[Buddha-l] Gandharan Buddhist Art at NY Asia Society

[L.S. Cousins]

Dan Lusthaus wrote:
> There may be a language issue, but there is only one *well-known 
> survey* that has been translated several times, viz. Vasumitra. But 
> there are many 'histories' and lineage mappings, some quite early, but 
> mostly preserved in (fairly early) Chinese translations. Lamotte 
> consults many of them and puts them to good use in his History of 
> Indian Buddhism. 
I don't find any evidence in Lamotte of anything earlier than Vasumitra.

> To imagine that a Theravada canon and interpretive tradition was fully 
> codified prior to Buddhaghosa is also assuming too much. The degree of 
> flux -- and which portions of which texts are most or least affected 
> across the centuries is a question still not adequately addressed. 
If you mean that a few minor texts in the Khuddaka-nikāya were possibly 
not in their final form before or even after Buddhaghosa, then fine. But 
the vast bulk of the canonical texts were certainly fixed in content, 
but perhaps not in minute linguistic form, long before Buddhaghosa.

Indispensable for this is:
Lottermoser, Friedgard (1982), /Quoted verse passages in the works of 
Buddhaghosa: contributions towards the study of the lost Sīhaḷaṭṭhakathā 
literature/ (Göttingen]: [s.n) xxviii, 630.

>> The commentaries of
>> Buddhaghosa in the fourth or fifth century A.D. comment [...] are simply a
>> revised version of
>> much earlier commentaries — they contain no historical information later
>> than the first century A.D.
> That's a huge claim which I am not prepared to accept as factual. I see,
> e.g., too much influence in Buddhaghosa from Asanga and Vasubandhu (H.
> Guenther saw that as well) to find that claim credible.
The commentaries refer by name to a number of historical figures living 
in Ceylon before the first century A.D. No later ones are mentioned. 
That makes it clear that Buddhaghosa is doing exactly what he says he is 
doing: providing a tidied up recension of earlier commentaries.

"Influence from Asanga and Vasubandhu on Buddhaghosa": that is hard to 
believe. Can you provide specific examples ?

> Given the nature of religious art, and the intimate familiarity that 
> the artists did have with details of Buddha's life, etc., had there 
> been such a list in circulation that was being taken seriously in the 
> mainstream, it would have been hard from them to ignore it.
That is just speculation.

>> We have no earlier representations of the Buddha in the heartland or the
>> Deccan or further south. He appears always to be represented by symbols.
>> That may be precisely because something like the marks was current and
>> not thought capable of representation.
> You are serious?
Completely.

Lance