Tagged: Vedic Thought
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*).
Gombrich, Richard F. - How Buddhism Began (2006)
2Richard 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.