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Some questions about the Buddhist texts.
Is true that Buddhism was based on oral tradition for 4500 years and that what we know about Buddhism is based on an arrogant monk who was the last persont to remember all that Buddha taught?
Is it true that the texts we have only come from 2 schools of Buddhism and there was 20 at the time? and the texts from the 18 don't exist?
Which is the best translation of Buddhist texts? I want the one that is most easy to understand but does not misrepresent Lord Buddha.
Is it true that the texts we have only come from 2 schools of Buddhism and there was 20 at the time? and the texts from the 18 don't exist?
Which is the best translation of Buddhist texts? I want the one that is most easy to understand but does not misrepresent Lord Buddha.
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Comments
Don't know about the second question, and the third question depends entirely on which tradition/school.
Namaste
There are no 'original Buddhist texts', though the Pali Canon of the Theravada school is considered to be the earliest written account of the Buddha's teachings. Links to English-translated versions of the suttas (sutras) should be available, though they are not all available at this time. I think all of the important ones are, though.
I would recommend doing some research on each of the traditions/schools. Most people find one that is closer to how they already think (or what they already believe) than the others. Whatever makes it easier for you to understand/practice rightly.
Namaste
The first council was held very shortly after the Buddha's death. While one monk in particular, one of the chief disciples of the Buddha, is said to have recited the teachings, they were confirmed and agreed upon by all the arahants who attended the council.
I don't know. The Pali Canon is thought to be one of first written records, though.
There isn't really a "best translation." It depends on the sutta you're reading, and not all translators have translated the same suttas, either, so it's best to look at multiple translations if possible and read the foot notes...
accesstoinsight.org and http://www.metta.lk/tipitaka/ (which also includes the Pali for you to reference).
correction, our existing pali cannon is not the first / primary written records,
i) as it's oldest suriving evidents was only the 12th century version
ii) the oldest suriving scriptures (birchbark maniscripts , 100-300bce ) as evident belong to the proto-Mahayana and Mahayana scriptures, written in Prakrit and old Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit
ii) the early Buddhist schools ( 250bce)came before Theravada Buddhism, most of their canons are translated into Chinese and still preserved in the Agama canon as part of the Mahayana canon
iii) Theravada derived from Haimavata of north Inidan, which derived from Sthaviravada, but comparison of the scriptures and doctrines are not toally similiar , which mean it continue to evolve in age
It is interesting you say that because some people have claimed that Mahayana Buddhism is older than Theravada.
Like.... whom, for example?
I can't remember as it was a long time ago I read it somewhere; my point is some people think it is older. I am sure if you look you would find people that claim this.
Also read that Mahayana were called majority and wanted to reform Buddhism but other Buddhists were opposed to reform.
Is Buddhism only for people that are intelligent and well educated? I do not rememeber everthing I do or read, often I only remember part of it.
but I found a whole lot more about Theravada being the older, than I did the opposite.
so I think those arguing that Mahayana is 'older' are in the great minority. And frankly, incorrect.
But hey, don't just take it form me.
I'm just 'some other people'.....;)
That is what I read somewhere but forgot where.
I remember reading a car sticker which read "Buddhism is for the intelligentia".
I'm of the opinion that it certainly takes a certain level of discernement, intellect and comprehension to consider following Buddhism in the first place.
I've never met an unintelligent Buddhist.
Well in that case, say nothing. Do more research and use links and references, because simply saying 'I read somewhere that some people'.. frankly gives no credence or credibility to what you say. It's merely gossip and Idle Chatter.
There's a precept about that, I think.....
When we consider the transmission of the Buddhist scriptures, we need to understand that there is some archaeological suggestion that the First Council may have predated the Buddha's death. If so, we still cannot say for sure what precisely was recited and memorised, any more than we can extrapolate the original oral versions of The Iliad or Beowulf. Cultures which retain an oral tradition demonstrate that the content depends, all too often, on the teller.
It is a strange and, to me, worrying post-Lutheran approach to scriptures that they have to have historical authenticity, even "inerrancy". What matters, surely, is what effect they have on us here and now. Appeals to 'accuracy' of text and translation are distractions from the job before us and lead (as is so often demonstrated here) to argument rather than action, to debate rather than to reflection.
Many of the translations continue to use a sort of cod post-KJV language whereas I am sure that Gotama taught in language and idiom that was immediate and striking to his audience, but you takes your pick - they are all translations of 'consecrated' texts, which means that there have been at least two transforms between us and the Tathagata's own words.
Theravada IS older than Mahayana, yes.
Now that is both correct AND verifiable.
I think some people are born into Buddhism, if their family is Buddhist.
Yes I read that in some books on the internet, but I could not remember where. I don't see how saying that is wrong because it is not a lie.
I didn't say the teachings of the Buddha weren't for all people.
I said it took some intelligence for people to turn to Buddhism.
There's a difference. And the Buddha was quite open with regard to foolish people and consorting with them. he didn't look down upon them, but he exhorted people to practice discernment.
Being educated and unintelligent is different to being foolish.
I know many people who are both.
hell, I'm sure I fall into that category myself, all the time....
Just because you're born into Buddhism, it doesn't make you intelligent or educated, or even otherwise.
It also doesn't make you Buddhist.
It makes you connected to Buddhism, but the choice of being a Buddhist is a personal one.
Both Theravada and Mahayana appear to be developments of pre-existing but now no longer extant schools of Buddhism which arose after the Buddha's death, Theravadins date their school from the Third Council (c. 250 BCE) whereas Mahayana (which includes Zen) appears later, probably around the turn of the Era, focusing on the Bodhisattva ideal.
That having been said, it may be wondered if 'older' automatically means better. After all, both European and Arabic science relied on Aristotle as the source of truth and medicine stuck to Galen for centuries: neither was correct. It is a strange approach that we find in so many religions and quasi-religions (whichever category you prefer for Buddhism) that harks back to some sort of Golden Age of authenticity, as if nothing has changed over 2500 years. Christians do it around the post-Pentecost church, whereas the only accounts that we have of that time demonstrate that it was a time of doctrinal squabbling and actual betrayal of the original message.
If we stand back and consider the development and spread of Buddhisms, we can see that each school has adopted and adapted. New teachers have arisen and have added to our understanding, introducing new language and concepts into the mix.
I would argue that there is evidence of an evolution of language and understanding. The Zen teachings of Suzuki and others, for example, are very different from the Tibetan tradition of our dear brother Palzang. Both of these arose many centuries after the Buddha's death and both are deemed to be 'authentic' paths to liberation from dukkha.
That the Theravadan tradition may pre-date the Mahayana does not, alas, guarantee that its practices and theories more accurately reflect the precise words and teachings of Gotama the Buddha Shakyamuni. That, I fear, you have to take on trust (or 'faith', if you prefer).
Choosing one of the Theravadin schools or one of the Mahayana must be a matter of personal preference but it is an unwarranted step to go from there to maintaining that one's personal preference is the only one or, even, the best for anyone else. As the Buddhist scriptures cover many centuries, right up to the present day with innovators like Thich Nhat Hanh, we are likely, in a single lifetime, to have studied, let alone understood, only a fraction of them. Worrying that we have chosen 'real' Buddhism from the array of possibilities will only increase stress and strain. It is an insidious form of grasping and leads us away from the Path.
certainly theravadin scriptures records the part of the early Buddhism teaching, but it is not the oldest nor it is the original form that came from stone that without changes/evolve by the latter ages, as firstly it unable to provide hard evidence on the oldest relic on the set of cannon, ( even it's cannon of the different age have proven that they are part that different or evolves ) , secondly in comparison of the sources earlier teachings recorded in chinese or tibetan argama , or from the recent discovery of ancient fragments - they are not totally the same. Lastly , scriptures of other earlier schools , phroto-mahayana or Mahayana do have relics of it fragment exists that could be traced before the 100 BCE , or records of the same content in different languages and cultures
it is hard to say who is the oldest, but it appearing to shows that each lineages do preserved a certain portion of the Buddha content , and it is likely correct as the Buddha teached more than 50 years to many different groups of people, the content he taught to the kings and yogis , it is unlikely be interested or recorded by his monastic disciples. Also in the course of historuy different schools do learned from each another , or absopt one another , and also the teaching have also evolved to suit the need of the group of people
in the realm of Buddha Dharma, it is regarded that the teaching is well say , and lead the wisdom and liberation are all voices of the Buddha
For fifty years the Buddha roamed teahcing Dharma. When he died his students mourned for a month.
After that month there was a long period, perhaps a year, where the followers, were working out the doctrine. Once it was agreed it was verbally memorised and passed on verbally from generation to generation.
Over the next five hundred years the doctrine was changed by a number of councils (meetings of hundreds of monks lasting months) and there were splits, no doubt, into the lost doctrines you speak of.
So it was five hundred years until the first texts were written down. none of these survive today we are told and so the oldest texts are, as I understand it, within the last fifteen hundred years.
So there is no right way, there are just lots of ways that are right for different people and cultures.
What you will see as you study Buddhism more, is that across all the surviving variants and schools there is a rather profound unity; they really do agree on the core doctrine about the reality, cause and cessation of suffering.
namaste
Yes, unity. The Buddha spoke to each person in a way that they could understand, because everyone is at different levels, different states of mind that can only accept something if put in a certain way. The different schools guide to the same reality, but in different ways to suit the different types of human mindsets/personalities.
It's all about that pesky illusory self, that non-self that is resistant to any kind of change that is 'against' its desires. Times are changing; human society has changed greatly, to my thought, in the past 2500+ years.
Buddhism has changed to adapt, through time itself, the same way as it adapted to various cultures.
That's my view, my perspective, but at least it's much more positive than the common one.
Namaste
First, it's true that nothing was written down, as far as we know, for a few hundred years after the Buddha died. The monks developed a process for preserving the Buddha's teaching. Different groups of monks would memorize different groups of texts (i.e. one group of monks was responsible for one group of texts, another group was responsible for another group of texts, and so on). The monks who memorized texts would get together periodically and recite for each other. Anyone who made a mistake in reciting a text would be corrected by the other monks who had memorized the text. This ensured that no text was altered due to forgetting or deliberate alteration.
When I say "text", I'm referring to the sort of things included in the Pali Canon: suttas, rules for behavior, commentary, etc. The oldest Buddhist manuscripts are birch bark from Gandhara, and date from shortly after the beginning of the Common Era, as someone mentioned. However, the texts written on the manuscripts are obviously much older.
I'm not sure when monks started this process of memorizing and checking, but some scholars have suggested that certain sutras were being recited during the Buddha's lifetime. If the process didn't start during the Buddha's lifetime, it started shortly after his death.
This process of memorization and checking was so successful that it continued after writing became more common. The first group to write down their texts were the Theravadins. There was a famine in southern India and Sri Lanka, and the number of monks dropped so low that the process of memorization and checking was in danger of failing. So the Theravadins switched to writing, not because it was more accurate than memorization, but because it allowed them to preserve the Buddha's teachings just as accurately with fewer monks.
The whole issue of oral transmission vs written transmission is a red herring. Not only was the process of memorization and checking remarkably successful in preserving texts, but written texts change constantly, and this is especially true for religious texts. People tend to have strong opinions about what the founder of their religion taught, and if a text doesn't reflect the "truth" as they know it, then they feel that it is the text that is in error, not their belief. We know for a fact that written texts were changed for exactly that reason. A system where monks allow themselves to be corrected by other monks is more likely to resist alteration than a system that involves individual scribes working alone or in small groups.
But even as monks were resisting changes to existing texts, they were adding new texts. It's clear that different suttas and sutras entered the canons of various groups at different times. At some point two to three hundred years after the Buddha, the Theravadin canon became "closed"; i.e. the Theravadin monks stopped accepting new suttas. Other groups closed their canons at later dates. However, talking about "closing" the canon is a bit deceptive. What actually happened was that successive generations of monks became gradually less open to accepting new texts. A small number of suttas may have been added to the Pali Canon after the time the scholars think it was closed. Furthermore, among the Buddhist groups that included both Mahayana and non-Mahayana monks living together in the same monasteries and following the same vinayas, the Mahayana monks were accepting the more recent Mahayana sutras as coming from the Buddha, while the non-Mahayana monks were not. So in the same group, and even in the same monastery, the canon was closed for some monks, but still somewhat open for others. There's evidence that this was happening prior to Mahayana, so it seems that having different groups of monks in the same monastery accepting different groups of texts was an early and enduring characteristic of Indian Buddhism.
All of the Sarvastivadin agamas survive in Chinese translation. (Pali sutta collections are called nikayas, and Sanskrit sutra collections are called agamas.) Parts of the agamas of the Kasyapiyas, Dharmaguptas, and Mahasamghikas are also preserved in Chinese. So we have all of the sutras (suttas) of two schools, and some of the sutras of three other schools.
The conventional number for the count of early Buddhist schools is eighteen. Over time, some schools died out and new schools arose, so at any given time the number may have been greater or less than eighteen, but it tended to hover around eighteen.
The conventional story is that Ananda memorized all the Buddha's sermons and passed them on to the other monks, who preserved them using the process I described above. It's unlikely that this is literally true, but even if it is, I wasn't aware that Ananda was considered particularly arrogant.
Most of the early texts, whether written in Theravadin or from some other group, tend to be pretty straightforward. It's easier to find English translations of the nikayas than translations of the agamas. You can find good translations of most of the nikayas on the web. Wisdom Publications offers translations of three of the five nikayas in book form. Other people may have other suggestions.
I hope this was helpful.