Tagged: Early Buddhism
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Anālayo - Āgama And Aṅga In The Early Buddhist Oral Tradition
1In the early Buddhist oral tradition, the term `āgama` initially referred to the entire, undifferentiated body of discourses, which was later systematically divided into four collections, known as the four `āgamas` or `nikāyas`, to facilitate memorization and transmission. The author argues that the separate list of nine (or twelve) `aṅgas` was not an earlier or intermediate system for organizing these collections, but rather a classification of different textual types or literary styles, such as prose with verse, stanzas, and birth stories. The paper dismisses theories that shorter lists of `aṅgas` represent an earlier stage, suggesting they are likely abbreviations or transmission errors. Ultimately, the function of the nine `aṅgas` in the discourses was to represent the variety of the Buddha's teachings and to emphasize that true, penetrative understanding of their meaning is superior to mere rote learning of these different compositional forms.
Anālayo - Awakening or Enlightenment (2021)
2In this article, Bhikkhu Anālayo argues that the Pāli term *bodhi* is more accurately translated as "awakening" than "enlightenment," refuting arguments made by Bhikkhu Bodhi. Anālayo contends that the experience of *bodhi* is a sudden realization of Nirvana, which is metaphorically a "quenching" of a flame rather than an illumination, making "awakening" a more fitting description than a term implying comprehensive knowledge. He points out that while the etymological root *budh* does mean "to know," its primary sense is "to wake up," a crucial nuance that "enlightenment" misses. Anālayo also asserts that scriptural imagery involving light and radiance typically relates to the Buddha's teaching activities or preliminary meditative states, not the core experience of *bodhi* itself, which is the destruction of defilements. Finally, he warns that "enlightenment" carries problematic historical connotations with the European Enlightenment, further supporting the preference for "awakening."
Anālayo - Consciousness and Dependent Arising (2020)
3In the Buddhist concept of dependent arising, consciousness and name-and-form share a unique, reciprocal relationship, mutually conditioning each other like two bundles of reeds that can only stand by leaning together. This dynamic, where consciousness requires name-and-form for its content and name-and-form requires consciousness to be experienced, creates the continuous matrix of subjective experience. When this consciousness becomes "established" through desire, it perpetuates the cycle of rebirth, but the "unestablished consciousness" of an enlightened one (*arahant*) is no longer dependent on name-and-form, thereby ending future re-becoming. Ultimately, the text argues that consciousness is not a solution but a conditioned, impermanent, and potentially deluding part of the human predicament (*dukkha*), and its cessation is integral to achieving liberation.
Anālayo - Dependent Arising and Interdependence (2021)
4The early Buddhist doctrine of "dependent arising" posits a specific conditionality, where particular phenomena arise due to identifiable causes, with the primary aim of understanding and eradicating the specific conditions, such as ignorance, that lead to human suffering. This principle is distinct from the concept of "interdependence" or "interconnectedness" — the idea that all phenomena are mutually related in a vast web — which is a later development from Mahāyāna traditions like Huayan philosophy. The text argues that modern interpretations often conflate these two divergent concepts, a confusion that diminishes the practical focus of the original teaching and is exemplified by contemporary research tools like the "Interconnectedness Scale," which incorrectly mixes items reflecting both specific conditionality and universal interdependence.
Anālayo - The Buddha's Fire Miracles (2015)
5Through a comparative study of early Buddhist discourses and their parallel versions, the author argues that depictions of the Buddha performing fire miracles are likely later textual developments rather than original elements. By examining narratives such as Sakka's visit, a visit to Brahmā, and the Pāṭikaputta challenge, the text demonstrates a pattern where earlier versions lack fire displays, which are then added or amplified in other recensions, suggesting a gradual embellishment over time. The author posits that these miracles may have arisen from a literal interpretation of the fire motif, which was originally used metaphorically in both texts and art to symbolize the power of meditation or the Buddha's radiance. This conclusion is supported by the observation that the "fire element" in most early discourses refers to the physical experience of bodily heat as a meditative object, not an external manifestation of flames, with the latter usage appearing to be a later innovation.
Attwood - Possible Iranian Origins for the Śākyas and Aspects of Buddhism (2012)
6This article explores Michael Witzel's theory that the Śākya tribe, the Buddha's clan, had Iranian origins, potentially as an early migration of Scythians (Sakas). The argument rests on circumstantial evidence linking Śākya and early Buddhist characteristics to Iranian or Zoroastrian culture, such as the origin story of sibling marriage (a known Iranian custom), the moral triad of body, speech, and mind, and an ethicized eschatology featuring post-mortem judgment, none of which are prominent in contemporary Brahmanical traditions. The author proposes that these ideas were transmitted via a migration of tribes like the Śākyas into the Central Ganges region around the 9th century BCE, bypassing the main Vedic cultural centers. This thesis challenges the view of Buddhism as solely a reaction to Brahmanism, suggesting instead that it emerged from a broader cultural milieu and that the Buddha may have been a product of his tribe's assimilated Iranian heritage.
Brekke - The Early Saṃgha and the Laity (2019)
7The early Buddhist Saṃgha transformed from an open, conversionist movement that actively competed for followers into a more withdrawn, introversionist community due to the influx of members with extrinsic, or worldly, motivations. Citing the Vinayapitaka, the author shows that many people joined the order not for spiritual reasons but to escape poverty, debt, punishment, or simply to secure a comfortable life, which threatened the Saṃgha's purity and reputation among the laity. In response, the Saṃgha developed introversionist measures to protect its integrity, including stricter admission procedures, detailed rules for appearance and conduct to ensure monks appeared dignified and aloof, an emphasis on internal unity to prevent schisms, and the establishment of fixed monastic dwellings that physically separated the community from the world. This created a self-enforcing cycle where the Saṃgha's cultivated purity attracted greater lay support, which in turn made it a more appealing refuge for extrinsically motivated individuals, necessitating a continuous process of purification to maintain its stability.
Bronkhorst - Did the Buddha Believe in Karma and Rebirth (2021)
8Johannes Bronkhorst argues that the historical Buddha did believe in karma and rebirth, but that his crucial innovation was to redefine karma not as physical or mental activity, but as the psychological element of intention and desire (*tṛṣṇā*). This unique understanding explains why the Buddhist path to liberation is fundamentally psychological, focusing on mindfulness and insight, rather than relying on the physical asceticism or doctrines of an inactive Self found in contemporary traditions like Jainism. Bronkhorst critiques scholarly attempts to locate the "original" teaching in passages that resemble Vedic or Jaina ideas, suggesting these are more likely later borrowings or misunderstandings by followers who struggled to grasp the Buddha's distinct psychological focus.
Clough - The higher knowledges in the Pāli Nikāyas and Vinaya (2010)
9In early Buddhist texts like the Pāli Nikāyas and Vinaya, the *abhiññās* or "higher knowledges" are an integral, though often overlooked, component of the path to liberation. These extraordinary abilities, attained in advanced states of meditation, typically include five mundane powers - supernormal feats (iddhi), divine ear, mind-reading, recollection of past lives, and the divine eye. A sixth, supermundane knowledge—the destruction of the mental defilements (āsavakkhayañāna) — is uniquely Buddhist and constitutes enlightenment itself. Although the Buddha expressed wariness about their pursuit and display, and they were not always considered essential for liberation, the abhiññās served crucial pedagogical, epistemological, and soteriological functions. They acted as signs of meditative progress, tools for teaching, and, most importantly, as a means to experientially verify core Buddhist doctrines like kamma, rebirth, and the Four Noble Truths, with the final three knowledges being central to the traditional account of the Buddha's own awakening.
Kalupahana - The Philosophy of Early History in Buddhism (1981)
10The text explores why early Buddhism, despite accepting the reality of the empirical world, lacked historical writings in the Western sense. It contrasts the Western speculative philosophy of history, which posits an unfolding Absolute, with the critical philosophy that views history as a value-laden discipline. Early Buddhism rejects the speculative approach, categorizing such grand theories as dispositionally constructed "views" (diṭṭhi) based on incomplete evidence and metaphysical assumptions. While aligning with the critical view in recognizing the evaluative nature of historical interpretation, Buddhism values "knowledge of the past" (pubbante ñāṇa) for its pragmatic role in understanding suffering. This understanding is grounded not in an absolute framework or first cause, but in the principle of dependent arising (paticcasamuppāda), a causal process knowable through experience. The ultimate goal is not to construct historical narratives but to use knowledge of causation to pacify dispositions and achieve nirvāṇa, thereby focusing on the present without being bound by speculative reconstructions of the past.
Polak - Can Cessation Be a Cognitive State (2023)
11In the early Buddhist Nikāyas, the concept of *nirodha* (cessation) describes a special meditative state, achievable in life, that should be understood not as insentience but as a unique form of cognition. This state involves the cessation of the psychophysical constituents (*khandha-s* and *salāyatana-s*), which the article interprets, using modern philosophy of mind, as the cessation of ordinary, constructed phenomenal consciousness (*viññāna*). While this reportable, self-referential experience is suspended, a deeper, functional mind (*citta*) continues to operate in a non-introspectable, globally unavailable way. The soteriological purpose of this is to bypass the distorting nature of phenomenal consciousness—which is a constructed representation rather than a direct perception of the present—thereby allowing for a tacit, ineffable insight into reality as it is. This cognitive state is thus apophatic, transcending the familiar categories of self, time, and space that structure phenomenal experience, and results in a profound but non-reportable transformation.
Polak - Language, Conscious Experience and the Self in Early Buddhism (2018)
12This article reconstructs early Buddhist thought to argue that ordinary conscious experience is fundamentally shaped by language and conceptualization, a process that creates an illusory Self which is the root of suffering. This cognitive distortion begins with *saññā* (apperception), a labeling function that, through its inherent link to language, imposes a discrete, manifold structure (*papañca*) onto reality. The mind's tendency to reify grammatical forms is then misapplied to personal pronouns, constructing a continuous "narrative self" that is mistakenly identified as a real agent—a "speaker and feeler" (*vado vedeyyo*). Drawing on parallels in Western philosophy and modern cognitive science, the text argues this delusion involves misinterpreting phenomenal consciousness (represented by the five *khandha-s*)—which is merely a limited, unified representation of vast, non-conscious bodily processes—as the actual source of agency and subjectivity. This fundamental error of identifying with a fictional, linguistically-generated entity is psychologically taxing, distorts the experience of time, and constitutes the core of human suffering.