[Buddha-l] Anomalous doctrines

[Stephen Hodge]

Now that the dust has settled a bit regarding the textual origins of the 
MPNS, I would like to focus attention a bit on the problem of certain 
concepts, like the TG doctrine, that seem anomalous or even non-Buddhist in 
nature. I find the standard knee-jerk argument that these kinds of teachings 
are brahmanistic ideas that have deviously infiltrated pristine Buddhism 
rather unconvincing, and sometimes seemingly little more than a ploy to 
avoid any re-examination of Buddhist origins which might undermine the 
orthodox, normative model. My interest here is not to prove that any 
particular doctrinal position is correct or more authentic in some way, but 
propose and evaluate certain hypothesises that may help us better understand 
the way in which Buddhism developed. Naturally, some of what I suggest has 
been noted by others in the past but there seems to be a tendency to drown 
out such voices in many accounts of Buddhism. Moreover, I am aware that to 
some wise minds here, these suggestions will seem a bit pedestrian and even 
long-winded: sorry but that is my style yet I think they have some merit 
worthy of discussion.

First, a general observation. If we assume that the Nikayas / Agamas, albeit 
with some stratification, are the closest thing we have historically to the 
actual teachings of the Buddha, then I am struck by the relative economy of 
the Buddha's words in view of the historical claims that some make about 
these texts. I have a stack of translations here of the Nikayas which looks 
pretty impressive until one starts to do some sums. If we eliminate all the 
obvious duplicates, the suttas that are minor variants, those delivered by 
disciples and also those which are really unlikely to have actually been 
uttered by the Buddha, we are left with how many suttas ? Let's take a very 
rough figure and say 1000 or even 2000 discourses. This seems a lot until we 
consider that this represents only 45 - 90 discourses per annun for a 
teaching career lasting around 45 years. In fact, about one a week or less. 
This suggests several possible scenarios. One is that the Buddha did not 
have much to say for himself most of the time - after all, he was a "muni" 
(a sage characterized by maunya / silence). Another is that he said things 
that have seemingly not been recorded for some reason. Other possible 
scenarios come to mind as I am sure will be quick to suggest.

My hunch, shared by others, is that the corpus of dialogues attributed to 
him were a artefact consciously created by a few groups within the early 
Buddhist movement. Though as a record of a teacher's lifetime of discourses, 
the Nikayas are rather sparse, they are however perhaps at the upper limit 
of what can be usefully remembered, studied and transmitted. This is an 
important point - the process of remembrance and transmission. To remember 
and transmit the Nikayas presupposes a considerable degree of institutional 
organization which I suspect would not have existed with the early Buddhist 
movement for several generations - I believe the archaeological record 
confirms this.

If we take Frauwallner's findings on the old Skandhaka portion of the 
Vinaya, that it was created at a particular time and place for a particular 
purpose, then we might also assume that the Nikayas were composed or 
compiled in a similar manner. Given the need for a centre or centres with 
institutional organization, we must assume that some or even just one of the 
viharas with their population of sedentary monks to be the initial focal 
point for this compilation activity. It has been noted that main concern of 
these sedentary monks would have been twofold: maintenance of the vinaya and 
maintenance of the scriptural tradition through memorization. These two 
things, especially the latter, would probably have taken up most of their 
time, leaving little time for meaningful pursuit of other Buddhist aims. 
These considerations have been discussed by Schopen in many of his papers.

Now as for the range of doctrines and discourses contained in the Nikayas, I 
believe it would be reasonable to assume that the resident monks would have 
tended to select or compile suttas that conformed to and justified their 
life-style. This has been suggested by several scholars so I will not repeat 
the evidence here, except to point out the corollary: anything which did not 
conform to their concept of the Buddha's teachings (already at several 
generation's remove), just would not have been preserved. I do not suggest 
that this was necessarily a malign process, just human nature at work - 
imagine a Richard Hayes or a Dan Lusthaus in charge of Nikaya compilation. 
However, their redactional fruits were not entirely free from anomalies - in 
fact there are quite a few. Now this is where my interest in Stanislaw 
Schayer's hypotheses lies.

Schayer was part of a thriving academic school in pre-war Poland which was 
producing some very interesting work until most got themselves killed or 
died during WWII, including Schayer himself at a relatively young age. After 
the hiatus of the war, very little attention has been given to his work 
subsequently, which I think is a pity. It may interest the pramanikas on 
this list to know that Schayer cut his teeth on Nyaaya and is reputed have 
produced some outstanding work in this field. However, he turned his 
attention to the question of pre-canonical Buddhism and developed a 
methodology for identifying what features it seems to have exhibited. What 
he assumed was that anomalous elements in the Nikayas were included by the 
compilers out of necessity because of their antiquity and authority. He 
stated in this regard, "[The] conclusion follows of itself: these texts 
representing ideas and doctrines contradictory to the generally admitted 
canonical viewpoint are survivals of older, pre-canonical Buddhism". As far 
as I know, he did not set out with a prior agenda that pre-judged the nature 
of pre-canonical Buddhism, though piecing together the fragmentary evidence, 
he did produce the outline of a coherent yet surprising picture that differs 
radically from later orthodox, normative Buddhism.

So what did Schayer and his group find ? There are four main elements:

1. Nirvana was not simply a "blowing-out" or cessation, but was the 
attainment of immortality and of a deathless sphere. This nirvana, as a 
supramundane state, is also incarnated within the person of the Buddha, 
making him who he was.

2. The Buddha was considered to be a being in whom ultimate reality was 
embodied as an incarnation of a tathagata, a terrestrial manifestation of 
the Dharma.

3. The idea of anaatman was much more limited in application. It was held 
that there was also a self / vij~naana that is the permanent core of an 
individual and is an element (dhaatu) absolute in nature, immersed into the 
contingent. Nirvana is possible because it is already indwelling as the 
innermost core of a being.

4. The relationship of the disciples with the Buddha was based on a 
recognition of his charisma and spiritual authority, rather than on a simple 
conviction of the veracity or rationality of the doctrines he revealed.

Thus, what Schayer has shown is that there was a second doctrinal position 
current in early Buddhism prior to the canonical period, as old as, *if not 
older*, than the so-called orthodox Buddhism of the Nikayas and Agamas. Of 
course, the dual nature of earliest Buddhism has long been recognized, but 
it would seem that it is a misnomer to call this the "two-tiered" model, as 
this prejudicially privileges the doctrines and practices associated with 
the "orthodox" monastic form of Buddhism. It should be noted that the 
existence of these two stands at that very early stage of Buddhist history 
is about as far back as one can probably go - to what extent this represents 
the situation during the lifetime of the Buddha and reflects his own 
teachings is probably impossible to determine.

The next matter I would like to consider is this : did these supposedly 
"anomalous" doctrines cease to have any existence except as fragmentary 
fossils in the Nikayas or were they sustained by any groups ? Now, overall, 
one might characterize the orthodox Nikayan approach as apophatic while the 
other approach is decidedly kataphatic. Do we find any traces of these 
kataphatic doctrines in later Buddhism[s] ? Of course, the answer is yes: 
hints of the continuity of these doctrines can be found in what is known or 
survives from some of the classical 18 schools, but more especially many 
elements of Mahayana doctrines seem to echo the above anomalous doctrines 
quite loudly. If we eliminate the apparent aberration of the Madhyamika 
school, much of what remains in Mahayana and later Tantra would seem to 
articulate and expand the above four points. My own interest in the MPNS is 
a very good case: every one of those points forms a key doctrine in this 
text. In other words, whether there is a direct continuity or not, the main 
tenets of the MPNS are identical to or have their antecedents in this early 
pre-canonical phase of Buddhism. One of the repeated claims of the MPNS is 
that the Buddhism of its day is a distorted, misunderstood version of the 
Buddha's true teachings. What it advocates, interestingly, is not that one 
should abandon the apophatic for the kataphatic, but that the balance should 
be redressed - it is clear from many statements in the text that neither 
approach alone is adequate for the task of liberation from samsara and 
suffering.

Now, it might be interesting if we were to take Mahayana claims about its 
origins seriously, if not always literally. A key feature of these claims is 
that there were two groups taught by the Buddha, the sravakas and the 
bodhisattvas. According to many Mahayana sutras, the sravakas had lesser 
ability in understanding, often took things literally and often missed the 
point entirely. And, as is well know, these sravakas were precisely the 
people who venerated the doctrines of the Nikayas / Agamas and developed the 
scholasticism of the Abhidharma. If that is the case, could there have been 
another group of people whose ideological descendants, real or adopted, gave 
rise to Mahayana ? Here, one might like to bear in mind that the appellation 
"bodhisattva" is probably a mistaken Sanskritization of "bodhisakta" (one 
who adheres to / cleaves to bodhi), in contrast to a sravaka who is one who 
listens (listens to textual recitation ?).

Initially, the majority of the very early Buddhists, including the Buddha 
himself, would have lived most of their lives as wanderers and meditators. 
After a number of generations, culminating in the composition of the old 
Skandhaka and compilation of the Nikayas, groups of monks ceased to live the 
life of a wanderer in any meaningful sense of the word and took up settled 
residence in well-organized viharas. But, from odd snippets of information 
(and common-sense), we know that there were also those who long after 
continued the old wandering, meditative life. We can conveniently call these 
people the "forest-dwellers". Might it not be reasonable to assume that just 
as the later systematized, "orthodox" teachings enshrined in the Nikayas 
were the property of the sedentary monks, were not the apparently anomalous 
doctrines primarily associated with these wandering forest-dwellers ? This 
would seem to make sense in terms of later developments in Buddhism. There 
is evidence that some of the early Mahayana sutras, such as the Pure Land 
sutras, were indeed composed by wanderers or forest-dwellers. And, as I have 
mentioned, the MPNS itself clearly states that its proponents were not 
originally sedentary monks (nor even monks in the conventional sense) but 
wanderers who taught the Dharma, especially at the sites of the great stupas 
enshrining the relics of the Buddha which for them amounted to the living 
presence of the eternal Buddha.

This msg has turned out to be rather long so I hope it will get posted 
unscathed - I could say more and expand on many of the points I have raised 
above (I have not even touched on Tantra !), but I am sure that these will 
find occasion to emerge in the intelligent and scholarly debate I hope this 
stimulates.

Best wishes,

Stephen Hodge