Gregory Schopen: Bones, Not Books

Sile

From Sujato's blogpost, The Ironic Assumptions of Gregory Schopen:

"The methods and assumptions of Buddhist text-critical studies have come under challenge, indeed frontal assault, by the influential academic Gregory Schopen...[Schopen] criticizes the assumption of modern scholars that the study of Buddhism may be equated with the study of its texts, and instead proposes that the archaeological evidence should be granted priority....As far as the results of research are concerned, Schopen says that the record of the bones and stones depicts a very different type of Buddhist monastic, one who is more worldly and human than the caricature of the ascetic hero striving for Nibbana alone in the forest."

http://sujato.wordpress.com/2011/01/22/the-ironic-assumptions-of-gregory-schopen/

Dakini

What a thought-provoking blog. It's certainly true that many Western Buddhist scholars and lay practitioners idealize Buddhism and have no contact with Buddhism as practiced in Asia. The one thing that seemed contradictory in the article was that the author says Schopen relies mainly on texts from the first 500 years AD. But then he says Schopen uses Tibetan translations of the Vinaya. Buddhism didn't exist in Tibet back in the first half of the first millenium AD, did it? Not monastic Buddhism, anyway. Can someone clarify that seeming contradiction?

Sile

From the blog article:

"[Schopen] is primarily interested in the ‘Middle Period’ of Indian Buddhism, that is, the five hundred years or so from the beginning of the Common Era. He uses the remnants of monasteries, stupas, graves, etc., together with Vinaya material, primarily from the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya in Tibetan...which he says stems from the same period and depicts much the same activity."

Wiki gives:

"The Mūlasarvāstivāda was an early school of Buddhism, developed in India during the 2nd century AD and in decline by the 7th century....Its vinaya texts are extant in Tibetan (9th century translation)..."

So I believe "stems from the same period" refers to the Tibetan material in the sense that, as a translation, it preserves earlier material now lost.

Sile

Actually, the blog owner summed it up best I think in a separate post:

"The Mulasarvastivada Vinaya typically represents a segment of northern Indian Buddhism, from say 200CE-500CE. It is today the canonical Vinaya in central Asian Buddhism, including Tibet, and Schopen relies on the Tibetan and Sanskrit sources."

http://sujato.wordpress.com/2010/07/10/who-owns-a-monastery-in-the-mulasarvastivada-vinaya/

Dakini

That's interesting. I guess the Tibetans got a copy of it after Buddhism was established in Tibet, and translated it. That must have happened with a lot of Indian Buddhist texts. OK, thanks.

Sile

Some extra insight from Buddhanet:

The Tripitaka [Pali: Tipitaka] is the Canon of the Buddhists, both Theravada and Mahayana. Thus it is possible to speak of several Canons such as the Sthaviravada, Sarvastivada and Mahayana as well as in term of languages like Pali, Chinese and Tibetan. The word is used basically to refer to the literature, the authorship of which is directly or indirectly ascribed to the Buddha himself.

It has long been claimed that the Buddha, as he went about teaching in the Gangetic valley in India during the 6th and 5th centuries B.C.E., used Magadhi...attempts have been made to identify this Magadhan dialect with Pali, the language in which the texts of the Sthaviravada school are recorded. Hence we speak of a Pali Canon, i.e., the literature of the Sthaviravadins which is believed to be the original word of the Buddha.

At any rate, this is the only complete recension we possess and the Pali texts seem to preserve an older tradition much more than most of the extant Buddhist works in other languages.

Besides this Pali recension of the Sthaviravada school there are fragmentary texts of the Sarvastivada or of the Mulasarvastivada which are preserved in Sanskrit. [What] could be referred to as a Sarvastivada Canon ranges between fragments of texts preserved in Sanskrit and the more representative collection of the Tripitaka preserved in Chinese. It may be mentioned here that a version of the Mulasarvastivada Vinaya consisting of seven parts, even more faithful than the Chinese version, is preserved in Tibetan.

http://www.buddhanet.net/e-learning/history/s_canon.htm

Floating_Abu

criticizes the assumption of modern scholars that the study of Buddhism may be equated with the study of its texts

I can agree with that