[Buddha-l] Are we sick of dogma yet? (2nd of 2)

[L.S. Cousins]

Dan,

One or two points on this.

>4. When the Chinese pilgrim Xuanzang traveled to India from 629-645, he
>recorded all the monasteries he visited or was informed about, giving how
>many clerics lived in each, and their doctrinal affiliation. For India, if
>one tabulates the results, there are more Sammitiya monks (Sammitiya is one
>of the Pudgalavada schools), throughout India, than all other sects
>(Theravada, Mahayana, Vaibhasika, etc.) put together. For instance, Xuanzang
>counts over 66,500 Sammitiya clerics in 1351 monasteries. By way of
>contrast, for instnace, Sthaviras have 36,800 clerics in 401 monasteries,
>and Mahasanghikas have 1,100 clerics in just 24 monasteries. In short,
>rather than being a deviant minority sect, they were the majority in most
>places.

Lamotte is misleading here. He has omitted the figures for pure 
Mahaayaanists which he gives elsewhere.

>5. They didn't call themselves "Pudgalavadins" -- that was a label applied
>to them by others.

We don't know that.

>  The earliest version of Pudgalavada called themselves
>Vaatsiiputriiyas -- being named after their founder, Vaatsiiputra ("son of a
>heifer").

'son of a woman of the Vatsa clan'

>According to Kuiji, he was a student of Rahula (Buddha's son), who
>was a student of "Saariputra, so Vaatsiiputra was transmitting "Saariputra's
>version of Buddha's Dharma. Other texts suggest he was not a contemporary of
>Buddha, but came a century or two after Buddha. In any case, the
>Vatsiputriyas eventually split into four distinct schools:: Sammitiyas
>(which appears to have been the largest group), Dharmottariyas,
>Bhadrayaniyas, and Sannagarikas. As little as we know with certainty about
>the Vatsiputriyas and Sammitiyas, we know even less about the last three
>groups. They are basically names, ciphers. The Pudgalavadins had their own
>extensive Tripitaka (Sutras, Abhidharma, Vinaya) of which nothing survives.
>The proof passages from the Tripitaka that appears in the surviving
>"saastras are also found in the Nikayas, so, at least in terms of arguing
>with their fellow Buddhists, they followed a commonly recognized Agama.
>
>6. Their influence (and numbers) continued to grow, replacing other sects in
>many places, and this continued until Buddhism disappeared from India.

Evidence for this ? My understanding is that they had the support of 
Hars.a and his family. So their exceptional numbers at the time of 
the visit of Hsüan-tsang is due to the support of his short-lived 
dynasty. I see no reason to suppose that they were such a large 
proportion of the Sangha before or after.

>7. While the other Buddhist schools disparaged them for holding to a pudgala
>as some sort of substantial self, their own texts (as have survived) insist
>from the start that the pudgala is a praj~napti. The Pudgala, they said, is
>neither the same nor different from the skandhas (cf. Nagarjuna's
>Mula-Madhyamaka-karika ch. 10 on fire and fuel, which owes much to the
>Pudgalavadins).

This is based on the material in Chinese. As I have mentioned in my 
article on Pudgalavaada, it is more likely that these texts are later 
and influenced by Naagaarjuna.

>8. The import for how we think about Buddhism today is, briefly, the forms
>of Buddhism that have survived and have been transmitted to the West (aside
>from Theravada), are transplants brought to various places outside India by
>missionaries. While there is some evidence that Sammitiyas had small
>communities in Java and elsewhere outside India, they basically dominated
>the Indian scene for many centuries, while missionaries belonging to OTHER
>Buddhist sects -- i.e., actual minorities -- are the ones who planted the
>forms that we receive today as authoritative (Tibetan Buddhism, Chinese
>Buddhism, etc.).

I see no reason to believe that Sammatiyas were particularly dominant 
in the early period. Inscriptions don't suggest that. They may well 
have been initially dominant in parts of western India.

Lance Cousins