Filed under: Biography, Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist Studies, India, Indian History, Religion, awakening, dharma, enlightenment, history, lecture, meditation, peace, philosophy, podcast, webcast
I recently posted a link to an excellent webcast/podcast by Professor Richard Salomon from the University of Washington regarding searching for the Buddha-vacana (words of the Buddha). The hour-long webcast contains valuable information about ancient Buddhism and for those of you who cannot watch, or have the patience to watch, the webcast, I have summarized it for you here.
The title of the talk is “In Search of the Words of the Buddha” and can be located in its digital form at the following link: http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/katz/20052006/richard_salomon.html.
I have done my best to write-up a quick summary of the talk by Salomon. In the summary, I attempted to avoid academic jargon and the summary is, by no means, an academic piece of work or a reflection of my scholarly aptitude. It is simply a 30 minute write-up for blog publication. Please forgive my grammatical shortcomings.
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A young nobleman named Siddartha Gautama lived in Northeastern India around the fifth century B.C.E. (Before Common Era). He obtained enlightenment, earned the title Buddha, and his followers orally transmitted his teachings and words (Buddha-vacana) in the first few centuries of the new religion’s existence. During the first century B.C.E., it is hypothesized that the Buddha-vacana first began to be written down. However, the earliest manuscripts available to researchers date to the extremely late centuries C.E. (5th-10th). With the production of a written Buddha-vacana came canonization. A single Buddha-vacana canon, however, is extraordinarily voluminous and with such a large collection comes a fundamental problem: nobody can master all of it. (more…)
Filed under: Biography, Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist Studies, India, Religion, Spirituality, awakening, dharma, enlightenment, history, lecture, meditation, peace, philosophy, podcast, webcast
This is a webcast by Richard Salomon, Professor of Asian Languages & Literature at the University of Washington. In this webcast he documents and discusses some of (or perhaps all of) the oldest Buddhist manuscripts that currently exist. The fragments in particular that he deals with are the famous Gandhari manuscripts, written on birch-bark scrolls over 2,000 years ago in what is now northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan. The comparison to the Dead Sea Scrolls has often been made, however, in my opinion, this is not a valid comparison because despite these being the oldest surviving manuscripts, they are still, according to tradition dating of Gautama Buddha, nearly 500 years post-mahaparinirvana. As Salomon discusses, the Buddha-vacana (word of the Buddha) was canonized and written down, finally, after several centuries of oral transmission, in the 1st Century B.C.E. at the earliest. Each of the canons currently available to us are extraordinarily voluminous, each number between 50-100 tomes, which is, to say the least, considerably larger than any religious corpus known in Western traditions. Even then, of the Pali, Tibetan, and Gandhari “canons” (if we may even dare to call them such) are only marginally similar in their content.
Salomon’s knowledge of the ancient Gandhari scrolls is immense, as he is the leading scholar on the “Early Buddhist Manuscripts Project” and has guided many now-respected scholars through the Ph.D dissertations on the subject. Interestingly enough, to study the Gandhari manuscripts knowledge of Buddhist literature is just as important as knowledge of ancient Buddhist epigraphy, archaeology, and paleaography. To me, this implies that to “get at” the earliest forms of Buddhism we can, we must not wholly rely on any single one source of material but rather consider a wide range of source materials in order to “reconstruct” to the best of our ability. Not doing this, I believe, is a major pitfall that many previous as well as contemporary Buddhologists fall into unsuspectingly. Gregory Schopen, a friend and colleague of Salomon, has demonstrated time and again that the study of Buddhist epigraphy combined with Buddhist literature can give us, as researchers and students, new insights in topics that were previously considered “conquered” or “well flushed out.” Anyone know of a Schopen webcast/podcast/mp3?
Link: http://depts.washington.edu/uwch/katz/20052006/richard_salomon.html
Warning: You must have Real Player installed in order to view the webcast. However, I suggest installing Real Alternative so you do not get the corporate bugs and annoyances of the real Real Player.
Filed under: Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist Studies, Burma, India, Indian History, News, Non-fiction, Opinion, Religion, Saffron Revolution, Spirituality, awakening, dharma, enlightenment, history, meditation, peace, philosophy, social reform
Are they really so different?
You heard it here first: Monks don’t just meditate.
Yup, it’s true — they also lead revolutions. Following up my initial coverage of the Burmese Saffron Revolution, it is becoming increasingly apparent that the Burmese monks who are non-violently marching in Myanmar (Burma) are willing to die for their cause. Despite most of the Military Junta being Buddhist themselves, and knowing that it is entirely unforgivable to harm a holy man, the Military Junta continues to raid monasteries, arrest hundreds (maybe thousands?), and shoot into crowds gathering at Buddhist pagodas. On the ninth day of the Uprising, the taboo against beating holy men ended. Thursday saw the death of Japanese reporter Kenji Nagai — who was shot at point blank range. The aftermath of this atrocity has not yet been felt, but at least now governments are thinking of intervening, while the UN is going in (sort of). Strangely enough, the only major world power that John J. Rambo has not taken on in a film, China, has voiced its detest of how the Burmese Military Junta is cracking down on the pro-democracy protests. Maybe the time has come for China to be on Rambo’s side? (more…)
Filed under: Buddha, Buddhism, Buddhist Studies, Burma, News, Rambo, Religion, Saffron Revolution, Spirituality, awakening, dharma, enlightenment, history, meditation, movies, peace, philosophy, upcoming movies
In case you’ve been living in a shell for the past week, something big is occurring in Burma (Myanmar). Even though John J. Rambo believes Burma is a “warzone” (I can’t seem to use that phrase enough!), there are thousands of Theravadin Buddhist monks in Burma who are presenting marching for democracy.
[From Wikipedia] On September 24, 2007, 20,000 monks and nuns (the largest protest in 20 years) marched at the golden Shwedagon Pagoda, Yangon. On Monday, 30,000 people led by 20,000 monks marched from Shwedagon Pagoda and past the offices of the opposition National League for Democracy (NLD) party. Myanmar’s comedian Zaganar and star Kyaw Thu brought food and water to the monks. On Saturday, monks marched to greet Aung San Suu Kyi, who is under house arrest. On Sunday, about 150 nuns joined the marchers.[1] [2] By this time, the marchers’ numbers had swelled to 100,000 protesters.[3] The march covered 5 miles in the first few hours, passing Rangoon University) to Sule Pagoda and past the U.S. Embassy, inter alia, with 100 white-robed nuns. Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration was watching the situation “very carefully” – she said the people of Myanmar “deserve a life to be able to live in freedom, just as everyone does.” On September 25, 2007, 2,000 Buddhist monks and supporters defied threats from Burma’s junta. They marched to Rangoon streets at Shwedagon Pagoda amid army trucks and warning of Brigadier-General Thura Myint Maung not violate Buddhist “rules and regulations.”[4] The same day, President George Bush announced that the United States would impose tighter sanctions on the military regime during his address before the U.N. General Assembly.[5]
This movement is being aptly called “The Saffron Revolution.” (more…)
