[Buddha-l] Nirvana

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Joy Vriens schreef:

> Hi Joanna,
>
>> Yes: your point makes sense, and more critical analysis would be of 
>> interest, but the problem is that dating of pieces of text is 
>> conjectural. As I understand the issue, there is no persuasively 
>> demonstrable way to precisely "date" canonical text.
>
>
> As far as I know there isn't. I have to say I am not really interested 
> in dates, but I would find a history or a genealogy of ideas very 
> interesting. Not in order to discover the most probable genealogy but 
> just for the pleasure of it. E.g. I would also be interested to see 
> the results of a study of all suttas not being directly taught by the 
> Buddha, to see if there  are some recognisable lines of thought 
> specific to each sutta protagonist. It somehow seems to make more 
> sense if there were several teachers and sects right from the start of 
> what later became Buddhism.
>
> Joy
>
> _

I heard a talk the other day which Gombrich gave during a Buddhist 
summerschool in England a few years ago. There he states that the Buddha 
took many Brahmanic concepts and used them and turned them around to 
explain his own way to nirvaa.na. I'm convinced Gombrich is wrong at 
least in some of his examples. According to Gombrich the Buddha changed 
the content of the concept of karma and of the Brahmaworld and of what a 
true brahmin is. But if you look at the upani.sads, even the B.rhad 
ara.nyaka (the oldest one) you see that all these concepts where already 
floating and changing at the time (i.e. 800 B.C.). So I suspect that the 
Buddha was much closer to upani.sadic circles then later buddhist would 
like to admit.

-- 


Erik


www.xs4all.nl/~jehms