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

[L.S. Cousins]

In reply to:

>> 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.


Dan says:

> 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.

And I still don't think it is there. You are still using Theravāda in a 
distinct sense.

> 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.

I have seen this kind of argument over a rather long period. See for 
example the work of Konrad Meisig. It is not at all new. I think it 
involves rather naive conceptions of the historical processes involved.

>     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.


Some of the Sutta materials in Chinese represent late development with 
strong Mahāyāna influence.


> 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.


For the Theravāda the text seems to have been fixed a a rather early 
point by the creation of detailed commentaries. It could be the case 
that this only happened in Ceylon. We don't know for sure that other 
schools had such sutta commentaries, but some may have done. Others most 
probably didn't.

> 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. 


I am not convinced.


The author of the Aṭṭhasālinī was asked to write his work by the bhikkhu 
Buddhaghosa and so is almost certainly a senior contemporary of Buddhaghosa.

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


 From the Bodhisattvabhūmi, possibly. But we don't know the sources of 
that work which seems rather eclectic.

> 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.

You did not pay attention. I said only that no figures later than the 
first century A.D. are mentioned in his commentaries. That suggests to 
me that the sources he is using date from after the first century. They 
themselves probably had earlier sources.

>> 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.


Thanks for the URL and the interesting paper.

I don't see any evidence here for borrowing from Asaṅga, however. The 
verses you cite from the /Visuddhimagga/ are also found in the 
/Abhidhammāvatāra/ of Buddhadatta. In both places they are specifically 
attributed to the Ancients (Porāṇā). That (here and elsewhere) suggests 
a source in the earlier commentaries.

>     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.


Oskar von Hinüber writes (Handbook p.103: "... the brackets for 
Buddhaghosa's dates are about AD 370 to 450", but the earlier limit is 
provided by the dates for Mahāsena, taken as d. 362 rather than as d. 
302. I prefer the earlier chronology. The usual dating to the reign of 
Mahānāma in the fifth century is based on very late evidence which 
should be ignored. In general, a mid-fourth century dating seems preferable.

Lance