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167-399: The Laṅkāvatāra recounts a teaching primarily between Gautama Buddha and a bodhisattva named Mahāmati ("Great Wisdom"). The sūtra is set in mythical Laṅkā , ruled by Rāvaṇa , the king of the rākṣasas . The Laṅkāvatāra discusses numerous Mahayana topics, such as Yogācāra philosophy of mind-only ( cittamātra ) and the three natures , the ālayavijñāna (store-house consciousness),

334-614: A white elephant with six white tusks entered her right side, and ten months later Siddhartha was born. As was the Shakya tradition, when his mother Queen Maya became pregnant, she left Kapilavastu for her father's kingdom to give birth. Her son is said to have been born on the way, at Lumbini, in a garden beneath a sal tree . The earliest Buddhist sources state that the Buddha was born to an aristocratic Kshatriya (Pali: khattiya ) family called Gotama (Sanskrit: Gautama), who were part of

501-404: A "self-like" concept. In particular are the tathāgatagarbha sūtras , where the title itself means a garbha (womb, matrix, seed) containing Tathāgata (Buddha). These Sutras suggest, states Paul Williams, that "all sentient beings contain a Tathagata" as their "essence, core or essential inner nature". The tathāgatagarbha doctrine, at its earliest probably appeared about the later part of

668-596: A Buddha that appealed to them, by eliding one that did not". The dates of Gautama's birth and death are uncertain. Within the Eastern Buddhist tradition of China, Vietnam, Korea and Japan, the traditional date for Buddha's death was 949 BCE, but according to the Ka-tan system of the Kalachakra tradition, Buddha's death was about 833 BCE. Buddhist texts present two chronologies which have been used to date

835-469: A Buddhist gets more enlightened, this happening to or originating in an "I" or sakkdyaditthi is less. The final attainment of enlightenment is the disappearance of this automatic but illusory "I". The Theravada tradition has long considered the understanding and application of the Anattā doctrine to be a complex teaching, whose "personal, introjected application has always been thought to be possible only for

1002-494: A claim to being omniscient, instead he claimed to have the "higher knowledges" ( abhijñā ). The earliest biographical material from the Pali Nikayas focuses on the Buddha's life as a śramaṇa, his search for enlightenment under various teachers such as Alara Kalama and his forty-five-year career as a teacher. Traditional biographies of Gautama often include numerous miracles, omens, and supernatural events. The character of

1169-538: A clear mirror reflects formless images all at once, tathagatas likewise purify the stream of perceptions of beings’ minds by displaying pure, formless, undifferentiated realms all at once. Or just as the sun and moon illuminate images all at once, tathagatas likewise reveal the supreme realm of inconceivable wisdom all at once to those who have freed themselves of the habit-energy and misconceptions that are perceptions of their own minds. Or just as repository consciousness distinguishes such different perceptions of one’s mind as

1336-634: A clearer picture of what Gautama may have taught than of the dates of the events in his life. These texts contain descriptions of the culture and daily life of ancient India which can be corroborated from the Jain scriptures , and make the Buddha's time the earliest period in Indian history for which significant accounts exist. British author Karen Armstrong writes that although there is very little information that can be considered historically sound, we can be reasonably confident that Siddhārtha Gautama did exist as

1503-467: A complete absence of self, pointing to evidence presented by Buddhist and Pali scholars Jean Przyluski and Caroline Rhys Davids that early Buddhism generally believed in a self, making Buddhist schools that admit an existence of a "self" not heretical, but conservative, adhering to ancient beliefs. While there may be ambivalence on the existence or non-existence of self in early Buddhist literature, Bronkhorst suggests that these texts clearly indicate that

1670-423: A doctrine denying the existence of a self, anatman is more accurately described as a strategy to attain non-attachment by recognizing everything as impermanent, while staying silent on the ultimate existence of an unchanging essence. In contrast, dominant schools of Hinduism assert the existence of Ātman as pure awareness or witness-consciousness , "reify[ing] consciousness as an eternal self." Anattā

1837-513: A dramatic narrative about the life of the young Gotama as a prince and his existential troubles. They depict his father Śuddhodana as a hereditary monarch of the Suryavansha (Solar dynasty) of Ikṣvāku (Pāli: Okkāka). This is unlikely, as many scholars think that Śuddhodana was merely a Shakya aristocrat ( khattiya ), and that the Shakya republic was not a hereditary monarchy. The more egalitarian gaṇasaṅgha form of government, as

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2004-428: A flower)", "one who has awakened from the deep sleep of ignorance and opened his consciousness to encompass all objects of knowledge". It is not a personal name, but a title for those who have attained bodhi (awakening, enlightenment). Buddhi , the power to "form and retain concepts, reason, discern, judge, comprehend, understand", is the faculty which discerns truth ( satya ) from falsehood. The name of his clan

2171-454: A fully enlightened state of empirical self, one that lacks the "sense of both 'I am' and 'this I am'", which are illusions that the Arahat has transcended. The Buddhist thought and salvation theory emphasizes a development of self towards a Selfless state not only with respect to oneself, but recognizing the lack of relational essence and Self in others, wherein states Martijn van Zomeren, "self

2338-563: A great ocean and its waves, is free from the flaw of impermanence, is the cessation of the position of a self, and is utterly pure by nature. The seven consciousnesses such as mentation and the mental consciousness, which are other than this and arise and perish, are momentary, arise from the cause that is false imagination, focus on collections of shapes, activities, and distinct instances, cling to names and characteristics, do not understand that appearing forms and characteristics are one’s own mind, do not discriminate happiness and suffering, are not

2505-593: A historical figure. Michael Carrithers goes further, stating that the most general outline of "birth, maturity, renunciation, search, awakening and liberation, teaching, death" must be true. Legendary biographies like the Pali Buddhavaṃsa and the Sanskrit Jātakamālā depict the Buddha's (referred to as " bodhisattva " before his awakening) career as spanning hundreds of lifetimes before his last birth as Gautama. Many of these previous lives are narrated in

2672-414: A more complete rendering is "no-Self" because from its earliest days, Anattā doctrine denied that there is anything called a "Self" in any person or anything else, and that a belief in "Self" is a source of Dukkha (suffering, pain, unsatisfactoriness). Buddhist scholar Richard Gombrich , however, argues that anattā is often mistranslated as meaning "not having a self or essence", but actually means "

2839-532: A political alternative to Indian monarchies, may have influenced the development of the śramanic Jain and Buddhist sanghas , where monarchies tended toward Vedic Brahmanism . The day of the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death is widely celebrated in Theravada countries as Vesak and the day he got conceived as Poson . Buddha's Birthday is called Buddha Purnima in Nepal, Bangladesh, and India as he

3006-588: A purified, enlightened deity as part of the Vajrayāna path to liberation from rebirths . One such deity is goddess Nairatmya (literally, non-soul, non-self). She symbolizes, states Miranda Shaw, that "self is an illusion" and "all beings and phenomenal appearances lack an abiding self or essence" in Vajrayāna Buddhism. The Buddhist concept of anattā or anātman is one of the fundamental differences between mainstream Buddhism and mainstream Hinduism , with

3173-419: A self and what is mine, like a dancer, it enters [all kinds of] dangerous forms of existence...Being impregnated by all kinds of beginningless latent tendencies of the impregnations of negative tendencies of discursiveness, it is called "ālaya-consciousness." Its body, together with the seven consciousnesses that arise from the ground of the latent tendencies of ignorance, always operates uninterruptedly, just like

3340-514: A self or soul in a human being that is a permanent essence of a human being, a theme found in Brahmanical traditions. In another, states Peter Harvey, such as at Samyutta Nikaya IV.286, the Sutta considers the materialistic concept in the pre-Buddhist Vedic period of "no afterlife, complete annihilation" at death to be a denial of Self, but still "tied up with belief in a Self". "Self exists"

3507-609: A time when Mahayana Buddhism was popular in the island (at sites like Abhayagiri vihara ) and the island also received visits from Chinese pilgrims like Faxian . Four translations of the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra were made from Sanskrit into the Chinese language between roughly 420 CE and 704, the earliest being attributed to Dharmarakṣa in the 5th century. Of these, only three are now extant: In addition to these Chinese translations, there are also two Tibetan translations, and

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3674-534: A version of the Sanskrit was preserved in Nepal. One Tibetan translation is derived from the Sanskrit original, and the other is likely a translation of Guṇabhadra's Chinese into Tibetan. Nanjo Bunyu prepared a critical edition of the Sanskrit in 1923 based on four manuscripts from the Nepalese recension, among other sources. Gautama Buddha Siddhartha Gautama , most commonly referred to as

3841-489: A well known meditation master, described the citta (mind) as being an indestructible reality that does not fall under anattā. He has stated that not-self is merely a perception that is used to pry one away from infatuation with the concept of a self, and that once this infatuation is gone the idea of not-self must be dropped as well. American monk Thanissaro Bhikkhu of the Thai Forest Tradition describes

4008-545: Is atta , or true self, was criticized as heretical in Buddhism in 1994 by Ven. Payutto , a well-known scholar monk, who stated that 'Buddha taught Nibbana as being no-self". The abbot of one major temple in the Dhammakaya tradition, Luang Por Sermchai of Wat Luang Por Sodh Dhammakayaram , argues that it tends to be scholars who hold the view of absolute no-self, rather than Buddhist meditation practitioners. He points to

4175-989: Is not ātman " instead of "does not have ātman ." It is also incorrect to translate Anattā simply as "ego-less", according to Peter Harvey, because the Indian concept of ātman and attā is different from the Freudian concept of ego. The concept of Anattā appears in numerous Sutras of the ancient Buddhist Nikāya texts (Pali canon). It appears, for example, as a noun in Samyutta Nikaya III.141, IV.49, V.345, in Sutta II.37 of Anguttara Nikaya , II.37–45 and II.80 of Patisambhidamagga , III.406 of Dhammapada . It also appears as an adjective, for example, in Samyutta Nikaya III.114, III.133, IV.28 and IV.130–166, in Sutta III.66 and V.86 of Vinaya . It

4342-539: Is "that which all the teachings in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra indicate to us is to realize or accomplish." According to D.T. Suzuki , this transcendental wisdom (aryajñāna) of the Lanka is "an intuitive understanding which, penetrating through the surface of existence, sees into that which is the reason of everything logically and ontologically" as well as "a fundamental intuition into the truth of Mind-only and constitutes

4509-535: Is a 'self' or not, as a major cause of the dispute. Anātman is one of the main bedrock doctrines of Buddhism, and its discussion is found in the later texts of all Buddhist traditions. There are many different views of anātman ( Chinese : 無我 ; pinyin : wúwǒ ; Japanese : 無我 muga ; Korean : 무아 mu-a ) within various Mahayana schools. The early Mahayana Buddhist texts link their discussion of "emptiness" ( śūnyatā ) to anātman and nirvana. They do so, states Mun-Keat Choong, in three ways: first, in

4676-551: Is a composite Pali word consisting of an (not) and attā (self-existent essence). The term refers to the central Buddhist concept that there is no phenomenon that has a permanent, unchanging "self" or essence. It is one of the three characteristics of all existence, together with dukkha (suffering, dissatisfaction) and anicca (impermanence). Anattā is synonymous with Anātman (an + ātman) in Sanskrit Buddhist texts. In some Pali texts, ātman of Vedic texts

4843-526: Is a false premise, assert the early Buddhist texts. However, adds Peter Harvey, these texts do not admit the premise "Self does not exist" either because the wording presumes the concept of "Self" before denying it; instead, the early Buddhist texts use the concept of Anattā as the implicit premise. According to Peter Harvey, while the Suttas criticize notions of an eternal, unchanging Self as baseless, they see an enlightened being as one whose empirical self

5010-518: Is a positive language and expression of śūnyatā "emptiness" and represents the potentiality to realize Buddhahood through Buddhist practices. Other scholars do in fact detect leanings towards monism in these tathagatagarbha references. Michael Zimmermann sees the notion of an unperishing and eternal self in the Tathagatagarbha Sutra . Zimmermann also avers that "the existence of an eternal, imperishable self, that is, buddhahood,

5177-704: Is also found in the Dhammapada . The ancient Buddhist texts discuss Attā or Attan (self), sometimes with alternate terms such as Atuman , Tuma , Puggala , Jiva , Satta , Pana and Nama-rupa , thereby providing the context for the Buddhist Anattā doctrine. Examples of such Attā contextual discussions are found in Digha Nikaya I.186–187, Samyutta Nikaya III.179 and IV.54, Vinaya I.14, Majjhima Nikaya I.138, III.19, and III.265–271 and Anguttara Nikaya I.284. According to Steven Collins,

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5344-506: Is also referred to with the term Attan , with the sense of "soul". An alternate use of Attan or Atta is "self, oneself, essence of a person", driven by the Vedic-era Brahmanical belief that atman is the permanent, unchangeable essence of a living being, or the true self. In Buddhism-related English literature, Anattā is rendered as "not-Self", but this translation expresses an incomplete meaning, states Peter Harvey;

5511-435: Is an illusion". The Buddha emphasized both karma and anattā doctrines. The Buddha criticized the doctrine that posited an unchanging essence as a subject as the basis of rebirth and karmic moral responsibility, which he called "atthikavāda". He also criticized the materialistic doctrine that denied the existence of both soul and rebirth, and thereby denied karmic moral responsibility, which he calls "natthikavāda". Instead,

5678-593: Is applied even more rigorously than in the Upanishads: While the Upanishads recognized many things as being not-Self, they felt that a real, true Self could be found. They held that when it was found, and known to be identical to Brahman, the basis of everything, this would bring liberation. In the Buddhist Suttas , though, literally everything is seen as non-Self, even Nirvana . When this

5845-443: Is believed to have been born on a full moon day. According to later biographical legends, during the birth celebrations, the hermit seer Asita journeyed from his mountain abode, analyzed the child for the "32 marks of a great man" and then announced that he would either become a great king ( chakravartin ) or a great religious leader. Suddhodana held a naming ceremony on the fifth day and invited eight Brahmin scholars to read

6012-407: Is both momentary and not momentary, it is the cause of virtue and non-virtue, it is the cause of all existences in saṃsāra, and thus it must be purified. But, at the same time, this same buddha-nature is described as indestructible, free from a self, naturally pure and free from the flaw of impermanence. It is compared to a dancer who does various performances and yet also to pure gold or a diamond that

6179-441: Is closely connected to the idea that all experiences are mind only. It is because all experiences are just reflections of the mind of those deluded beings which experience them that we can say that phenomena have no single characteristic or way of existing. All things are experienced (or not experienced) in various ways (vaicitryam) by different types of living beings, but none of these experiences are fixed or ultimately true, each one

6346-513: Is commonly seen together in canonical texts and depicts some of his perfected qualities: The Pali Canon also contains numerous other titles and epithets for the Buddha, including: All-seeing, All-transcending sage, Bull among men, The Caravan leader, Dispeller of darkness, The Eye, Foremost of charioteers, Foremost of those who can cross, King of the Dharma ( Dharmaraja ), Kinsman of the Sun, Helper of

6513-399: Is connected with the benefit (artha) of beings. Depending upon discrimination, they declare anything. If, Mahamati, they do not depend upon discrimination, the scriptures containing all the truths will disappear, and when the scriptures disappear there will be no Buddhas, Sravakas, Pratyekabuddhas and Bodhisattvas; when they disappear, what is to be taught and to whom? For this reason, Mahamati,

6680-510: Is considered a false belief and a part of the Ten Fetters that must be gradually lost. The second loci is the psychological realization of anattā , or loss of "pride or conceit". This, states Collins, is explained as the conceit of asmimana or "I am"; (...) what this "conceit" refers to is the fact that for the unenlightened, all experience and action must necessarily appear phenomenologically as happening to or originating from an "I". When

6847-533: Is definitely the basic point of the Tathāgatagarbha Sutra". He further indicates that there is no evident interest found in this sutra in the idea of Emptiness ( sunyata ). Williams states that the "self" in tathāgatagarbha sutras is actually "non-self", and neither identical nor comparable to the Hindu concepts of brahman and self. The anātman doctrine is extensively discussed in and partly inspires

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7014-464: Is explained in many different ways throughout the sutra. The Lanka describes buddha-nature as "the purity of natural luminosity, it is primordially pure, endowed with the thirty-two major marks, and hidden within the bodies of all sentient beings...just like a gem of great value wrapped in a stained cloth, it is wrapped up in the cloth of the skandhas , dhātus, and āyatanas , is tainted by the stains of desire, hatred, ignorance, and false imagination but

7181-512: Is for their sake that the tathāgata arhats, the completely perfect buddhas, give the instruction on the tathāgatagarbha . Therefore, this is not similar to the doctrine of a self of the tīrthikas. Consequently, in order to put an end to the views of the tīrthikas, they need to become followers of the heart of nonself of a tathāgata (tathāgatanairātmyagarbha). According to Brunnholzl, the Lanka further states that what "all sūtras of all buddhas teach

7348-489: Is generally believed that the sutra was compiled during 350-400 CE," although "many who have studied the sutra are of opinion that the introductory chapter and the last two chapters were added to the book at a later period." Christian Lindtner argues that some early recension of the Lankavatara influenced the writings of Nagarjuna and Aryadeva (3rd century), basing his conclusion on several close or literal allusions to

7515-511: Is highly developed. This is paradoxical, states Harvey, in that "the Self-like nibbana state" is a mature self that knows "everything as Selfless". The "empirical self" is the citta (mind/heart, mindset, emotional nature), and the development of self in the Suttas is the development of this citta . One with "great self", state the early Buddhist Suttas , has a mind which is neither at

7682-650: Is included "all of the Mahayana ". According to Nguyen Dac Sy, the most important doctrines of the Laṅkāvatāra are the primacy of consciousness (Skt. vijñānavada ), the teaching that consciousness as the only reality and that "all the objects of the world, and the names and forms of experience, are manifestations of the mind" as well as the "identification of the Buddha-nature (in the state of tathāgatagarbha ) with alayavijñāna ". Other topics discussed in

7849-599: Is known, then liberation – Nirvana – is attained by total non-attachment. Thus both the Upanishads and the Buddhist Suttas see many things as not-Self, but the Suttas apply it, indeed non-Self, to everything . Both Buddhism and Hinduism distinguish ego-related "I am, this is mine", from their respective abstract doctrines of " Anattā " and " Atman ". This, states Peter Harvey, may have been an influence of Buddhism on Hinduism. The term niratman appears in

8016-458: Is mistaken (bhranti) in some way. At the same time, we can say that this ultimate nature of the emptiness of all characteristics is something that does not change. This ultimate reality, the dharmakaya , is also free from arising, abiding and cessation while also being the ground for the illusory manifestation of the world. In spite of this however, the view of "mind-only" is still seen as an important way to transcend our current deluded state, as

8183-671: Is more prominent in Southeast and East Asia. According to Donald Lopez Jr., "... he tended to be known as either Buddha or Sakyamuni in China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet, and as either Gotama Buddha or Samana Gotama ('the ascetic Gotama') in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia." Buddha , "Awakened One" or "Enlightened One", is the masculine form of budh (बुध् ), "to wake, be awake, observe, heed, attend, learn, become aware of, to know, be conscious again", "to awaken" " 'to open up' (as does

8350-445: Is never tarnished or changed. The Lanka sutra states that this buddha-nature storehouse-consciousness is something that cannot be fully understood by those who are not Buddhas. The Laṅkāvatāra explains this paradoxical buddha-nature consciousness which is defiled and yet undefiled as follows: Mahāmati, the tathāgatagarbha contains the causes of virtue and non-virtue and is the creator of all births and forms of existence. Free from

8517-471: Is no afterlife, no rebirth or no fruition of karma, and Buddhism contrasts itself to annihilationist schools. Buddhism also contrasts itself to other Indian religions that champion moral responsibility but posit eternalism with their premise that within each human being there is an essence or eternal soul, and this soul is part of the nature of a living being, existence and metaphysical reality . Theravada Buddhism scholars, states Oliver Leaman , consider

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8684-434: Is no such substantial entity and that "Buddha taught the doctrine of no-self". Nāgārjuna asserted that the notion of a self is associated with the notion of one's own identity and corollary ideas of pride, selfishness and a sense of psychophysical personality. This is all false, and leads to bondage in his Madhyamaka thought. There can be no pride nor possessiveness, in someone who accepts anātman and denies "self" which

8851-474: Is not to be understood as completely equivalent with the storehouse consciousness, but rather is to be seen as the pure nature of the mind that remains once the mind has been purified of all adventitious stains (āgantukamala). According to the Laṅkāvatāra suffering and ignorance arises when consciousness engages in discrimination, representation and conceptualization. This error leads to the egoic consciousness,

9018-467: Is not to say that there are no independent external beings conventionally, but rather what it means is that true insight into the nature of reality goes beyond all concepts of internal and external. Gishin Tokiwa sees the theory of svacittamātra as the central message of the sutra. The sutra often presents Yogacara theories of consciousness, like the eight consciousnesses and the three natures, as well as

9185-522: Is nothing but emptiness, nonarising, nonduality, and the lack of nature". The sutra also states that "all characteristics of conceptions have terminated, either through the instruction on the tathāgatagarbha or through the instruction on identitylessness". Karl Brunnholzl notes that throughout various passages, the Lanka attempts to unify the positive buddha-nature teachings and the more negative emptiness teachings, presenting them as being equivalent to each other and as non-contradictory. In other passages,

9352-577: Is now Bihar (the location of Pataliputra )". The Ganges basin was densely forested, and the population grew when new areas were deforestated and cultivated. The society of the middle Ganges basin lay on "the outer fringe of Aryan cultural influence", and differed significantly from the Aryan society of the western Ganges basin. According to Stein and Burton, "[t]he gods of the brahmanical sacrificial cult were not rejected so much as ignored by Buddhists and their contemporaries." Jainism and Buddhism opposed

9519-538: Is now India . The Buddha then wandered through the lower Indo-Gangetic Plain , teaching and building a monastic order . Buddhist tradition holds he died in Kushinagar and reached parinirvana ("final release from conditioned existence"). According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha taught a Middle Way between sensual indulgence and severe asceticism, leading to freedom from ignorance , craving , rebirth, and suffering . His core teachings are summarized in

9686-477: Is permanent, eternal, peaceful, and everlasting". Buddha-nature is also equated with the wisdom of noble beings , "the attainment of the realization of suchness" ( tathata ) and the perfected nature ( pariniṣpanna ). Furthermore, the Lanka explains buddha-nature in a positive manner as the naturally luminous mind ( prabhāsvaracitta ) and also equates it with the "true self" which is realized by "those whose minds are not distracted by emptiness ." However,

9853-419: Is the end, there is no afterlife, no soul, no rebirth, no karma, and death is that state where a living being is completely annihilated, dissolved. Buddha criticized the materialistic annihilationism view that denied rebirth and karma, states Damien Keown. Such beliefs are inappropriate and dangerous, stated Buddha, because they encourage moral irresponsibility and material hedonism. Anattā does not mean there

10020-407: Is the sense of personal identity of oneself, others or anything, states Nāgārjuna. Further, all obsessions are avoided when a person accepts emptiness ( śūnyatā ). Nāgārjuna denied there is anything called a self-nature as well as other-nature, emphasizing true knowledge to be comprehending emptiness. Anyone who has not dissociated from their belief in personality in themselves or others, through

10187-517: Is unknown. It may have been either Piprahwa , Uttar Pradesh, in present-day India, or Tilaurakot , in present-day Nepal. Both places belonged to the Sakya territory, and are located only 24 kilometres (15 mi) apart. In the mid-3rd century BCE the Emperor Ashoka determined that Lumbini was Gautama's birthplace and thus installed a pillar there with the inscription: "...this is where

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10354-672: The Maitrayaniya Upanishad of Hinduism, such as in verses 6.20, 6.21 and 7.4. Niratman literally means "selfless". The niratman concept has been interpreted to be analogous to anatman of Buddhism. The ontological teachings, however, are different. In the Upanishad, states Thomas Wood, numerous positive and negative descriptions of various states – such as niratman and sarvasyatman (the self of all) – are used in Maitrayaniya Upanishad to explain

10521-467: The Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra , and various Chinese translations of this date between the 3rd and 6th century CE. The Nidānakathā is from the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka and was composed in the 5th century by Buddhaghoṣa . Scholars are hesitant to make claims about the historical facts of the Buddha's life. Most of them accept that the Buddha lived, taught, and founded a monastic order during

10688-478: The Anattā doctrine as one of the main theses of Buddhism. The Buddhist denial of an unchanging, permanent self is what distinguishes Buddhism from major religions of the world such as Christianity and Hinduism, giving it uniqueness, asserts the Theravada tradition. With the doctrine of Anattā , stands or falls the entire Buddhist structure, asserts Nyanatiloka Mahathera . According to Collins, "insight into

10855-866: The Ariyapariyesana Sutta ( MN 26), the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta ( DN 16), the Mahāsaccaka-sutta (MN 36), the Mahapadana Sutta (DN 14), and the Achariyabhuta Sutta (MN 123), which include selective accounts that may be older, but are not full biographies. The Jātaka tales retell previous lives of Gautama as a bodhisattva , and the first collection of these can be dated among the earliest Buddhist texts. The Mahāpadāna Sutta and Achariyabhuta Sutta both recount miraculous events surrounding Gautama's birth, such as

11022-693: The Bodhi tree , with the inscription Bhagavato Sakamunino Bodho ("The illumination of the Blessed Sakamuni"). The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts , found in Gandhara (corresponding to modern northwestern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan) and written in Gāndhārī , they date from the first century BCE to the third century CE. Early canonical sources include

11189-735: The Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path , a training of the mind that includes ethical training and kindness toward others , and meditative practices such as sense restraint , mindfulness , dhyana (meditation proper). Another key element of his teachings are the concepts of the five skandhas and dependent origination , describing how all dharmas (both mental states and concrete 'things') come into being, and cease to be, depending on other dharmas , lacking an existence on their own svabhava ). A couple of centuries after his death, he came to be known by

11356-737: The Jatakas , which consists of 547 stories. The format of a Jataka typically begins by telling a story in the present which is then explained by a story of someone's previous life. Besides imbuing the pre-Buddhist past with a deep karmic history, the Jatakas also serve to explain the bodhisattva's (the Buddha-to-be) path to Buddhahood. In biographies like the Buddhavaṃsa , this path is described as long and arduous, taking "four incalculable ages" ( asamkheyyas ). In these legendary biographies,

11523-497: The Lankavatara seems to be a direct quotation from Vasubandhu's Trimsika (4th to 5th century CE). But the issue of the dating of the Lanka is further complicated by the complex nature of Vasubandhu's authorship of various texts and the fact that his Vyākhyāyukti also quotes the Lankavatara . Some modern scholars like Gishin Tokiwa also surmise that the sutra may have been compiled in Sri Lanka between 411 and 435, during

11690-405: The Laṅkāvatāra also states that buddha-nature is not a self ( atman ), calls it selfless (nairātmya), and states that it is empty of self-nature . The Lanka further states that buddha-nature is merely a skillful means ( upaya ) of teaching the dharma to non-buddhists (tīrthikas) who cling to a self : Mahāmati, my instruction on the tathāgatagarbha is not similar to the doctrine of the self of

11857-399: The Laṅkāvatāra discusses how the purification of the mind occurs, and the passage states that it can occur gradually as well as suddenly. In this passage, the Lanka states that the purification of the mind can happen "by degrees and not all at once. Like the gooseberry , which ripens by degrees," and immediately after it also states that awakening can also happen "all at once": Or just as

12024-423: The Laṅkāvatāra is how the ultimate reality (dharmata) transcends all language and conventional expressions and is free from verbal discrimination ( vāgvikalpa ). Because ultimate reality is eternal, free from arising and ceasing, and cannot be grasped or cognized ( anupalabdhi ) the sutra states that Buddhas "do not teach the doctrine that is dependent letters ( akṣarapatita )." Because of this, all teachings in

12191-628: The Mahajanapada , and during the reign of Bimbisara (his friend, protector, and ruler of the Magadha empire); and died during the early years of the reign of Ajatashatru (who was the successor of Bimbisara), thus making him a younger contemporary of Mahavira , the Jain tirthankara . There is less consensus on the veracity of many details contained in traditional biographies, as "Buddhist scholars [...] have mostly given up trying to understand

12358-582: The Pāli Canon . The exact meaning of the term is unknown, but it is often thought to mean either "one who has thus gone" ( tathā-gata ), "one who has thus come" ( tathā-āgata ), or sometimes "one who has thus not gone" ( tathā-agata ). This is interpreted as signifying that the Tathāgata is beyond all coming and going – beyond all transitory phenomena . A tathāgata is "immeasurable", "inscrutable", "hard to fathom", and "not apprehended". A list of other epithets

12525-473: The Sagathakam are also duplicates and are found within the main body of the sutra. Takasaki Jikido has argued that these verse portions might actually be the earliest core of the sutra, around which prose explanations grew. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra draws on and explains numerous important Mahayana Buddhist concepts including the philosophy of Yogācāra school, the doctrine of emptiness ( śūnyatā ), and

12692-524: The Shakyas , a tribe of rice-farmers living near the modern border of India and Nepal. His father Śuddhodana was "an elected chief of the Shakya clan ", whose capital was Kapilavastu, and who were later annexed by the growing Kingdom of Kosala during the Buddha's lifetime. The early Buddhist texts contain very little information about the birth and youth of Gotama Buddha. Later biographies developed

12859-460: The five aggregates that are described as not-self are not descriptions of a human being but descriptions of the human experience. According to Johannes Bronkhorst , it is possible that "original Buddhism did not deny the existence of the soul", even though a firm Buddhist tradition has maintained that the Buddha avoided talking about the soul or even denied its existence. Tibetologist André Migot states that original Buddhism may not have taught

13026-401: The manas , which considers phenomena as being real and permanent and thus to craving and attachment. The key error of the mind is to consider any phenomena as being something other than mind. Meanwhile, liberation and awakening ( bodhi ) arises when discrimination is brought to an end by a deep intuitive and non-conceptual knowledge ( jñana ) of suchness ( tathata ). Awakening is the result of

13193-597: The tathāgatagarbha ("buddha-womb" or buddha-source) is also equated with the "storehouse consciousness" (Skt. ālayavijñāna ), the most fundamental layer of consciousness which contains the karmic seeds of defilement . However, in other further passages, the tathāgatagarbha is also said to be free from all eight consciousnesses and "free from the characteristics of mind, without consciousness and mentation." As noted by Brunnholzl, this paradoxical storehouse consciousness qua buddha-nature contains both contaminated and uncontaminated latent tendencies ( anusaya ). Further, it

13360-516: The three inherent natures . According to the Lanka, image, naming and discrimination correspond to the parikalpita-svabhāva (the "fully conceptualized" nature) and the paratantra-svabhāva (dependent nature), while right knowledge and Suchness correspond to the pariniṣpanna-svabhāva (the fully accomplished nature). A major topic found in the Laṅkāvatāra are the teachings on tathāgatagarbha (buddha-nature) also called buddhagotra (buddha disposition or buddha lineage) or tathagatagotra , which

13527-476: The "five dharmas". Furthermore, since, as the sutra states, the whole world "is nothing but a complex manifestation of one's mental activities," all phenomena are empty of self ( anatman ) and illusory ( maya ) - "to be regarded as forms seen in a vision and a dream, empty of substance, unborn and without self-nature." Tokiwa further writes that the Laṅkāvatāra, being closely influenced by Prajñaparamita thought, also tempers this idealistic mind-only view with

13694-473: The 3rd century CE, and is verifiable in Chinese translations of 1st millennium CE. Most scholars consider the tathāgatagarbha doctrine of an "essential nature" in every living being is equivalent to "self", and it contradicts the anātman doctrines in a vast majority of Buddhist texts, leading scholars to posit that the tathāgatagarbha sutras were written to promote Buddhism to non-Buddhists. The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra explicitly asserts that

13861-506: The Bodhisattva-Mahasattva should not cling to the words or letters in a canonical text...the Bodhisattva-Mahasattva should be in conformity with the meaning ( artha-pratiśaraṇa ) and not with the letter ( vyañjana ). According to Charles Willemen, this teaching of the Laṅkāvatāra is "the basis for Chan’s famous wordless teaching" which sees Chan as being taught "without words" (言说). According to Asanga Tilakaratne , "it

14028-609: The Buddha ( lit.   ' the awakened one ' ), was a wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia , during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism . According to Buddhist legends, he was born in Lumbini , in what is now Nepal , to royal parents of the Shakya clan, but renounced his home life to live as a wandering ascetic. After leading a life of mendicancy , asceticism , and meditation, he attained nirvana at Bodh Gaya in what

14195-539: The Buddha asserted that there is no essence, but there is rebirth for which karmic moral responsibility is a must. In the Buddha's framework of karma, right view and right actions are necessary for liberation. Hinduism , Jainism and Buddhism all assert a belief in rebirth, and emphasize moral responsibility in a way different from pre-Buddhist materialistic schools of Indian philosophies. The materialistic schools of Indian philosophies, such as Charvaka , are called annihilationist schools because they posited that death

14362-475: The Buddha in these traditional biographies is often that of a fully transcendent (Skt. lokottara ) and perfected being who is unencumbered by the mundane world. In the Mahāvastu , over the course of many lives, Gautama is said to have developed supramundane abilities including: a painless birth conceived without intercourse; no need for sleep, food, medicine, or bathing, although engaging in such "in conformity with

14529-478: The Buddha intentionally set aside the question of whether or not there is a self as a useless question, and goes on to call the phrase "there is no self" the "granddaddy of fake Buddhist quotes". He adds that clinging to the idea that there is no self at all would actually prevent enlightenment. Thanissaro Bhikkhu points to the Ananda Sutta ( SN 44.10 ), where the Buddha stays silent when asked whether there

14696-405: The Buddha used the term "self" in order to win over non-Buddhist ascetics. The Ratnagotravibhāga (also known as Uttaratantra ), another text composed in the first half of 1st millennium CE and translated into Chinese in 511 CE, points out that the teaching of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine is intended to win sentient beings over to abandoning "self-love" ( atma-sneha ) – considered to be one of

14863-556: The Buddha's birthplace, calling him the Buddha Shakyamuni ‍ ( Brahmi script : 𑀩𑀼𑀥 𑀲𑀓𑁆𑀬𑀫𑀼𑀦𑀻 Bu-dha Sa-kya-mu-nī , "Buddha, Sage of the Shakyas"). Śākyamuni, Sakyamuni, or Shakyamuni ( Sanskrit : शाक्यमुनि , [ɕaːkjɐmʊnɪ] ) means "Sage of the Shakyas ". Tathāgata ( Pali ; Pali: [tɐˈtʰaːɡɐtɐ] ) is a term the Buddha commonly used when referring to himself or other Buddhas in

15030-461: The Buddha's descriptions of no-self in early Buddhist texts do not deny that there is a self. Wynne and Gombrich both argue that the Buddha's statements on anattā were originally a "not-self" teaching that developed into a "no-self" teaching in later Buddhist thought. According to Wynne, early Buddhist texts such as the Anattalakkhaṇa Sutta do not deny that there is a self, stating that

15197-415: The Buddha's lifespan even later as 448 – 368 BCE. Most historians in the early 20th century use the earlier dates of 563 – 483 BCE, differing from the long chronology based on Greek evidence by just three years. More recently, there are attempts to put his death midway between the long chronology's 480s BCE and the short chronology's 360s BCE, so circa 410 BCE. At a symposium on this question held in 1988,

15364-638: The Buddha's lifetime is accepted (but he also points out that such a text was originally intended more as hagiography than as an exact historical record of events). John S. Strong sees certain biographical fragments in the canonical texts preserved in Pāli, as well as Chinese, Tibetan and Sanskrit as the earliest material. These include texts such as the "Discourse on the Noble Quest" ( Ariyapariyesanā-sutta ) and its parallels in other languages. No written records about Gautama were found from his lifetime or from

15531-568: The Buddha's omniscience (along with an increasing tendency to deify him and his biography) are found only later, in the Mahayana sutras and later Pali commentaries or texts such as the Mahāvastu . In the Sandaka Sutta , the Buddha's disciple Ananda outlines an argument against the claims of teachers who say they are all knowing while in the Tevijjavacchagotta Sutta the Buddha himself states that he has never made

15698-434: The Buddha's statements on non-self as a path to awakening rather than a universal truth. Bhikkhu Bodhi authored a rejoinder to Thanissaro, agreeing that anattā is a strategy for awakening but stating that "The reason the teaching of anattā can serve as a strategy of liberation is precisely because it serves to rectify a misconception about the nature of being, hence an ontological error ." Thanissaro Bhikkhu states that

15865-554: The Buddha's teachings were "also a response to the historical changes of the time, among which were the emergence of the state and the growth of urban centres". While the Buddhist mendicants renounced society, they lived close to the villages and cities, depending for alms-givings on lay supporters. According to Dyson, the Ganges basin was settled from the north-west and the south-east, as well as from within, "[coming] together in what

16032-474: The Buddha, collections of stories about his past lives known as Jataka tales , and additional discourses, i.e., the Mahayana sutras . Buddhism spread beyond the Indian subcontinent, evolving into a variety of traditions and practices, represented by Theravada and Mahayana. While Buddhism declined in India, and mostly disappeared after the 8th century CE due to a lack of popular and economic support, Buddhism

16199-648: The Buddha, sage of the Śākyas ( Śākyamuni ), was born." According to later biographies such as the Mahavastu and the Lalitavistara , his mother, Maya (Māyādevī), Suddhodana's wife, was a princess from Devdaha , the ancient capital of the Koliya Kingdom (what is now the Rupandehi District of Nepal ). Legend has it that, on the night Siddhartha was conceived, Queen Maya dreamt that

16366-496: The Buddhist enlightenment." Suzuki notes that aryajñāna is also designated by other terms, such as pravicayabuddhi ("an insight fixed upon the ultimate ground of existence"), svabuddhi (innate understanding), nirābhāsa or anābhāsa (imagelessness), nirvikalpa (beyond discrimination / concepts). The noble wisdom stands in contrast to vikalpabuddhi , discriminative understanding, a relative and conceptual kind of knowledge based on duality and pluralities. An important passage in

16533-546: The Buddhist path of liberation consists not in seeking Atman-like self-knowledge, but in turning away from what might erroneously be regarded as the self. This is a reverse position to the Vedic traditions which recognized the knowledge of the self as "the principal means to achieving liberation." According to Harvey, the contextual use of Attā in the Nikāyas is two-sided. In one, it directly denies that anything can be found called

16700-511: The Formless ( animitta ), Emptiness ( śūnyatā ), etc." In yet another passage, the Lanka speaks of nine forms of consciousnesses (as opposed to the classic eight consciousnesses of Yogacara). This passage may have been the source of Paramārtha’s doctrine of the ninth consciousness, which he termed the * amalavijñāna (pure consciousness). This distinction between an ultimate and a relative storehouse consciousness suggests that buddha-nature

16867-458: The Lanka "is, as often said, merely a mosaic collection of small parts put at random within the frame of a sutra." The present Sanskrit edition contains ten chapters and most scholars consider the introductory chapter (the "Ravana" chapter), the ninth chapter (a dharani ) and the last chapter (the Sagathakam verses) as being later additions. Furthermore, not all versions of the sutra contain these chapters (1, 9, 10). However, some verses found in

17034-506: The Lanka sutra states: Through attaining the reality as nothing but our own mind, which is the Self free from manifestation, we return to abiding in the final attainment of prajña . In turn, the view that the world and phenomena exist "externally", outside of mind, is seen as a serious error that leads to delusion and suffering. The Lanka sutra specifically cites the dualistic view of Samkhya philosophy for criticism. According to Saganuma,

17201-704: The Pali Jataka Commentary ( Jātakaṭṭhakathā ) and the Sanskrit Jātakamālā is how the Buddha-to-be had to practice several "perfections" ( pāramitā ) to reach Buddhahood. The Jatakas also sometimes depict negative actions done in previous lives by the bodhisattva, which explain difficulties he experienced in his final life as Gautama. According to the Buddhist tradition, Gautama was born in Lumbini , now in modern-day Nepal, and raised in Kapilavastu . The exact site of ancient Kapilavastu

17368-551: The Pāli suttas have retained very archaic place-names, syntax, and historical data from close to the Buddha's lifetime, including the Mahāparinibbāṇa Sutta which contains a detailed account of the Buddha's final days. Hinüber proposes a composition date of no later than 350–320 BCE for this text, which would allow for a "true historical memory" of the events approximately 60 years prior if the Short Chronology for

17535-513: The Shakyas"). Another one of his edicts ( Minor Rock Edict No. 3 ) mentions the titles of several Dhamma texts (in Buddhism, "dhamma" is another word for "dharma"), establishing the existence of a written Buddhist tradition at least by the time of the Maurya era . These texts may be the precursor of the Pāli Canon . "Sakamuni" is also mentioned in a relief of Bharhut , dated to c.  100 BCE , in relation with his illumination and

17702-459: The Suttas present the doctrine in three forms. First, they apply the "no-self, no-identity" investigation to all phenomena as well as any and all objects, yielding the idea that "all things are not-self" ( sabbe dhamma anattā ). Second, states Collins, the Suttas apply the doctrine to deny self of any person, treating conceit to be evident in any assertion of "this is mine, this I am, this is myself" ( etam mamam eso 'ham asmi, eso me atta ti ). Third,

17869-514: The Theravada texts apply the doctrine as a nominal reference, to identify examples of "self" and "not-self", respectively the Wrong view and the Right view; this third case of nominative usage is properly translated as "self" (as an identity) and is unrelated to "soul", states Collins. The first two usages incorporate the idea of soul. Buddhist scholars Richard Gombrich and Alexander Wynne argue that

18036-484: The Upanishadic inquiry fails to find an empirical correlate of the assumed Atman , but nevertheless assumes its existence, and Advaitins "reify consciousness as an eternal self." In contrast, the Buddhist inquiry "is satisfied with the empirical investigation which shows that no such Atman exists because there is no evidence" states Jayatilleke. According to Harvey, in Buddhism the negation of temporal existents

18203-552: The World ( Lokanatha ), Lion ( Siha ), Lord of the Dhamma, Of excellent wisdom ( Varapañña ), Radiant One, Torchbearer of mankind, Unsurpassed doctor and surgeon, Victor in battle, and Wielder of power. Another epithet, used at inscriptions throughout South and Southeast Asia, is Maha sramana , "great sramana " (ascetic, renunciate). On the basis of philological evidence, Indologist and Pāli expert Oskar von Hinüber says that some of

18370-413: The activities of consciousness is called the turning around of the basis ( āśraya-parāvṛtti ) . To reach this radical transformation of the mind, the bodhisattva must purify his actions and thoughts (through Buddhist practices like ethical discipline and meditation) as well as develop insight into the nature of things (through hearing the teachings and meditating on emptiness) . The knowledge which knows

18537-429: The bodhisattva goes through many different births (animal and human), is inspired by his meeting of past Buddhas , and then makes a series of resolves or vows ( pranidhana ) to become a Buddha himself. Then he begins to receive predictions by past Buddhas. One of the most popular of these stories is his meeting with Dipankara Buddha , who gives the bodhisattva a prediction of future Buddhahood. Another theme found in

18704-667: The bodhisattva's descent from the Tuṣita Heaven into his mother's womb. The sources which present a complete picture of the life of Siddhārtha Gautama are a variety of different, and sometimes conflicting, traditional biographies from a later date. These include the Buddhacarita , Lalitavistara Sūtra , Mahāvastu , and the Nidānakathā . Of these, the Buddhacarita is the earliest full biography, an epic poem written by

18871-432: The bringing to an end of various activities of consciousness, such as the discrimination of the egoic consciousness (manas) and the latent tendencies of the storehouse consciousness . As Gishin Tokiwa writes, awakening is attained when the discriminating storehouse consciousness "ceases to be the ground and object of the seven vijñanas (consciousnesses)" and when only the pure buddha-nature remains. This radical reversal of

19038-485: The cause for liberation, arise through and give rise to names, characteristics, and rising desire, and have the [ālaya-consciousness] as their cause and support...However, if the ālaya-consciousness, which is known as "the tathāgatagarbha ," does not undergo a change (parāvṛtti), there is no cessation of the seven active consciousnesses. For what reason? Because the consciousnesses flourish by virtue of [the ālaya-consciousness’s serving as] their cause and support, and [because

19205-456: The common sense of a monk's meditative state of emptiness; second, with the main sense of anātman or 'everything in the world is empty of self'; third, with the ultimate sense of Nirvana or realization of emptiness and thus an end to rebirth cycles of suffering. The anātman doctrine is another aspect of śūnyatā , its realization is the nature of the nirvana state and to an end to rebirths. The Buddhist philosopher Nāgārjuna (~200 CE),

19372-606: The concept of self, is in a state of avidya (ignorance) and caught in the cycle of rebirths and redeaths. The texts attributed to the 5th-century Buddhist philosopher Vasubandhu of the Yogācāra school similarly discuss anātman as a fundamental premise of the Buddha. The Vasubandhu interpretations of no-self thesis were challenged by the 7th-century Buddhist scholar Candrakīrti , who then offered his own theories on its importance. Some 1st-millennium CE Buddhist texts suggest concepts that have been controversial because they imply

19539-530: The defects by Buddhism. The 6th-century Chinese tathāgatagarbha translation states that "Buddha has shiwo (true self) which is beyond being and nonbeing". However, the Ratnagotravibhāga asserts that the "self" implied in tathāgatagarbha doctrine is actually "not-self". According to some scholars, the Buddha-nature discussed in these sutras does not represent a substantial self; rather, it

19706-448: The doctrines of kamma , rebirth and punna (merit) inspire a wide range of ritual practices and ethical behavior. The Anattā doctrine is key to the concept of Nibbana in the Theravada tradition. The liberated nirvana state, states Collins, is the state of Anattā , a state that is neither universally applicable nor can be explained, but can be realized. The dispute about "self" and "not-self" doctrines has continued throughout

19873-700: The doctrines of buddha-nature ( tathāgatagarbha ), and the luminous mind ( prabhāsvaracitta ). In the introduction to the sutra (the nidana ), the sutra outlines some key teachings which will be expounded on, "the Five Dharmas and the Three Inherent Natures (pañcadharmasvabhāva), the Eight Consciousnesses (vijñāna) and the Two forms of Selflessness (nairātmyādvaya)." Indeed, the sutra later states that within this set of teachings

20040-626: The experiences of prominent forest hermit monks such as Luang Pu Sodh and Ajahn Mun to support the notion of a "true self". Similar interpretations on the "true self" were put forth earlier by the 12th Supreme Patriarch of Thailand in 1939. According to Williams, the Supreme Patriarch's interpretation echoes the tathāgatagarbha sutras. Several notable teachers of the Thai Forest Tradition have also described ideas in contrast to absolute no-self. Ajahn Maha Bua ,

20207-419: The flourish of Brahminism, as Greater Magadha . The Buddha's tribe of origin, the Shakyas, seems to have had non-Vedic religious practices which persist in Buddhism, such as the veneration of trees and sacred groves, and the worship of tree spirits (yakkhas) and serpent beings (nagas). They also seem to have built burial mounds called stupas. Tree veneration remains important in Buddhism today, particularly in

20374-475: The founder of Madhyamaka (middle way) school of Mahayana Buddhism, analyzed dharma first as factors of experience. David Kalupahana states that Nāgārjuna analyzed how these experiences relate to "bondage and freedom, action and consequence", and thereafter analyzed the notion of personal self ( ātman ). Nāgārjuna extensively wrote about rejecting the metaphysical entity called ātman (self, soul), asserting in chapter 18 of his Mūlamadhyamakakārikā that there

20541-489: The future. All gave similar predictions. Kondañña , the youngest, and later to be the first arhat other than the Buddha, was reputed to be the only one who unequivocally predicted that Siddhartha would become a Buddha . Anatt%C4%81 In Buddhism , the term anattā ( Pali : 𑀅𑀦𑀢𑁆𑀢𑀸 ) or anātman ( Sanskrit : अनात्मन् ) is the doctrine of "no-self" – that no unchanging, permanent self or essence can be found in any phenomenon. While often interpreted as

20708-479: The historical person." The earliest versions of Buddhist biographical texts that we have already contain many supernatural, mythical, or legendary elements. In the 19th century, some scholars simply omitted these from their accounts of the life, so that "the image projected was of a Buddha who was a rational, socratic teacher—a great person perhaps, but a more or less ordinary human being". More recent scholars tend to see such demythologisers as remythologisers, "creating

20875-576: The history of Buddhism. In Thai Buddhism, for example, states Paul Williams , some modern era Buddhist scholars have claimed that "Nirvana is indeed the true self", while other Thai Buddhists disagree. For instance, the Dhammakaya tradition in Thailand teaches that it is erroneous to subsume nirvana under the rubric of anattā (no-self); instead, nirvana is taught to be the "true self" or dhammakaya . The Dhammakaya tradition teaching that nirvana

21042-427: The idea that ultimate reality transcends being and non-being (bhāvābhāva), and is beyond all views and concepts, even that of "mind" ( citta ) itself. Thus, even though the Lanka presents a "mind-only" view in some passages, other sections state that the ultimate truth or Suchness transcends even mind, thought, discrimination and subjectivity itself. Furthermore, the reason why all things are beyond being and non-being

21209-478: The idealistic thought of the Yogacara school. According to the Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra "all things are only manifestations of the mind itself" i.e. all phenomena are "mind-only" ( cittamātra ) or "ideation-only" ( vijñaptimatra ). This idealistic view is explained by the Lanka as the view that "what is seen as something external is nothing but one's own mind" ( svacitta-drsya-mātram )." According to Gishin Tokiwa, this

21376-469: The inner "disposition" ( gotra ), the buddha-nature , the luminous mind ( prabhāsvaracitta ), emptiness ( śūnyatā ) and vegetarianism . The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra was often quoted and paraphrased by Indian philosophers like Chandrakirti and Shantideva , and it also figured prominently in the development of East Asian Buddhism . It is notably an important sūtra in Zen Buddhism , as it discusses

21543-422: The inquiry of anattā and "denial of self" in the canonical Buddhist texts is "insisted on only in certain theoretical contexts", while they use the terms atta, purisa, puggala quite naturally and freely in various contexts. The elaboration of the anattā doctrine, along with identification of the words such as "puggala" as "permanent subject or soul" appears in later Buddhist literature. According to Collins,

21710-484: The introductory instruction on the tathāgatagarbha ...Mahāmati, the tathāgatas teach the instruction on the tathāgatagarbha through teaching the tathāgatagarbha in order to attract the tīrthikas, who cling to the doctrine of the self. So how may those whose thinking falls into the views of conceiving an incorrect self and those who succumb to falling into the sphere of three [kinds of] liberation swiftly awaken to unsurpassable and completely perfect awakening? Mahāmati, it

21877-464: The key issue of " sudden enlightenment ". The text survives in one Sanskrit manuscript from Nepal as well as in Tibetan and Han Chinese translation. Various scholars like DT Suzuki and Takasaki Jikido have noted that the text is somewhat unsystematic and disorganized, resembling the notebook or commonplace book of a Mahayana master which recorded important teachings. According to Takasaki Jikido,

22044-500: The latter asserting that ātman ("self") exists. In Hinduism, Atman refers to the essence of human beings, the observing pure awareness or witness-consciousness . It is unaffected by ego, distinct from the individual being ( jivanatman ) embedded in material reality , and characterized by Ahamkara ('I-making'), mind ( citta , manas ), and all the defiling kleshas (impurities). Embodied personality changes over time, while Atman doesn't. According to Jayatilleke,

22211-438: The lifetime of the Buddha. The "long chronology", from Sri Lankese chronicles, states the Buddha was born 298 years before Asoka 's coronation and died 218 years before the coronation, thus a lifespan of about 80 years. According to these chronicles, Asoka was crowned in 326 BCE, which gives Buddha's lifespan as 624 – 544 BCE, and are the accepted dates in Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. Alternatively, most scholars who also accept

22378-492: The long chronology but date Asoka's coronation around 268 BCE (based on Greek evidence) put the Buddha's lifespan later at 566 – 486 BCE. However, the "short chronology", from Indian sources and their Chinese and Tibetan translations, place the Buddha's birth at 180 years before Asoka's coronation and death 100 years before the coronation, still about 80 years. Following the Greek sources of Asoka's coronation as 268 BCE, this dates

22545-473: The majority of those who presented gave dates within 20 years either side of 400 BCE for the Buddha's death. These alternative chronologies, however, have not been accepted by all historians. The dating of Bimbisara and Ajatashatru also depends on the long or short chronology. In the long chrononology, Bimbisara reigned c.  558  – c.  492 BCE , and died 492 BCE, while Ajatashatru reigned c.  492  – c.  460 BCE . In

22712-402: The manifested or lakshaṇa aspect). Thus, it is the fluctuating ( pravṛitti ) aspect of the storehouse consciousness that gets caught up in the discrimination and craving of the manas consciousness, while the primitively pure ( prakṛitipuriśuddhi ) aspect of the storehouse does not. Indeed, this pure aspect of the storehouse consciousness is also called "something that has been in existence since

22879-416: The mercy of outside stimuli nor its own moods, neither scattered nor diffused, but imbued with self-control, and self-contained towards the single goal of nibbana and a 'Self-like' state. This "great self" is not yet an Arahat , because he still does small evil action which leads to karmic fruition, but he has enough virtue that he does not experience this fruition in hell. An Arahat , states Harvey, has

23046-531: The moon, so those who cling to the letter do not know my truth. The Laṅkāvatāra also states that even though Buddhas teach (in conventional fashion), they have never uttered even a single letter or syllable ( akṣara ) : the Tathagatas neither uttered nor answered even a letter ( ekam apy akṣaram ), because truths are beyond the letters. It does not mean, however, that (the Tathagatas) never declare what

23213-567: The names of their house priests. While the term Buddha is used in the Agamas and the Pali Canon, the oldest surviving written records of the term Buddha is from the middle of the 3rd century BCE, when several Edicts of Ashoka (reigned c.  269 –232 BCE) mention the Buddha and Buddhism. Ashoka 's Lumbini pillar inscription commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to Lumbini as

23380-506: The nondual concept of the "highest Self". According to Ramatirtha, states Paul Deussen, the niratman state discussion is referring to stopping the recognition of oneself as an individual soul, and reaching the awareness of universal soul or the metaphysical Brahman . The Greek philosopher Pyrrho traveled to India as part of Alexander the Great 's entourage where he was influenced by the Indian gymnosophists , which inspired him to create

23547-424: The one or two centuries thereafter. But from the middle of the 3rd century BCE, several Edicts of Ashoka (reigned c. 268 to 232 BCE) mention the Buddha and Buddhism. Particularly, Ashoka 's Lumbini pillar inscription commemorates the Emperor's pilgrimage to Lumbini as the Buddha's birthplace, calling him the Buddha Shakyamuni ( Brahmi script : 𑀩𑀼𑀥 𑀲𑀓𑁆𑀬𑀫𑀼𑀦𑀻 Bu-dha Sa-kya-mu-nī , "Buddha, Sage of

23714-614: The philosophy of Pyrrhonism . Philologist Christopher Beckwith argues that Pyrrho based his philosophy on his translation of the three marks of existence into Greek, and that adiaphora (not logically differentiable, not clearly definable, negating Aristotle's use of "diaphora") reflects Pyrrho's understanding of the Buddhist concept of anattā . Harvey, Peter (2013b). The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvana in Early Buddhism . Routledge. pp. 34, 38. ISBN   978-1-136-78336-4 . Archived from

23881-477: The poet Aśvaghoṣa in the first century CE. The Lalitavistara Sūtra is the next oldest biography, a Mahāyāna / Sarvāstivāda biography dating to the 3rd century CE. The Mahāvastu from the Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda tradition is another major biography, composed incrementally until perhaps the 4th century CE. The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive, and is entitled

24048-490: The practice of venerating Bodhi trees. Likewise, yakkas and nagas have remained important figures in Buddhist religious practices and mythology. The Buddha's lifetime coincided with the flourishing of influential śramaṇa schools of thought like Ājīvika , Cārvāka , Jainism , and Ajñana . The Brahmajala Sutta records sixty-two such schools of thought. In this context, a śramaṇa refers to one who labours, toils or exerts themselves (for some higher or religious purpose). It

24215-605: The realms of the body, its possessions, and the world around it all at once, nishyanda buddhas likewise bring beings to maturity in whatever realm they dwell all at once and lead practitioners to reside in Akanishtha Heaven. This idea was important for the establishment of the East Asian Buddhist doctrine of sudden (dun 頓) enlightenment , an important doctrine which was later widely debated and discussed in Zen Buddhism . Another important idea found in

24382-413: The ritual practices of the Vajrayāna tradition. The Tibetan terms such as bdag med refer to "without a self, insubstantial, anātman". These discussions, states Jeffrey Hopkins, assert the "non-existence of a permanent, unitary and independent self", and attribute these ideas to the Buddha. The ritual practices in Vajrayāna Buddhism employs the concept of deities, to end self-grasping, and to manifest as

24549-441: The sceptic. The Pāli canon frequently depicts Buddha engaging in debate with the adherents of rival schools of thought. There is philological evidence to suggest that the two masters, Alara Kalama and Uddaka Rāmaputta , were historical figures and they most probably taught Buddha two different forms of meditative techniques. Thus, Buddha was just one of the many śramaṇa philosophers of that time. In an era where holiness of person

24716-475: The schema of the Five Dharmas (pañcadharma), which explains all of reality in terms of five phenomena, is essential for understanding the basic worldview of the Laṅkāvatāra . Indeed, according to Saganuma, the Laṅkāvatāra considers that all Mahayana teachings are included within these five dharmas. The Five Dharmas are the following: The Lanka also closely connects this theory with the Yogacara theory of

24883-423: The short chronology Bimbisara reigned c.  400 BCE , while Ajatashatru died between c.  380 BCE and 330 BCE. According to historian K. T. S. Sarao , a proponent of the Short Chronology wherein the Buddha's lifespan was c.477–397 BCE, it can be estimated that Bimbisara was reigning c.457–405 BCE, and Ajatashatru was reigning c.405–373 BCE. According to the Buddhist tradition, Shakyamuni Buddha

25050-495: The social stratification of Brahmanism, and their egalitarism prevailed in the cities of the middle Ganges basin. This "allowed Jains and Buddhists to engage in trade more easily than Brahmans, who were forced to follow strict caste prohibitions." In the earliest Buddhist texts, the nikāyas and āgamas , the Buddha is not depicted as possessing omniscience ( sabbaññu ) nor is he depicted as being an eternal transcendent ( lokottara ) being. According to Bhikkhu Analayo , ideas of

25217-466: The specialist, the practising monk". The tradition, states Collins, has "insisted fiercely on anattā as a doctrinal position", while in practice it may not play much of a role in the daily religious life of most Buddhists. The Theravada doctrine of Anattā , or not-self not-soul, inspire meditative practices for monks, states Donald Swearer, but for the lay Theravada Buddhists in Southeast Asia,

25384-453: The sutra are not the ultimate, even though they point to the ultimate, like a finger pointing at the Moon. Thus, one should not become attached to the words of the sutra, to the letters (which are only provisional, saṁvṛti ) and instead should focus on the ultimate meaning ( paramārtha ). The Lanka thus states: As the ignorant grasps the finger-tip (that points to the moon) and does not cognize

25551-461: The sutra in early madhyamaka texts. Thus, the core of the sutra could date to a much earlier time. The Lanka is quoted four times in the Sūtrasamuccaya which has been attributed to Nāgārjuna (but this attribution has also been questioned by some scholars). Lambert Schmithausen has argued that the evidence attributing this text to Nagarjuna is insufficient and that furthermore, a passage from

25718-485: The sutra include Buddhist vegetarianism , the theory of icchantikas , the wrong views of non-buddhists ( tirthikas , especially Samkhya ), a critique of the sravakayana , the limited nature of language in describing the ultimate truth, the One Vehicle , the bodhisattva path , and the three bodies of the Buddha ( trikaya ) doctrine. The Laṅkāvatāra Sūtra often presents a mind-only philosophy influenced by

25885-478: The tathāgata heart, which is known as "the ālaya-consciousness." Thus, the fundamental mind ( citta ) or storehouse consciousness is seen by the Lanka as neither separate from nor united with the defiled latent tendencies. Like a white piece of clothing that remains white underneath but can be dirtied by dust." In some passages, the sutra also seems to divide the storehouse consciousness into two. In one passage these are called "the ultimate ālaya-consciousness and

26052-474: The teaching of anattā is held to have two major loci in the intellectual and spiritual education of an individual" as s/he progresses along the Path . The first part of this insight is to avoid sakkayaditthi (Personality Belief), that is converting the "sense of I which is gained from introspection and the fact of physical individuality" into a theoretical belief in a self. "A belief in a (really) existing body"

26219-622: The title Buddha , which means 'Awakened One' or 'Enlightened One'. His teachings were compiled by the Buddhist community in the Vinaya , his codes for monastic practice, and the Sutta Piṭaka , a compilation of teachings based on his discourses. These were passed down in Middle Indo-Aryan dialects through an oral tradition . Later generations composed additional texts, such as systematic treatises known as Abhidharma , biographies of

26386-414: The tīrthikas. Rather, Mahāmati, the tathāgatas give the instruction on the tathāgatagarbha as bearing the meaning of words such as emptiness, true end, nirvāṇa, nonarising, signlessness, and wishlessness. Thus, for the sake of relinquishing what makes naive beings afraid of the lack of a self, the tathāgata arhats, the completely perfect buddhas, teach the sphere of nonconceptuality and nonappearance through

26553-414: The ultimate truth is a central topic of the Lanka and is variously termed pratyātmāryajñānagati (the state of noble knowledge realized by oneself), svapratyātma (inner self-realization), pratyātmagati (that which is realized by oneself), pratyātmagatigocara (the field realized by oneself) and pratyātma dharmatā (the Dharma nature realized by oneself) in the sutra. Akira Suganuma writes that this "inner wisdom"

26720-505: The very first" ( pūrvadharmasthititā, or paurāṇasthitidharmatā ). According to Suzuki, the most common terms for this ultimate reality include: Tathatā ("suchness" or "thusness"), as well as "Satyatā, "the state of being true", Bhūtatā, "the state of being real", Dharmadhātu , "realm of truth", Nirvana , the Permanent ( nitya ), Sameness ( samatā ), the One ( advaya ), Cessation ( nirodha ),

26887-469: The world"; omniscience, and the ability to "suppress karma". As noted by Andrew Skilton, the Buddha was often described as being superhuman, including descriptions of him having the 32 major and 80 minor marks of a "great man", and the idea that the Buddha could live for as long as an aeon if he wished (see DN 16). The ancient Indians were generally unconcerned with chronologies, being more focused on philosophy. Buddhist texts reflect this tendency, providing

27054-478: The ālaya of cognizance (vijñapti)," while in another passage, they are called "the true nature of the mind" (which is pure) and "the mind that arises from mistakenness." D.T. Suzuki similarly notes that according to the Laṅkā, the storehouse consciousness has two aspects "the Ālaya as it is in itself", called pāramālaya-vijñāna (the 'incessant' or prabandha aspect), and "the Ālaya as mental representation" (vijñaptir ālaya,

27221-528: The ālaya-consciousness] is not an object of any of the yogins [who are immersed] in the yogas of śrāvakas , pratyekabuddhas , and tīrthikas. Even when one realizes one’s own lack of a personal self and apprehends the specific and general characteristics of the skandhas, dhātus, and āyatanas, this tathāgatagarbha still flourishes. It terminates only through seeing the five dharmas, the three natures, and phenomenal identitylessness....Therefore, Mahāmati, bodhisattva mahāsattvas who have this special goal should purify

27388-573: Was Gautama (Pali: Gotama). His given name, "Siddhārtha" (the Sanskrit form; the Pali rendering is "Siddhattha"; in Tibetan it is "Don grub"; in Chinese "Xidaduo"; in Japanese "Shiddatta/Shittatta"; in Korean "Siltalta") means "He Who Achieves His Goal". The clan name of Gautama means "descendant of Gotama", "Gotama" meaning "one who has the most light", and comes from the fact that Kshatriya clans adopted

27555-670: Was a Shakya , a sub-Himalayan ethnicity and clan of north-eastern region of the Indian subcontinent. The Shakya community was on the periphery, both geographically and culturally, of the eastern Indian subcontinent in the 5th century BCE. The community, though describable as a small republic, was probably an oligarchy , with his father as the elected chieftain or oligarch. The Shakyas were widely considered to be non- Vedic (and, hence impure) in Brahminic texts; their origins remain speculative and debated. Bronkhorst terms this culture, which grew alongside Aryavarta without being affected by

27722-474: Was also the age of influential thinkers like Mahavira , Pūraṇa Kassapa , Makkhali Gosāla , Ajita Kesakambalī , Pakudha Kaccāyana , and Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta , as recorded in Samaññaphala Sutta , with whose viewpoints the Buddha must have been acquainted. Śāriputra and Moggallāna , two of the foremost disciples of the Buddha, were formerly the foremost disciples of Sañjaya Belaṭṭhaputta,

27889-589: Was judged by their level of asceticism, Buddha was a reformist within the śramaṇa movement, rather than a reactionary against Vedic Brahminism. Coningham and Young note that both Jains and Buddhists used stupas, while tree shrines can be found in both Buddhism and Hinduism. The rise of Buddhism coincided with the Second Urbanisation , in which the Ganges Basin was settled and cities grew, in which egalitarianism prevailed. According to Thapar,

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