Tagged: Upaniṣads
Pages with this tag
Jurewicz- Playing with Fire (2000)
1In her analysis, Joanna Jurewicz posits that the Buddhist law of dependent origination (pratītyasamutpāda) is a polemical reinterpretation of Vedic cosmogony, which shares a similar structure and even specific concepts but is stripped of its positive value by the Buddhist doctrine of no-self (anattā). The twelve links of the Buddhist chain are shown to parallel stages of Vedic creation, where concepts like *avidyā* (ignorance) and *saṃskāra* (volition) mirror the Creator's initial state and subsequent will, and later links like *nāmarūpa* (name-and-form) and the sense bases (*ṣaḍāyatana*) map onto the *ātman's* differentiation into the cognized world. The central Vedic metaphor of a creative, divine fire (Agni) is deliberately inverted, with its "thirst" to create becoming the destructive fire of craving (*tṛṣṇā*) and its need for fuel becoming clinging (*upādāna*). By systematically removing the *ātman* as the divine agent, the Buddha reframes the entire desirable Vedic creative process as a meaningless and absurd chain of events that inevitably culminates in suffering through becoming, birth, and death (*bhava, jāti, jarāmaraṇa*).
Shults - A Note on Refuge in Vedic and Pāli Texts (2016)
2This article explores the concept of refuge (*śaraṇa*/*saraṇa*) by tracing its development from Vedic to Pāli Buddhist texts, arguing that while the motif of a "triple refuge" existed in the *Ṛgveda* and later Vedic literature, it was primarily a ritualistic or protective formula for seeking shelter from gods like Indra. In contrast, early Buddhism repurposed this concept, imbuing it with a profound, personal, and transformative significance. Citing Pāli narratives such as those of Sumanā, Ubbirī, and Aṅgulimāla, the author demonstrates that for Buddhists, "going for refuge" was not merely a formal act but a pivotal "change of heart" marking a dramatic discontinuity in one's life, linked to inner realization, overcoming suffering, and renouncing a sinful past. This shift from a functional, ritualistic notion to an experience of profound personal conversion represents the key Buddhist innovation on the pre-existing Vedic motif.
Shults - On the Buddha's Use of Some Brahmanical Motifs in Pali Texts (2014)
3This paper by Brett Shults argues that Pali texts demonstrate a sophisticated and deliberate engagement with Brahmanical culture by strategically adopting and reinterpreting its motifs to articulate Buddhist teachings. Moving beyond the idea of a shared cultural vocabulary, the author illustrates how early Buddhists repurposed specific Brahmanical elements for their own didactic purposes. Examples range from metallurgical similes, where the Brahmanical concept of refining gold for ritual purity is transformed into a metaphor for mental purification, to the Buddha's detailed technical knowledge of the Sāvitrī mantra's gāyatrī meter. The analysis further shows how core Brahmanical practices, such as the agnihotra (fire sacrifice) and the three Vedic ritual fires, are systematically interiorized and ethicized, shifting their focus from external rites to internal development and social responsibilities, thereby challenging and supplanting the original Brahmanical framework using its own terms.
Wynne - The ātman and its negation (2010)
4The famous Buddhist "No Self" (anātman) doctrine is largely absent from the earliest texts because the original teachings were founded on a different and more subtle philosophy than the later, standard interpretation. Early critiques, such as the "Not-Self" (anattā) teaching, are grounded in a principle of "epistemological conditioning," where fundamental concepts including "self," "existence," and even space-time are not ultimate realities but are dependently originated through cognitive processes. This is why the early texts pragmatically avoid direct ontological statements like "the self does not exist," instead guiding practitioners to see that identifying with conditioned phenomena is "unsuitable" and thereby transcend the very conceptual framework that creates a sense of self. The explicit "No Self" doctrine developed later, as seen in texts like the *Vajirā Sutta* and the Abhidharma, when this subtle philosophy gave way to a "reductionistic realism" that analyzes the person as a collection of essenceless components within an objectively real world, thus shifting the focus from a radical critique of conceptuality to the denial of a specific entity.
Bronkhorst, Johannes - Greater Magadha, Brill (2007)
5In *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.
Gombrich, Richard F. - How Buddhism Began (2006)
6Richard F. Gombrich's *How Buddhism Began* argues that the Buddha's original teachings must be understood within their historical context, primarily as a debate with and reaction to contemporary religious ideas, especially those of Brahminism. Gombrich posits that the Buddha was not an essentialist philosopher concerned with 'what' things are, but a pragmatic teacher focused on 'how' they function, notably by reinterpreting concepts like *kamma* from ritual action to intention. The book's other central theme is that subsequent generations of disciples, by taking the Buddha's metaphors and allegories literally, created new doctrines and scholastic distinctions that went far beyond his original, often context-dependent, message. This process is illustrated through analyses of key texts and concepts, such as the development of 'release by insight' as an alternative to meditation and a reinterpretation of the Aṅgulimāla story, suggesting that many apparent inconsistencies in the Pali Canon arose from a failure to appreciate the Buddha's use of skillful means and the specific debates he was engaged in.
Gombrich - What the Buddha Thought (2009)
7In *What the Buddha Thought*, Richard Gombrich argues that the Buddha was a brilliant and original thinker whose coherent system of thought can only be understood by placing it in its historical context as a pragmatic debate with and reaction to contemporary Brahminical and Jain ideas. Gombrich posits that the Buddha was not an essentialist philosopher but a practical teacher focused on how things function, redefining concepts like *kamma* from ritual action to ethical intention and clarifying "no-self" as the absence of an *unchanging* essence. A central thesis is that subsequent generations, failing to grasp the Buddha's use of metaphor, irony, and context-dependent arguments, took his teachings literally, thereby creating new scholastic doctrines—such as misinterpreting the *brahma-vihāras* as a path to heaven rather than nirvana. This process of misinterpretation, Gombrich contends, explains many apparent inconsistencies in the Pali Canon, which he establishes as the key evidence for understanding how the Buddha used fire as a central metaphor for non-random process and satirized Vedic cosmogony in the Chain of Dependent Origination.