Tagged: Brahmanism
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Shults - A Note on Śramaṇa in Vedic Texts (2016)
1This article refutes Christopher Beckwith's claim that the term *śramaṇa* exclusively meant "Buddhist practitioner" in antiquity by demonstrating its pre-Buddhist origins and broader semantic range within the Vedic tradition. Citing evidence from texts such as the *Taittirīya Āraṇyaka*, *Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa*, and the *Rgveda Saṃhitā*, the author shows that *śramaṇa* was used to mean "one who toils," "weary," or "unwearying" in contexts describing Vedic seers, sacrificial rituals, cattle, and even stones, all unrelated to Buddhism. The author supports and expands upon Patrick Olivelle's "development model," which traces the word's etymology to the Vedic root *√śram* (to toil, become weary), arguing that its various meanings developed organically within Brahmanical circles, thus providing the pre-existing conceptual framework for the term to be later applied to the Buddha and other ascetics.
Bronkhorst, Johannes - Greater Magadha, Brill (2007)
2In *Greater Magadha*, Johannes Bronkhorst posits the existence of a distinct cultural sphere in early India, located east of the traditional Brahmanical heartland, which was the cradle of religious movements such as Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikism. This culture was defined by a unique spiritual ideology centered on the belief in rebirth and karmic retribution, as well as by features like round funerary mounds (stūpas), a distinct medical tradition, and a cyclical conception of time. Bronkhorst argues that these concepts were foreign to the Vedic-Brahmanical culture to its west, which only gradually absorbed them over a long period of cultural interaction. This process is traced through Brahmanical texts that reveal varied reactions - hesitant acceptance and adaptation in the Upaniṣads and the Mahābhārata, long-term disregard by the Mīmāṃsā school, and outright rejection by the Cārvākas, whom he identifies as a Brahmanical school. A central part of the thesis involves a chronological re-evaluation of late-Vedic literature, which Bronkhorst, using evidence from grammarians like Pāṇini, argues is much later than traditionally held and was composed contemporaneously with this cultural amalgamation.