[Buddha-l] Anomalous doctrines

[Dan Lusthaus]

Continuing...

There is not much we know for certain about early Buddhist communities.
Since our primary source remains the tipitaka, and it is precisely that
which needs to be brought into question, all claims are begging the question
in one way or another. The archeological record of that period is not only
lacking vis-a-vis Buddhism, but largely India in general as well (which is
why so many modern Indian scholars themselves turn to the Tipitaka when
attempting Indian social history of the 5th c BCE-1st c CE). With the
ludicrous Indian govt. scam of recent decades to raise foreign capital for
dam projects, leading to over 20 major dams flooding major portions of India
(and dispossessing over 2 million people from their homes), many potential
sites are now under 200 ft. or more of water, so the prospects for the near
future, and possibly posterity, are bleak at the moment. Lack of serious
historical philology (most of the efforts I am aware of have major
methodological flaws) hasn't helped. The fact that even what was eventually
recorded in writing came late relative to Buddhism's origins doesn't help
matters. Schayer's aim was laudible; his method and conclusions are another
story.

Here's some of what I think I know about the earliest generation of
Buddhists -- based on extrapolating from tipitaka sources. During Buddha's
lifetime, while most monks and nuns wandered (except during the rainy
season), after a while Buddha accepted certain places as home bases, and
spent large amounts of time there (e.g., Deer Park, etc.). He would travel
to other points periodically -- it's unclear whether he had a more or less
annual travel route, bi-annual, or more intermittent. Some quasi-permanent
housing accomodations seem to have been established during his lifetimem,
and since he was known to be in certain places for prolonged periods, some
Buddhists converged there, possibly traveling on with him when he left, and
possibly staying behind -- depending, probably, on the generosity and
willingness of local patrons.

Buddha's major second-in-commands were either family (Ananda, his
step-mother, Devadatta, etc.) -- which is one reason he is "Sakya-muni -- 
and his best students, the most prominent being Sariputta and Moggallana,
whom he acquired from the eel-wriggler Sa~njaya. For logistic and missionary
reasons, the entourage was not with him continuously. The main teachers
would fan out to various parts of India on their own, and attract their own
students and followers, in the name of the Buddha. Each seemed to inspire
loyalty unto themselves, and each seemed to have a somewhat different take
on various aspects of the Buddha's teaching, since when the various
disparate groups would converge where the Buddha was, they would fight so
contentiously with each other (including coming to blows), that Buddha
threatened to split if each of the teachers couldn't get their group to calm
down. Schisms, in other words, did not await the post-Buddha periods, they
were already a reality then. That implies alternate interpretations were
floating around at that time as well. Clearly the five appropriational
aggregates, four noble actualities, pratitya-samutpada (in modular
variations), tri-dhatu, sila-samadhi-prajna, and a host of other models were
the core teachings. If having to choose between what Buddha's rebuking of
Sati the Fisherman for thinking that consciousness is that which fares on
from this life to the next, and Schayer's affirmation of that doctrine as
"original," I'll go with the tipitaka account. At most, that suggests that
there were, even then, some trying to import that into Buddha's teaching -- 
and he definitively rejected that attempt to misrepresent him. Accept that
idea, and impermanence is in jeopardy; without a radical sense of
impermanence, dukkha is not nearly the problem it seems to be; and so
Buddhism becomes just a lame variation of Hinduism.

Note this Buddha, who has to threaten cutting out of a convention of
Buddhists rather than hushing the enthralled throngs with his multicolored
aura, is painfully human. Would later writers/redactors add that back in?
Making Buddha less of a potent figure, rather than more? The trend, as we
can see from Milinda, etc., is entirely in the other direction. So pace
Schayer, I would assert that any vestige of Buddha as less than superman is
to be taken as a nonredacted piece of original history (as close as we get).

On the question of how his teachings were consolidated and perpetuated -- 
that's a large problem. Aside from the resistance to writing as a medium of
transmission at that time, there are some additional problems. The sutta
portion of the tipitaka gets attributed to Ananda, Buddha's cousin and
constant companion for the last 20 years of Buddha's life. But we have
teachings from the first twenty years of Buddha's teaching, when Ananda
wasn't around (Fire Sermon, etc.). So who was the ghost writer? More
problematic in terms of institutional memory, his two major disciples, the
aforementioned S and M, died before he did. So only the putzes remained to
carry on. Perhaps fortunately for the continuity of Buddhism, Rahula, his
son, also died before he did (or else the nepotism could have survived
him -- as it is, Ananda was largely marginalized). Who exercised quality
control on the consolidation of teachings? Kassapa returned from somewhere
in order to oversee "vinaya" compilation, according to the traditional
story, but there are problems with that account as well.

One final observation, one which perhaps is more relevant to Stephen's
proposals. Buddha, I would say, was a first-class clear thinker, but also a
sloppy plagiarizer (in modern parlance). The most crucial example of this is
probably his adoption of the term asava, borrowing the term and some of its
aura from the Jains, while rejecting the system of explanation, i.e., the
contextual meaning, the Jains had given it. Buddhists (including English
translators) have been trying to make sense of it ever since ("outflows" as
a proposal is pathetic). Asava was not a marginal term for early Buddhists,
but the core concept, that which, if one possessed, one was not yet
enlightened, and that which, if one had eliminated them, one was
enlightened. The elimination of the asavas was the sine qua non of being a
Buddha or Arhat. That was for Buddha the most important of his three
tevijjas (tri-vedas; cf. Tevijja-vacchagotta sutta - MajjhN). To rest a
foundation on a murky term leads to disparate interpretative attempts. Much
Buddhist confusion has followed just from this. No wonder it falls from the
jargon after a few centuries, replaced by kle"sa, and demoted to the
Sanskritized sa-asrava vs. nir-asrava (contaminated and uncontaminated
mental conditions).

Finally, it is interesting that in order to give the proposal a narrative
coherence, Stephen has to push Nagarjuna entirely off the narrative track,
as an aberration. Some would see Nagarjuna's understanding of Buddhism as
the actual recovery of earlier intentions lost in the intervening
centuries -- a recovery diametrically at odds with the tathagatagarbha
strain of eternalism that vies for the same credentials. My vote goes to
Nagarjuna, and I'll reserve the notion of aberrant for the ttg deviants.

Dan Lusthaus