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

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

> I've studied everything Lamotte says quite carefully. I don't see any
> early evidence for accounts of the evolution of the nikāyas that don't
> derive from Vasumitra or something similar. There are variant accounts
> of the second communal recitation and the events immediately following,
> but that is a very different matter.

Two separate issues: lineage relation (e.g., when and if Sarvastivada 
emerges from Theravada) and progressive revisions and redactions of 
Nikaya/Agama material. I was pointing at Lamotte re: the former.

For the latter, see for instance the recent
Marcus Bingenheimer's _Studies in Āgama Literature: With Special Reference 
to the Shorter Chinese Saṃyuktāgama_, Dharma Drum College Special Series, 
Taiwan: Shin Wen Feng Print Co., 2011.

This is a good illustration of what one finds. Marcus provides full 
translations of one recension in the Chinese sources, cites some alternate 
versions preserved in Chinese (but doesn't always translate them, so it 
still helps to be able to check the Chinese originals for the variants), and 
indexes everything to the Pali versions (when there are some). So even 
without reading Chinese one can see the variance, phrase by phrase, section 
by section, between Pali and alternate versions if one reads them side by 
side (he doesn't do that comparison for you, but it is easy to do oneself). 
There are additional versions of many of these suttas preserved in Chinese 
translations, some with greater, some with lesser variance. Marcus discusses 
some in his annotations and notes, but not all. Some variants can be 
explained as a result of different sectarian affiliations, some as 
byproducts of the industriousness (or lack thereof) of various translators, 
and so on, but some are clearly products of further elaborations and 
redactions, and it is pretty obvious that the redactive enterprise is 
ongoing and being captured in various snapshots along their development.

Discovering this sort of process is NOT something unusual when examining 
alternate versions of texts preserved in Chinese, translated at different 
times. One can literally watch sutras grow, watch accretions attach 
themselves and expand. This type of process has been well documented for 
many major mahayana texts, but, until recently, much less attention has been 
paid to the Agama material, so the same process has not been documented to 
the same extent in the secondary literature. That will change soon.

> But you cannot date the Chinese sutta materials to the time of
> translation into Chinese.

That's not necessary to watch the progression. Simply noting that later 
translations show "developments" beyond the earlier versions, esp. when 
these are prolific and consistent, strongly argues for a continuing 
developmental process. The idea that all the development took place before 
anyone ever translated anything into Chinese, and that then, over the course 
of several centuries, slowly various recensions are introduced and 
translated that just happen to show recensional developments is a bit like 
Creationists arguing that God invented everything in 6 six days but only 
gradually let people know about them. Not very compelling in the face of the 
evidence.

That the Indic materials have major gaps and lacunae has led to the 
misimpression that nothing changed in the interims. The more one examines 
the fuller range of evidence, such as what is preserved in Chinese, the more 
counterintuitive and untenable that becomes.

That doesn't mean that the Nikayas/Agamas were not in large measure fixed at 
a certain early stage, but that "in large measure" involves some major 
caveats; lots of tinkering continued, some more obvious and disruptive than 
others.

>
> This doesn't seem to bear any resemblance to anything we find in
> Buddhaghosa.

I'm not so sure. Let me rephrase more clearly (though I believe you probably 
understood what I was trying to say). Interpretive lineages based themselves 
on leading figures. For generations, even centuries, these lineages would 
frame their interpretations in the name of their founder. This process has 
been clearly documented in Talmudic studies, Hadith studies, 
Panini-Patanjali vyakarana traditions, and so on. "So-and-so said..." 
actually means someone in the lineage of so-and-so is claiming this, with 
the weight of the authority of so-and-so. That we haven't gotten around to 
paying attention to them in Buddhist traditions yet is a sign of our 
neglect, not their absence.

Oral traditions grounding themselves in hoary authority resort to this. Same 
or similar impulse that produces the profusion of pseudepigraphic (nowadays 
called "apocryphal") writings.

> I think your informant is getting confused about the difference between
> Dhammapāla and Buddhaghosa.

You are correct. Bhikkhu Bodhi is indeed talking about Dhammapala's 
subcommentary, not Buddhaghosa, when he says (pp.48-49):

"The main Mahayana work utilized by the author is the Bodhisattvabhumi, the 
fifteenth chapter of the Yogacarabhumi... Asanga. The Bodhisattvabhumi 
provides the model for the four conditions of the great aspiration, the four 
causes, the traits of the great man adumbrating his future perfections, the 
characteristics of the good friend, and the four powers... The 
Bodhisattvabhumi has also contributed to the sections on the practice of the 
paaramiis... Mahayana influence may further be discernible in the the 
emphasis on compassion and skillful means, in the vows to benefit all 
enings, in the statement that the bodhisattva causes beings 'to enter and 
reach maturity in the three vehicles,' etc."

H. Guenther, on the other hand, in his Philosophy & Psychology in the 
Abhidharma, states (p. 133):

"The author of the Atthasalini, who is, as many passages in his work reveal, 
much indebted to the intellectual and spiritual acumen of the 
Vijnanavadins..."

Unfortunately he does not go on to document this in any detail, but it is 
the same impression I have when reading Buddhaghosa -- the commentaries AND 
Visuddhimagga.

So at least we might agree that Theravada borrowing from Asanga is attested 
for Dhammapala? That would be a first step.

Documenting Buddhaghosa's borrowings in his commentaries and original work 
would take a long article, even a monograph, as the borrowing and influence 
is extensive, sometimes masked, and sometimes more overt. With several 
pressing deadlines I do not have the time now to collect the requisite 
citations. (anyone reading this who wishes to contribute, please do) There 
is, of course, no reason for anyone to take my word, or Guenther's, for any 
of this without a display of the evidence. So put this on hold until such 
time as I (or someone else) can gather the materials.

>But the likely date for this is somewhere around
> the second or third century A.D., around the same time that the vibhāṣā
> literature has developed in the north. So it would be in the earlier
> commentaries which Buddhaghosa is editing.

So now Buddhaghosa's raw material has extended from the 1st c CE to the 3rd. 
Progress.

> I do not believe you can cite even one example of the influence of
> Asanga or Vasubandhu on Buddhaghosa.

Please see my discussion of Visuddhimagga in "The Two Truths (Saṃvṛti-satya 
and Paramārtha-satya) in Early Yogācāra" published in Journal of Buddhist 
Studies, vol. VII, 2010. Pp. 101-152, which addresses it in terms of the 
Paramartha-gathas of the Yogacarabhumi. (It's available online as a PDF at 
http://tinyurl.com/3nhdemh ) I don't make any historical claims of borrowing 
there, but that would be a starting place to notice (initially) strong 
affinities, and then parallels, and, once enough of these sorts of sections 
of texts are compiled, to determine direction of influence. Since Asanga and 
Vasubandhu predate Buddhaghosa, they were not borrowing from him.

> For myself, since I prefer a fourth century date for Buddhaghosa, such
> influence is unlikely.

Fifth c. is the more common consensus for his dates. That works for me.

Dan