniṣads, as well as recording the ideas of the new hybrid Brahminism, highlight internal issues of authority. The Bṛhadāranyaka, for instance, asserts the value of the Yajurveda over the much older Ṛgveda. This can be seen in the pre-eminent position of Yajñavalkya (the legendary composer of the Yajurveda) and the relatively lowly Ṛgvedic priests whom he defeats in debates, and one of whom is shown being taught by a Kṣatriya which is a reversal of the Brahminical social order. So there were tensions within parts of the Brahmin community, with innovators vying for influence. Significantly, the Bṛhadāranyaka is associated with the eastern extreme of the Brahminical heartland - where it would have had a greater exposure to the new ideas. Although it is common to speak of "Upaniṣadic" ideas, practices, or texts, in fact, the Upaniṣads are very heterogeneous - both compared to each other and even, at times (in the BU, for instance), when comparing sections within a text.

Buddhism developed on the margins of Māgadha where it overlapped with the Brahminical territory. The Buddha rejected the mainstream Māgadhan religious views of the Jains and Ājivakas; rejected the new hybrid Brahmanism being developed by eastern Brahmins, often associated with the Yajurveda traditions; and rejected the traditional Vedic sacrificial religion. However, he appears to have been quite knowledgeable about each of them - at least enough to compose satires and polemics.

In my own research I have been exploring parallels in idiom between the Pali texts and the early Upaniṣads, especially the BU. The fact that the Pāli texts are aware of the themes and idioms of the BU may previously have suggested that the Buddha might have known about this text - taking into account that it was an oral tradition with several versions. However, we now have to be more cautious. The early Upaniṣads are dated earlier than the Buddha on the basis that the earliest Buddhist texts seem to be aware of Upaniṣadic themes. But now we may say that the Buddhists were as likely to be responding to these ideas in Jain or Ājivaka circles. Both BU and the Pāli texts might have been drawing on a common pool of Māgadhan ideas and language. And actually this makes better sense, because the Brahmins were jealous of their teachings and tended to keep them secret! Not being a Brahmin (by most accounts anyway, and despite having a good Brahmin surname - Gautama!) the Buddha wasn't in a position to know the contents of the secret teachings (which is one way of translating the word 'upaniṣad'). If the secret teachings were in fact a Brahminical adaptation of Māgadhan teachings, which the we can be fairly sure the Buddha was exposed to, then this would better explain their presence in the Pāli texts. We also know that some Pāli texts, particularly the Dhammapada, seem to have drawn on a common pool of wisdom verses which were not specifically Buddhist or Brahminical.

This is a very different picture of history. Admittedly it is somewhat speculative and will need to be tested with further research - the book is only a year old and likely only to be available in university libraries, although it draws on Bronkhorst's many previous publications. However, I think it is plausible, and that is already corroborated by Samuel and to some extent by Cohen. It is certainly a more nuanced view of India circa 500 BCE. Some work remains to be done to reassess earlier research to see if what we already know makes more sense in this framework than it did previously. My initial feeling is that it does make more sense.

One thing that it highlights is the folly of trying to understand the socio-historical aspects of Buddhism without reference to the context which the Buddha operated in. Certain ideas and practices make better sense in a broader perspective than Buddhists are usually operating in. Sadly, Bronkhorst's book is a very expensive item at more than £130, and not likely to be available outside major university libraries. But you should be able to get your local public library to get it on "Inter-Library Loan". Cohen is similarly very expensive, but happily Samuel's is more reasonably priced and a good read.


Reading

• Bronkhorst, Johannes. 2007. Greater Magadha : studies in the culture of early India. Leiden : Brill.
• Cohen, Signe. 2008. Text and authority in the older Upaniṣads. Leiden : Brill
• Samuel, Geoffrey. 2008. The Origins of Yoga and Tantra : Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge University Press.

Alexander Wynn has just published a thoughtful review of Greater Magadha on H-net reviews.

Is Karma responsible for Everything?

Recently a friend asked my opinion about a verse from Vāseṭṭha Sutta in the Sutta Nipāta. It was being cited as a proof text for the idea that karma (ours and other peoples) is the sole source of all our experience. The question of what karma is responsible for is one that seems to come up again and again. Partly because there are so many versions of what karma really is or means. The Sutta Nipāta is generally considered to have been composed quite early - the last two chapters are often said to be the oldest layer of the Pāli Canon. Saddhatissa's translation of the verse was quoted so let's start there, and then I'll work through the verse one phrase at a time:

The world exists because of causal actions,
all things are produced by causal actions
and all beings are governed and bound by causal actions.
they are fixed like the rolling wheel of a cart,
fixed by the pin of its axle shaft. (p.75)

The Pali is

1a | Kammunā vattati loko,
1b | kammunā vattati pajā;
2a | Kammanibandhanā sattā,
2b | rathassāṇīva yāyato. (Sn 654)

Now the Sutta Nipāta is notoriously difficult to translate due to the archaic language. A more literal translation would be:

"The world exists through actions, offspring exist through actions;
Beings are bound to actions, driven like a horse-chariot axle pin."

or perhaps -

"The world is moved by actions, people are moved by actions;
Beings are fettered by actions, driven like a horse-chariot axle pin."

"The world" (loka) is a metaphor for one's inner world of experience - it should be read this way in almost every case. It's an old Vedic metaphor which we share when we say things like - "he lives in a world of his own". I note that the text is a discussion with two Brahmins so it shouldn't be a big surprise to find Vedic overtones in the language. A 'loka' was originally an open space, like a clearing in the forest, in which one could see clearly. So phrase 1a (ie 1st line, 1st phrase) means that the world of experience is driven by kamma - crucially we keep experiencing vedanā because vedanā is the result of previous kamma. The Pāli texts are clear that vedanā is the result (vipaka) of kamma - i.e. only the broad outlines of one's experience, the pleasure and pain, are the result of kamma, not the specific details of what causes the experience. As we know unenlightened experience is dukkha, and can argue in this case that world (loka) and suffering (dukkha) are equivalents. In effect 1a is a less sophisticated way of saying greed, hatred and delusion keep saṃsara going.

The verb vattati (repeated in phrase 1b) can mean "to move, or go; to be, exist; to fare, to do" - i.e. it has the same broad reference of other Pāli verbs for "to be" like bhavati. Note the dynamic aspect that our English "to be" often lacks. Given the image at the end we might also have translated it: "is powered by": as in "experience is powered by kamma". This would also make sense. The Pali English Dictionary (PED) says that in this context it means "keeps up, goes on". Which is more or less the same thing. The idea is that kamma is what "drives" the process. In 2b the verb is yāyati which does mean "to drive". Recall also that the Buddha redefined kamma: cetanāhaṃ, bhikkhave, kammaṃ vadāmi - I say, monks, that intention (cetanā) is kamma (AN vi.63). In this light I'm not convinced that "causal action" is any more helpful as a translation than simply "action" - it might have been better to leave kamma untranslated.

The purpose of phrase 1b is to link rebirth to kamma. This may seem a strange point to make, but in a Vedic context it was important because early Brahminical versions of rebirth did not link it to kamma (see the first chapter of the Bṛhadāranyaka Upaniṣad for instance where is it known as 'redeath' and not linked to kamma, or to ātman!). Calling people "pajā", although a common usage, may well be a reference to Pajāpati (Sanskrit Prajāpati) the Vedic god of creation and father of all beings, i.e. it once again suggests a Vedic flavour in this passage.

In phrase 2a beings (sattā) are bound (bandhanā) by their kamma. That is, having acted you must live with the consequences. This is a distinction from other kamma theories which state that you can burn-up old kamma by experiencing suffering now. That idea is associated in the Pali Canon with the Jains who did severe austerities and self-torture, sometimes as a prelude to starving themselves to death in pursuit of liberation. For the Buddha there are ways (basically general spiritual practices) to lessen the impact of kamma-vipaka, but not to avoid it altogether. (I write about this in my article for the Journal of Buddhist Ethics). Bandhu was the Vedic word for the very important relationships between mirco- and macro-cosm, between earth and heaven. Understanding and manipulating bandhu was the central function of the Brahmin priests. So again this is drawing on Vedic idiom.

Phrase 2b finishes with a image that sums up the verse. The phrase is parsed as ratha assa āṇī va yāyato. It is driven (yāyato) only or like (iva or eva elided to va following a long vowel) a horse-chariot (rathassa) wheel pin (āṇī *). Saddhatissa sees this image as reinforcing the idea that we are bound (bandhanā) to the results of our actions and tries to bring this out in his translation. The past-participle yāyato means "driven" - it's an intensive for of yāti "to go, go on, proceed, to go away". PED gives as an example "yāyena yāyati to drive in a carriage". The image seems to relate 'the bond' to the driving in of a wheel pin - presumably these were wedge shaped and were hammered into place to hold the wheel on chariot. So there is a further sense that kamma is what keeps the wheels on the carriage, that it keeps the whole business of suffering going. The use of yāyato reinforces this as it suggests motive power - kamma being what keeps the wheel of saṃsāra turning. The horse chariot was powerfully associated with the Brahmins in the Vedic period, although I'm not sure if that would hold in the Buddha's time and place. The horse chariot was a war chariot, a symbol of royal power and of conquest; whereas the ox-cart was a more agricultural vehicle. So perhaps here also the Buddha is using Vedic imagery to suit his audience?

I think Saddhatissa has erred by introducing the word "all" into the translation - it makes the text sound too absolute. There is nothing here that could be translated as "all things". Clearly also there is nothing here to suggest that "all events" are, or that "everything" is, the result of kamma.

The idea that everything that happens is a result of kamma is a common enough wrong view to have a name: Pubbekata-hetu-ditthi (literally "the with-past-actions-as-cause view"). For a canonical discussion of this you could try the Devadaha Sutta (Majjhima Nikāya 101). Bhikkhu Thanissaro's version on Access to Insight comes with a useful introduction. A problem for contemporary Buddhists is that this version of karma - i.e. that everything that happens is the result of previous actions - is taught by Tibetan Buddhist teachers. I don't see any way of reconciling these views - they are mutually exclusive. But then my own take on kamma/karma and belief in general is pragmatic: if what you belief about karma makes you a better person (less greedy, angry, ignorant; more generous, loving, wise etc.) and helps you to see that experiences are impermanent, unsatisfying, and insubstantial; then I don't think it's so important what you believe. I've talked about this aspect of belief in a couple of earlier essays: Karma and Rebirth; Beliefs can be Heaven or Hell. For another interesting view on Karma look at Nagapriya's article for Tricycle Magazine: Donating the Future.

One final note on the possible presence of Vedic metaphors and terms. Firstly I may be overstating this connection. But even if I am not, then secondly we need only assume that the Buddha was using language which he knew would be familiar to his audience. Importantly we don't need to assume that the Buddha bought into the Vedic world view. It does suggest that the Buddha might have been familiar with some of the ideas of Brahmins, and there is plenty of other evidence to back this up. He may well have acquired this familiarity in religious debates which were a feature of life in the Buddha's time, rather through having studied the Vedas. Indeed the latter is unlikely if only because the Buddha was not a Brahmin, and therefore excluded from learning Sanskrit and studying the texts.


Note

* The word āṇi has an interesting history. It is attested in the oldest parts of the Ṛgveda (e.g. RV 5.43.8) but appears not to be an Indo-Aryan word, i.e. not from a language related to Vedic or Sanskrit or any of their variants and offshoots. Previously it was thought to be a loan word from the linguistically unrelated Dravidian family, now most commonly associated with South India and represented in the present by Telegu, Malayalam, and Tamil. However Michael Witzel (1998 p.18), has shown that this is unlikely, and in fact scholars of Dravidian languages saw it as a loan-word from Indo-Aryan! Witzel suggests that it is one of about 200-250 loan words from an archaic form of a Munda language. This suggests that Munda was the language originally spoken in the Kurukṣetra which came to be the heartland of the Vedic speaking peoples. Munda is a member of the Austro-Asiatic family of languages which includes Thai, Malay, Cambodian and Vietnamese. The Munda speaking people are often called "tribals" and live on the margins of Indian society, some maintaining a nomadic lifestyle. If any group could be considered aboriginal in India it is them. Their religions are animistic, and I want at some point to see if they share any of the animistic beliefs found in early Buddhism.

Reading

• Saddhatissa, H. 1985. The Sutta-Nipāta. Richmond, Surrey: Curson Press, 1994.
• Devadaha Sutta. MN 101. Access to Insight. Includes a useful introduction to the text by Bhikkhu Thanissaro.
• Nagapriya. 2009. 'Donating the Future.' Tricycle Magazine Website.
  
• Witzel, Michael. 1998. 'The Languages of Harappa : Early linguistic data and the Indus civilization.' in J. Kenoyer (ed.) Proceedings of the conference on the Indus civilization, Madison 1998. provisional. pdf

Life, the Universe, and Everything!

In the Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy Douglas Adams writes about a race of pan-dimensional beings who decide that they are going to solve the ultimate question, the question of life, the universe, and everything, once and for all! To do this they design a gigantic computer which they call Deep Thought. Having agreed that an answer is possible, Deep Thought says he'll have to think about it, and seven million years later announces that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is... "forty-two". In the ensuing mayhem he suggests that perhaps if they knew more precisely what the question was, then the answer would make sense. Buddhists are in a similar position. We think we know that the answer to life, the universe, and everything is - dependent arising - paticcasumuppada! - but have we have really understood the question.

We Buddhists typically see dependent arising as a kind of general theory of causation, i.e. we see it as a way to understand 'the world', aka Reality. The most general form of this would be something like: "some variety of shit happens (to you) because of (your) karma". Certainly we are reborn because of "our karma". Karma - that is actions carried out in the past, possibly a past life - is our explanation for "the problem of evil", or why bad things happen to good people. All this can be quite confusing because it sounds like we are saying that if something bad happens to you, then you deserve it. Most of us hasten to add that this is not what we mean - because most of us are white middle-class liberals and God forbid that anything that happens to anyone should be their own fault. No, we blame society! I mock, but in fact it is difficult to state the theory of karma to a non-believer without immediately having to engage in some spectacular back-peddling. At worst we might fall back on saying that there aren't really any beings to suffer anyway (let me know if you think this as I'd like to try poking you in the eye to see what happens - it's my version of Johnson refuting Berkeley). In fact the doctrine of karma is not a very good solution to the problem of evil because with it we invoke a supernatural agency (even if we don't think of it those terms, that is in fact what it is). Why the Buddha appears to have accepted a theory of karma is another story.

Most people if asked the old chestnut - if a tree falls in a forest, and no one observes it, does it still make a sound? - would unhesitatingly answer "of course it does!" This is what we call "common sense". Western philosophy is all about humans' relationship with 'the world' (more or less). We believe in an world external to us that we participate in, and that doesn't disappear when we stop looking. And on the whole this view is justified because the world patently doesn't disappear when we stop looking, or at least it must instantaneously wink in and out of existence when we blink, but stay present to others who are not blinking, which seems a bit ridiculous - it would be the most astounding feat of engineering and I can think of no possible explanation for such a thing. We also share many perceptions about that world, which seems to deny that it is entirely personal and private.

At this point some innocents are wont to invoke Quantum Mechanics - but having studied this subject at university I'm convinced that no lay person really understands the implications of it, because very few of us are capable of imagining the sub-atomic world, and quantum effects are not visible on a macro scale (ie anything bigger than a single atom). For instance you don't change this essay by reading it. Although on that basis you could say that Wikipedia is subject to quantum fluctuations as readers often do change the text. In any case the Buddha didn't have any notion of science let alone quantum mechanics. So let's leave science to one side - it is on the whole part of the problem for us (which deserves a post on it's own).

Now if you comb through the Pali Canon I'm willing to bet you a small sum of money that you will not find the Buddha saying: "OK monks, listen up, I'm going to teach you about the world out there, and how it all comes into being", except in a couple of ironic texts where he makes fun of people that think like this. The Brahmin Jāṇussoṇi asks the Buddha (SN 12:47) does everything exist (sabbamatthi) or does everything not exist (sabbaṃ n'atthi)? Neither explanation fits the case, and the Buddha draws Jāṇussoṇi's attention to the process of experience. Similarly the bhikkhus were often asked what the Buddha taught:

‘‘Idha no, bhante, aññatitthiyā paribbājakā amhe evaṃ pucchanti – ‘kimatthiyaṃ, āvuso, samaṇe gotame brahmacariyaṃ vussatī’ti? Evaṃ puṭṭhā mayaṃ, bhante, tesaṃ aññatitthiyānaṃ paribbājakānaṃ evaṃ byākaroma – ‘dukkhassa kho, āvuso, pariññatthaṃ bhagavati brahmacariyaṃ vussatī’ti. SN 45.5

We get asked by wanderers from other traditions, bhante, "what is the point of practising the spiritual life under the ascetic Gotama". We reply "the point of practising under the fortunate one is the complete understanding of suffering [dukkha]".

The Buddha reassures the monks in this story that this is exactly what he would say. What the Buddha teaches is not philosophy, not religion, not a system of any kind. What he teaches is more pragmatic. The point of practising Buddhism is the understanding of suffering - how it arises and how to make it cease. Anything that helps us to understand suffering is included. Views about 'the world' are not. I have discussed the term dukkha in my post on Dhammapada verses 1 - 2. It has a broad reference including anything unpleasant, and perhaps all of conditioned experience.

We westerners on the other hand, despite 100 years of psychology, are still focussed on our relationship with 'the external world' and try to apply dependent arising to that world - the common sense world that we instinctively know is there. In the process we make the kind of causality the Buddha is interested in (the cause of suffering) a special case. I don't deny causality, just as I don't deny the likelihood that some kind of world exists independently of my perceiving it. There is quite apparently cause and effect in the world. To paraphrase Sue Hamilton reality and causality are not in question, but neither are they the question either. The question is one of experience, and especially why do we experience suffering? And the answer lies in understanding the process of having an experience, especially the apparatus of experience (aka the khandhas).

A general theory of causality is superfluous to Buddhism, although not superfluous per se. All we need to know according to the Buddha, is what causes us to experience suffering, and that knowledge will come when we understand the mechanics of experience. This is why, incidentally that we don't have to worry about the difficulties of confirming or denying reality and causality - for the Buddha these were givens and all the interesting stuff happens in our (subjective) experience. We only have our senses and our minds as sources of knowledge and no direct access to an external world. Some people have seen in this a relationship to the Empiricist trend in philosophy, but the empiricists were interested in gaining knowledge of the world, and did not think that the mind could be a source of such knowledge. So the two projects are quite different.

Any other kind of explanation is avisayasmin - one of my favourite words at present. It is made up of a- + visaya + -asmin and is a bit tricky to render into English. Visaya is an area or place. The negative prefix is usually a negation, but a "non-place" seems like a contradiction in terms, so avisaya is 'not a place'. The suffix -asmin is the locative case ending so it means "in a non-place", or perhaps "in the wrong place" which is my current preferred translation. It relates to one's sphere of interest and occurs in the Sabba Sutta which I am researching at present. The Buddha says that looking for answers to dukkha outside of one's experience, outside of the six senses and their objects, is looking in the wrong place.

We're now in a position to consider the question to which the answer might be 'dependent arising'. The question is about suffering, about dukkha. What is the end of suffering like? It is like extinguishing a flame - if you deprive a fire of fuel, it is extinguished. How does suffering arise? It arises in dependence on conditions - sense organ and sense object come together with sense consciousness and create a cascade of knowledge (vid/jñā) in us, but unfortunately we misunderstand this knowledge hence we suffer. Sense experiences, then, are the fuel (upadana) for suffering. It will no doubt be argued that this is not the only question with this answer - we like to see "things" arising in dependence on conditions as well. But in the context of Buddhism this is the question that counts.

A certain amount of savvy about the world is, however, quite useful. I couldn't for instance communicate these thoughts without it. Buddhists tend to make this subject very confusing - they say things like "it doesn't really exist" which is confusing (and wrong I think). If you want to understand our relationship with the world then we might be better off turning to thinkers like John Locke, George Berkeley, David Hume, and Immanuel Kant. The first three have the distinct advantage for my readers in that they wrote in English and not Sanskrit. They, unlike the Buddha, were interested in our relationship with the world. Of course there have been many great thinkers since then. George Lakoff stands out for me.

The history of western philosophy is a history of trying to understand the world and our relationship to it. Early Buddhism did not share this enthusiasm. However Indian philosophy more generally was concerned with similar issues and over time this concern with 'the world' crept into Buddhism too. So in a way it's no wonder that we see dependent arising as a general theory of causation - for most strains of Buddhism it's part of the curriculum these days. Sadly I think this has fed our interest in the world as an external reality - we even talk about bodhi as "insight into Reality" - and this draws our attention to the wrong thing (ayoniso manasikāra). The wrong thing, that is, if our intention is to end suffering.


SN = Saṃyutta Nikāya

Reading

For good introductions to Western Philosophy including the British Empiricists and their successors you could try:

• Magee, Bryan. 1997. Confessions Of A Philosopher. London : Pheonix
• Tarnas, Richard. 1991. The Passion of the Western Mind: Understanding the Ideas That Have Shaped Our World View. London : Pimlico (1996).

For George Lakoff start with: 1981. Metaphors We Live by. Chicago University Press.

image: wallpaper from www.pulsarmedia.eu

A Pronouncement on Pronunciation.

Someone recently asked me whether or not it was important to pronounce mantras correctly. I was surprised to find that I hadn't written much on the subject - only some notes on pronunciation on my other website visiblemantra.org. In another essay on that website I distinguish three contexts for mantra use, and I'll use that framework here as well. There are mantras as used in Tantric rituals, mantras used in devotional settings, and informal mantras that people chant outside or any ritual or formal practice situation.

Let's start with a little background. Mantras as you may know were central to the ancient Vedic religion. The term mantra is first used for verses made up and declared on the spot in competitions associated with the sacrifices. Over time they were formalised and then collated into the collection known as the Ṛgveda. Although this collection itself was fixed around 1500 BCE the Vedic religion kept developing and mantras underwent changes, especially in the Sāmaveda and the Yajurveda, thought to have been composed during the period around 1200-800 BCE. In the Sāmaveda the mantras were set to tunes, and frequented had syllables called stobha added to fit different meters. In the Yajurveda the mantras were incorporated into instructions for performing the rituals - it was here that oṃ was used for the first time.

Brahmins were centred in the area of the Kurukṣetra (the realm of the Kuru's, near modern day Delhi) and did not begin to move east until quite late. In fact they saw the eastern Ganges valley (Johannes Bronkhorst calls this area Greater Magadha) as barbarous. This is probably because up to about the common era the dominant socio-political and religious forms were not Brahminical. In Greater Magadha the religious sphere was dominated by the Śramaṇa groups (the word means 'toilers' ) like the Jains and Ājivakas who had ideas and practices which were very different from the sacrificial religion of the Vedas. However both influenced each other, and it is possible to see that earliest Upaniṣads as showing the assimilation of ideas such as rebirth, karma, and ātman from the Śramaṇas.

The Buddha was born in Greater Magadha, and therefore would have been unlikely to have been influenced by Brahmins in his early life. However gradual migration of Brahmins eastward had continued, and they are frequently encountered in the Pāli Canon. Although the Magadhans did speak an Indo-Aryan language, their culture was different. Indeed Brahmins are often the subject of curiosity and fun in the texts, as though they were a novelty. One of the things that Brahmins did was chant mantras at special occasions, for which they expected to be paid. This custom struck the Buddha as unhelpful and he actually banned his monks from doing it - we presume that at least some of his monks were esrtwhile Brahmins. He also forbade two ex-Brahmin bhikkhus from putting the Buddha's words into 'chandos', literally: (poetic) 'meter'. The meaning of this passage is disputed amongst scholars, however from the context I take it to mean that the two monks wanted to turn the Buddha's words into regular verse like the Vedas. And he made it a vinaya offence to do such a thing.

So this is our starting point for Buddhist mantras. Many people point out that the early Buddhists did in fact record some texts, called parittas, intended to be chanted for protection from malign influences both mundane (snakes for instance) and supramundane (yakkhas). These are usually said to be a form of mantra, but I do not agree. My reading is that these were spells from an indigenous Magadhan magic tradition - given the subject matters I would say that we could see them as belonging to the various folk traditions which focused on yakkhas and other nature spirits. The use of parittas continues to the present day in Theravadin countries. A small number of the paritta texts have continued to be important in other traditions, although often in modified form, with the most notable additions being tantric style mantras! Sometimes we are fooled into thinking that because the texts that are chanted are themselves profound, such as the Karaniya Mettā Sutta, that parittas had some spiritual significance, but as parittas they are solely for worldly protection. There is some evidence that the Buddha tried to get his monks not to participate in local spiritual beliefs, but the persistence of these practices suggests that he did not entirely succeed.

The next development for Buddhist mantra was the dhāraṇi. I have written at more length on the origins, meaning and use of dhāraṇi's here before, so I won't say much now. Dhāraṇi's may well be associated with developments in the Gāndhāra area in the Northwest of India (what is now the Taliban controlled area of Pakistan). Originally a dhāraṇi may have been a memory aid such as the Arapacana acrostic. However the word is mostly used for phrases embedded in sūtras or whole sūtras, again, intended to be chanted for protection. Over time the word seemed to change it's meaning and it is not always clear what is it refers to. Later, in tantric contexts, dhāraṇis were used more like mantras as we know them now. In some Mahāyāna sūtras, the Golden Light for instance, dhāraṇi are used in connection with rituals which seem to have a Hindu flavour, suggesting that they represent the first stage of assimilation of outside elements. One of the things about dhāraṇis and dhāraṇi sūtras is that they tend to focus on one dhāraṇi at a time (although in the Lotus Sūtra there are lists of dhāraṇi spoken by several gods and demons one after another). At some point in this period mantras also came to be used as expressing devotion or faith in a Buddha or Bodhisattva - I'll say more about this below.

A seismic shift came after the end of the Gupta Empire. Some time in the 6th century a grand religious synthesis happened that combined elements of Buddhism, the old Vedic religion, the newer Vedantic religion, and aspects of the Śramaṇa and animistic traditions of Magadha. This weaving together of many strands was called appropriately enough "tantra", i.e. woven. Mantras now came into Buddhism in a form that we will recognise qua mantra. In fact mantra took centre stage along side meditation and puja. The mantras were different in form from dhāraṇi or paritta, and seem to owe something to the Yajurvedic tradition. Tantric texts are full of mantras, and for example a mantra accompanies every stage of the tantric ritual - the function being to make the ritual action potent. This idea is already found in the Vedic tradition, so we assume that's where it comes from.

So this is a potted history of the introduction of mantras to Buddhism. As I have said there are three main contexts in which we currently use mantras. In the Tantric tradition a mantra exists in a particular context. It is said that the first communication from the Dharmakāya Buddha consisted of mantra, mudra, and mandala (or images) in the context of a ritual anointing that mirrors a royal coronation. These three modes of communication represent the body, speech, and mind aspects of the Dharmakāya and are called the Three Mysteries. When we perform a tantric sadhana we are in theory recapitulating this original communication. It allows us to align our body, speech and mind with the Three Mysteries and become a Buddha "in this very life" as Kūkai used to say. Clearly here is it vital to reproduce everything exactly as it was done originally and in that case pronouncing the mantra correctly would be essential. To pronounce it incorrectly would be to garble the message, to rob it of any significance what-so-ever. In this I see some influence of the Vedic mantra traditions which had a very strong emphasis on accurate pronunciation. The Vedas were an oral tradition for something like 2000 years as the Brahmins eschewed writing well after the Buddha came along. The Vedas were divine and getting them wrong also was thought to rob them of their power to influence the gods. So in this context of sadhana it was originally important to pronounce the Sanskrit accurately.

However once Buddhism began to be transmitted outside India there were difficulties. Sanskrit has many sounds which are not found in other languages - true particularly of Central Asia, China, Japan and Tibet where the tantra took hold. It was very difficult for them, as it can be for us, to pronounce Sanskrit accurately. English pronunciation of Sanskrit has problems with retroflex letters, e.g. ṭ ṭh ḍ ḍh ṇ, and with nasalised vowels e.g. aṃ uṃ iṃ etc. And this is leaving aside the issue of regional variations within India! Pronunciation of mantras shifted with time to conform to local norms. So svāhā becomes soha in Tibet, and sowaka in Japan. Most Buddhists are therefore pragmatic about pronunciation. Sometimes you will here a story told of a hermit who was pronouncing his mantra wrong, and a travelling Lama called to see him. The Lama corrects the hermit and goes off on his travels. But as he leaves he hears the hermit calling him, and sees him running across the surface of a lake to ask again about the 'correct' pronunciation. The moral of course being that pronunciation doesn't maketh the saint. Funnily enough Donald Lopez, in Prisoners of Shangrila, has pointed out that this story was in fact told by Tolstoy at the end of the 19th century (read The Three Hermits online). It was a Russian folktale told about three Christian hermits. How did it come to be a Buddhist, and indeed Tibetan, story? My guess is that it was quoted in The Autobiography of a Yogi (p.309) by Paramhansa Yogananda, first published 1946, and from there into Buddhist circles via enthusiastic yogis.

This all raises the issue of transmission. Ideally we pronounce the mantra as it was spoken during the first anointing ritual by the Dharmakāya Buddha. Because pronunciation has shifted over time some of the mantras that come down to us are clearly corrupt - the best example to my mind is the Vajrasattva mantra were the Sanskrit has become quite badly mangled in places. So if we know any Sanskrit we will find it creates a cognitive dissonance to hear mangled Sanskrit in a mantra. There are two schools of thought about this. One is that we should pronounce it exactly as taught to us by our teacher - even if it is plainly wrong. The other is that if it's clear what the original Sanskrit was we should use that instead. How you view this will depend on your tradition, and indeed how traditional your teacher is. But consider that if the word padma is pronounced 'pema', then at some point someone got it wrong and what we are transmitting is simply a human error, not the mantra spoken by the Dharmakāya. If it doesn't matter then there are implications for our entire approach to lineage and transmission: they simply cannot be as important as they are made out to be. If it does matter how are we to reconstruct something which has been changing for 1000 years? Is it even possible?

The second main context for using mantra is devotional, ranging from large public rituals, down to individuals. The idea for this context came to me while reading Alexander Studholme's book The Origins of Oṃ Maṇi Padme Hūṃ. I have written two précis of relevant parts of the book on this blog - The Origin of oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ and The Meaning of oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ - and so again I won't go into detail. The main thing here is that this practice bears little resemblance to the tantric ritual and is closely associated with practices known as bringing the name (of the Buddha) to mind (nāmānusmṛṭi), and bringing the Buddha to mind (buddhānusmṛṭi). In the former case the root texts are the Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtras in which it is said that recalling the name of the Buddha Amitābha even once with faith will mean your next rebirth is in the pureland Sukhāvatī from where enlightenment is guaranteed. In the Karaṇḍavyūha Sūtra it says that the mantra oṃ maṇi padme hūṃ is in fact equivalent to chanting the name of Avalokiteśvara and that by chanting the mantra, we are in fact chanting the name, and can expect to be born in a kind of pureland.

This kind of practice is really a form of recollecting the Buddha which has roots going back to the earliest days of Buddhism - it appears in the very oldest parts of the Pāli Canon. Later, although before the canon was written down, the practice is formalised and one recollects the special qualities of the Buddha by reciting and reflecting on the words of the Buddhavandana - iti'pi so bhagavā arahaṃ sammāsambuddho vijjācaraṇasampano sugato lokavidū anuttaro purisadammasārathi satthā devamanussānaṃ buddho bhagavā ti. In this context what is important, what makes the practice efficacious is that we recollect the Buddha and call his name. So I conclude that accurate pronunciation is not essential in this context. However I would add that pronouncing someone's name accurately is a good practice. We all know how it jars when someone gets our own name wrong. So I would think that making an effort to pronounce the mantra correctly would be appropriate for anyone really devoted to a Buddha or Bodhisattva. Although the counter argument that such figures are always forgiving is almost always brought out at this point so as to excuse any fault on the part of the practitioner. I'm not convinced that absolution from faults was what was intended. Surely it is still up to us to make as great an effort as we can? Pronunciation is a realtively simple matter that very few people seem to bother with.

The last of the three contexts is informal mantra chanting. This means chanting a mantra outside of any formal ritual or devotional context. Perhaps we are seeking to ward off danger, or we just want to keep up our connection with the Buddha. More superstitious Buddhists use mantras this way for all kinds of mundane worldly purposes, just as paritta were used at the beginning. In this context pronunciation is as important as the previous context, i.e. it is not so vital as the tantric ritual, but could still be a worthwhile effort. I would add here that learning how to pronounce Sanskrit is not that hard (follow the link to my rough and comprehensive guides!), and focussing on pronunciation is an excellent mindfulness practice! Try really paying attention to what your vocal cords, mouth, tongue and lips are doing when you chant. Sanskrit is a beautiful language when pronounced well. Note also that Pāli has a sonority and rhythm all of its own, quite different to Sanskrit - it is less sibilant and the many double consonants give it a lilt like a Skandanavian language I find.

There is one thing left to say in this now over-long post. In the Western Buddhist Order, as you may know, we practice a visualisation meditation that includes chanting a mantra, usually while visualising the letters of the mantra. However we say that this is not a tantric sadhana, because for good reasons Sangharakshita decided not to take tantric Buddhism on it's own terms. There are of course members of our order who have received tantric initiation and practice tantric Buddhism, but the majority of us do not. So where do our practices come in the scheme above? I think it's clear that we are practising a sophisticated form of the recollection of the Buddha in our sadhanas, and that the context is therefore devotional. However the form of the practice also highlights śunyatā - the lack of independent existence (svabhāva) of any phenomena.

So do we need to pronounce mantras correctly? I think we should make an effort on aesthetic grounds, it is more beautiful; and also on the basis that we all like our names to be pronounced correctly. I find it is a useful mindfulness practice, and most people need to be more mindful! But outside of the tantric tradition it is not vital, and, sadly, even within that tradition it seems to be many centuries since there was any real effort to maintain Sanskrit pronunciation.


image: vocal tract from MIT OpenCourseWare

The Body in Buddhism

While on my ordination retreat we studied the Bodhicāryāvatara by Śantideva. This is a core text for the Western Buddhist Order, and also a favourite of the Dalai Lama. It is a Mahāyāna work from probably the 8th century, written according to legend at the great monastery at Nalanda. The theme is the path or conduct (carya) of the bodhisattva and the text is structured around the six perfections. The text is celebrated for the anuttara pūja incorporated into the first few chapters which contains beautiful and elaborate evocations and offerings, but also for the relentless deconstructive arguments of Śantideva. In many ways it is the epitome of late Indian Mahāyāna.

At the same time as studying the Bodhicāryāvatara we were reciting verses from it in our evening puja, and during those pujas we had readings from the text as translated by Andrew Skilton (aka Dharmacari Sthiramati) and Kate Crosby. The readings were very evocative. However at one point I was struck by a series of images which seemed quite out of place. In the chapter on Meditation we find a number of references to the body, and particularly to the bodies of women (the audience for the text having been monastic men). It goes on at some length, and the translators assure us that the language is quite as coarse as they portray it in the translation. Let me quote you a few passages to give an idea:

50. Taking no pleasure from silky pillows stuffed with cotton because they do not ooze a dreadful stench, those in love are entranced by filth.

52. If you have no passion for what is foul, why do you embrace another, a cage of bones bound by sinew, smeared with slime and flesh

53. You have plenty of filth of your own. Satisfy yourself with that! Glutton for crap! Forget her that pouch of filth!

59. If you have no passion for what is foul, why do you embrace another, born in a field of filth, seeded by filth, nourished by filth?

60. Is it that you do not like a dirty worm because it's only tiny? It must be that you desire a body likewise born in filth, because it is formed from such a large amount.

61 Not only are you disgusted at your own foulness, you glutton for crap, you yearn for other vats of filth!

(pages 92-93 of Skilton and Crosby)

Hearing these words I found myself reeling. My first reaction was that this kind of sentiment did not belong in our puja, that this kind of language did not belong in our devotions; that in fact this was not the kind of Buddhism I signed up for. Several years have done nothing to change this opinion. In fact I have become more clear that hatred of this type, hatred towards the body, has nothing to do with the Buddhism I practice.

Sue Hamilton follows the development of Buddhist attitudes to the body in his book Identity and Experience. The Constitution of the Human Being According to Early Buddhism. She shows that the earliest texts were in fact quite neutral towards the body. The attitude was analytical - one examined the experience of being embodied dispassionately to see that this was a conditioned experience like any other. There is none of the harping on impurity that we find later. Hamilton associates the subject of purity with Buddhaghosa, but I don't think the great commentator could have been an influence on Śantideva. It had to have been a more general movement.

I have already written about my concerns over ritual purity manifesting as superstition in Buddhism. Where these ideas operate in Buddhism I think we have to see them as having infiltrated from surrounding Hindu culture. In a paper I've had accepted for publication in the Journal of Buddhist Ethics I argue that the Buddha rejects notions of ritual purity and substitutes instead the idea of ethical purity. Concern with ritual purity was quite general during the Buddha's time with Brahmins and Jains finding it a concern. Everyone has technical terms indicating a 'return to purity' for instance - pratikramana, paṭikaroti etc. It is therefore possible to see Buddhism as a path of purity (visuddhimagga) but only in the ethical sense. Brahminical purity was intrinsic to people by birth, and to actions and substances by their nature. Ethical purity on the other hand depends largely on intention (cetana) - the motivation behind actions of body, speech, and mind are what make an action pure or impure. However it would be unusual to find this particular distinction - the usual one would be kusala/akusala i.e. competent/incompetent.

So there is no justification for seeing the body or it's substances as intrinsically impure or foul. Śantideva describes the body as for instance a "pouch of filth", or as "born in a field of filth, seeded by filth, nourished by filth". The fact is that the religion in which human bodily fluids (including here even mother's milk! ) are seen as polluting is Hinduism. I think the contrast here between western attitudes and caste Hindu Indian attitudes is made very stark by the reference to milk. In Indian the milk of the cow, even bovine shit and piss, are seen by caste Hindus as intrinsically pure and holy, whereas the milk of a woman is foul. If there was ever a traditional idea that we needed to reject this is it. Shit is a disease vector and we rightly avoid handling it, but mother's milk? We see mother's milk as a highly beneficial substance because it bestows health and vitality on the infant. There is no better nutriment for a human infant than its own mother's milk. Mother's milk is a symbol of virtue and vitality in the West. The full breasts of a lactating woman are ancient symbols for fertility and prosperity in our culture.

So on the retreat I took a little stand and made my point to everyone there. I don't think I argued the case well back then, it was a heartfelt reaction rather than a thought out position. I'm hoping that this more thought out essay will make the point more effectively. It's important in the WBO because we have a large number of people from backgrounds in Indian which are these days called Dalit (perhaps a third of our order). I can understand why they want to distance themselves from the former label applied to them and their peers. Fifty years ago they would have been called untouchable because caste Hindu considered their mere touch to be ritually pollutting. People were untouchable on the whole because of the family/community they were born into. Widows also became untouchable on the death of their husbands as is poignantly portrayed in the film Water by Deepa Mehta.

The practice of untouchability was outlawed when India became independent largely due to the efforts of the great leader Dr B R Ambedkar, although it has not disappeared from India where Dalits are regularly persecuted and sometimes killed. Dr Ambedkar along with hundreds of thousands of his followers became Buddhists, and these people make up the bulk of the Indian wing of the WBO (although I think the WBO is quite a small part of the greater Ambedkarite movement). As such I think we contemporary Buddhists, especially we FWBO Buddhists, have a special duty to identify and root out ancient prejudices, and especially any notions of ritual impurity.

A person and their body is as only pure or impure as their actions, they cannot be born impure, nor be made impure by contact with supposedly impure substances. There is no reason for describing the body as impure: it runs counter not only to the spirit of Buddhism, but to the politics of fighting oppression in India. I hope that this essay generates some interest and discussion amongst my colleagues.

~~oOo~~

Further reading:

• Hamilton, Sue. 1996. Identity and Experience: The Constitution of the Human Being According to Early Buddhism. London: Luzac Oriental.
• Mason-John, Valerie. 2008. Broken Voices: Untouchable Women Speak Out. India Research Press
• Padmasuri. 1997. But Little Dust: Life Amongst the 'Ex-Untouchable' Buddhists of India. Birmingham: Windhorse.