Misplaced Pages

#141858

116-685: In the Upanishads the word vyūha occurs once, in śloka 16 of the Isha Upanishad : Pūṣann ekarṣe yama Sūrya Prājāpatya vyūha raśmin samūha, tejo yat te rūpaṁ kalyāṇatamaṁ tat te paśyāmi yo 'sāv asau puruṣaḥ so 'ham asmi. In this passage vyūha means "remove" (to a distance). The sage declares that the Truth is concealed in the Vedas , covered by a golden lid or vessel Bādarāyaṇa , by declaring – utpatty-asambhavāt (उत्पत्त्यसम्भवात्) (Owing to

232-534: A "formulation of truth," but also to "the ultimate and basic essence of the cosmos," standing at the "summit of the hierarchical scheme, or at the bottom as the ultimate foundation of all things." Brahman is "beyond the reach of human perception and thought." Atman likewise has multiple meanings, one of them being 'self', the inner essence of a human body/person. Various ideas about the relation between Atman and Brahman can be found. Two distinct, somewhat divergent themes stand out. Older upanishads state that Atman

348-527: A Buddha is often seen as "a spiritual king, relating to and caring for the world", rather than simply a teacher who after his death "has completely 'gone beyond' the world and its cares". Buddha Sakyamuni 's life and death on earth is then usually understood as a "mere appearance", his death is an unreal show, in reality he continues to live in a transcendent reality. Thus the Buddha in the Lotus sutra says that he

464-497: A Mystic". Burmese Buddhist literature developed unique poetic forms from the 1450s onwards, a major type of poetry is the pyui' which are long and embellished translations of Pali Buddhist works, mainly jatakas . A famous example of pyui' poetry is the Kui khan pyui' (the pyui' in nine sections, 1523). There is also a genre of Burmese commentaries or nissayas which were used to teach Pali. The nineteenth century saw

580-582: A buddha that its contents are true Dharma. Then these sutras may be properly regarded as buddhavacana . Sometimes texts that are considered commentaries by some are regarded by others as buddhavacana . In Indo-Tibetan Buddhism , what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Kangyur ('The Translation of the Word'). The East Asian and Tibetan Buddhist Canons always combined buddhavacana with other literature in their standard collected editions. However,

696-418: A carpenter builds a chariot. The various philosophical theories in the early Upanishads have been attributed to famous sages such as Yajnavalkya , Uddalaka Aruni , Shvetaketu , Shandilya , Aitareya, Balaki, Pippalada , and Sanatkumara . Women, such as Maitreyi and Gargi , participate in the dialogues and are also credited in the early Upanishads. There are some exceptions to the anonymous tradition of

812-654: A distinctly tantric character, like some of the shorter Perfection of Wisdom sutras and the Mahavairocana Sutra . At least some editions of the Kangyur include the Heart Sutra in the tantra division. Such overlap is not confined to "neighbouring" yanas: at least nine "Sravakayana" texts can be found in the tantra divisions of some editions of the Kangyur. One of them, the Atanatiya Sutra ,

928-462: A flowering of Burmese Buddhist literature in various genres including religious biography, Abhidharma, legal literature and meditation literature. An influential text of Thai literature is the "Three Worlds According to King Ruang" (1345) by Phya Lithai, which is an extensive Cosmological and visionary survey of the Thai Buddhist universe. See Mahāyāna sūtras for historical background and

1044-623: A later date for the Upanishads than has generally been accepted. Bronkhorst places even the oldest of the Upanishads, such as the Brhadaranyaka as possibly still being composed at "a date close to Katyayana and Patañjali [the grammarian]" (i.e., c. 2nd century BCE). The later Upanishads, numbering about 95, also called minor Upanishads, are dated from the late 1st-millennium BCE to mid 2nd-millennium CE. Gavin Flood dates many of

1160-615: A list of some sutras categorised by source. Around the beginning of the common era , a new genre of sutra literature began to be written with a focus on the Bodhisattva ideal, commonly known as Mahāyāna ("Great Vehicle") or Bodhisattvayāna (" Bodhisattva Vehicle"). The earliest of these sutras do not call themselves 'Mahāyāna,' but use the terms Vaipulya (extensive, expansive) sutras, or Gambhira (deep, profound) sutras. There are various theories of how Mahāyāna emerged. According to David Drewes, it seems to have been "primarily

1276-455: A number of ways. The Western terms "scripture" and "canonical" are applied to Buddhism in inconsistent ways by Western scholars: for example, one authority refers to "scriptures and other canonical texts", while another says that scriptures can be categorized into canonical, commentarial, and pseudo-canonical. Buddhist traditions have generally divided these texts with their own categories and divisions, such as that between buddhavacana "word of

SECTION 10

#1732773394142

1392-539: A pluralism of worldviews. While some Upanishads have been deemed 'monistic', others, including the Katha Upanishad , are dualistic . The Maitri is one of the Upanishads that inclines more toward dualism, thus grounding classical Samkhya and Yoga schools of Hinduism, in contrast to the non-dualistic Upanishads at the foundation of its Vedanta school. They contain a plurality of ideas. The Upanishads include sections on philosophical theories that have been at

1508-464: A precision closer than a few centuries is as stable as a house of cards". Some scholars have tried to analyse similarities between Hindu Upanishads and Buddhist literature to establish chronology for the Upanishads. Precise dates are impossible, and most scholars give only broad ranges encompassing various centuries. Gavin Flood states that "the Upanisads are not a homogeneous group of texts. Even

1624-416: A present authenticity exercise and spiritual practice In an effort to preserve these scriptures, Asian Buddhist institutions were at the forefront of the adoption of Chinese technologies related to bookmaking , including paper , and block printing which were often deployed on a large scale. Because of this, the first surviving example of a printed text is a Buddhist charm, the first full printed book

1740-529: A range of subjects. The Theravāda tradition has an extensive commentarial literature , much of which is still untranslated. These are attributed to scholars working in Sri Lanka such as Buddhaghosa (5th century CE) and Dhammapala . There are also sub-commentaries ( ṭīkā ) or commentaries on the commentaries. Buddhaghosa was also the author of the Visuddhimagga , or Path of Purification , which

1856-610: A textual movement, focused on the revelation, preaching, and dissemination of Mahāyāna sutras, that developed within, and never really departed from, traditional Buddhist social and institutional structures." Early dharmabhanakas (preachers, reciters of these sutras) were influential figures, and promoted these new texts throughout the Buddhist communities. Many of these Mahāyāna sūtras were written in Sanskrit (in hybrid forms and in classical Sanskrit) and then later translated into

1972-560: Is "not entirely absent in the Early Upanishads". The development of thought in these Upanishadic theories contrasted with Buddhism, since the Upanishadic inquiry fails to find an empirical correlate of the assumed Atman, but nevertheless assumes its existence, "[reifying] consciousness as an eternal self." The Buddhist inquiry "is satisfied with the empirical investigation which shows that no such Atman exists because there

2088-795: Is "the father of the world", "the self existent ( svayambhu )...protector of all creatures", who has "never ceased to exist" and only "pretends to have passed away." Hundreds of Mahāyāna sūtras have survived in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan translation. There many different genres or classes of Mahāyāna sutras, such as the Prajñāpāramitā sūtra s, the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras and the Pure Land sūtra s . The different Mahāyāna schools have many varied classification schemas for organizing them and they see different texts as having higher authority than others. Some Mahāyāna sūtras are also thought to display

2204-654: Is a manual of doctrine and practice according to the Mahavihara tradition of Sri Lanka. According to Nanamoli Bhikkhu , this text is regarded as "the principal non-canonical authority of the Theravada." A similar albeit shorter work is the Vimuttimagga . Another highly influential Pali Theravada work is the Abhidhammattha-sangaha (11th or 12th century), a short 50 page introductory summary to

2320-460: Is consequently placed after the 5th century BCE, while another proposal questions this assumption and dates it independent of Buddha's date of birth. The Kena , Mandukya, and Isa Upanishads are typically placed after these Principal Upanishads, but other scholars date these differently. Not much is known about the authors except for those, like Yajnavalkayva and Uddalaka, mentioned in the texts. A few women discussants, such as Gargi and Maitreyi,

2436-541: Is considered as northern India. The region is bounded on the west by the upper Indus valley, on the east by lower Ganges region, on the north by the Himalayan foothills, and on the south by the Vindhya mountain range. Scholars are reasonably sure that the early Upanishads were produced at the geographical center of ancient Brahmanism, Kuru - Panchala , and Kosala - Videha , a "frontier region" of Brahmanism, together with

SECTION 20

#1732773394142

2552-613: Is later than the Vedas but earlier than the Mahabharata . The main āgamas are the Vaiṣṇava (worship of Vishnu ), the Śaiva (worship of Shiva ) and the Śākta (worship of Devi or Shakti ) āgamas ; all āgamas are elaborate systems of Vedic knowledge. According to Vedanta Desika , the Pāñcarātra āgama teaches the five-fold daily religious duty consisting of – abhigamana , upādāna , ijyā , svādhyāya and yoga ,

2668-485: Is like blind men leading the blind, it is a mark of conceit and vain knowledge, ignorant inertia like that of children, a futile useless practice. The Maitri Upanishad states, The performance of all the sacrifices, described in the Maitrayana-Brahmana, is to lead up in the end to a knowledge of Brahman, to prepare a man for meditation. Therefore, let such man, after he has laid those fires, meditate on

2784-418: Is no evidence," states Jayatilleke. The Upanishads postulate Ātman and Brahman as the "summit of the hierarchically arranged and interconnected universe." Both have multiple meanings, and various ideas about the relation between Atman and Brahman can be found. Atman has "a wide range of lexical meanings, including ‘breath’, ‘spirit’, and ‘body’." In the Upanishads it refers to the body, but also to

2900-663: Is one example of such a collection, while there is evidence that the Dharmaguptaka school had a similar collection, known as the Kṣudraka Āgam a. Fragments of the Dharmaguptaka minor collection have been found in Gandhari. The Sarvāstivāda school also seems to have had a Kṣudraka collection of texts, but they did not see it as an "Āgama". These "minor" collections seem to have been a category for miscellaneous texts, and

3016-539: Is part of Brahman but not identical, while younger Upanishads state that Brahman (Highest Reality, Universal Principle, Being-Consciousness-Bliss) is identical with Atman . The Brahmasutra by Badarayana ( c. 100 BCE) synthesized and unified these somewhat conflicting theories. According to Nakamura, the Brahmasutras see Atman and Brahman as both different and not-different, a point of view which came to be called bhedabheda in later times. According to Koller,

3132-463: Is part of the "sutta" or "sutra" genre. The Sūtras (Sanskrit; Pāli: Sutta ) are mostly discourses attributed to the Buddha or one of his close disciples. They are considered to be buddhavacana by all schools. The Buddha's discourses were perhaps originally organised according to the style in which they were delivered. They were later organized into collections called Nikāyas ('volumes') or Āgamas ('scriptures'), which were further collected into

3248-404: Is possible in the world." Modern era Indologists have discussed the similarities between the fundamental concepts in the Upanishads and the works of major Western philosophers . The Sanskrit term Upaniṣad originally meant “connection” or “equivalence", but came to be understood as "sitting near a teacher," from upa "by" and ni-ṣad "sit down", "sitting down near", referring to

3364-599: Is seen as particularly ancient by modern scholars. Of the remainder, 95 Upanishads are part of the Muktikā canon, composed from about the last centuries of 1st-millennium BCE through about 15th-century CE. New Upanishads, beyond the 108 in the Muktika canon, continued to be composed through the early modern and modern era, though often dealing with subjects that are unconnected to the Vedas. The mukhya Upanishads, along with

3480-662: Is the Mahāvastu ("Great Event"), which is a collection of various texts compiled into a biography of the Buddha. Within it can be found quotations and whole sutras, such as the Mahāsāṃghika version of the Dharmacakrapravartana . The other major type of text aside from the sutras are the Vinayas . Vinaya literature is primarily concerned with aspects of the monastic discipline and the rules and procedures that govern

3596-660: Is the Taishō Tripiṭaka , itself based on the Tripiṭaka Koreana . This collection, unlike the Pāli Tripiṭaka , contains Mahāyāna sūtras, Śāstras (scholastic treatises), and Esoteric Buddhist literature . According to Hsuan Hua from the tradition of Chinese Buddhism , there are five types of beings who may speak the sutras of Buddhism: a Buddha, a disciple of a Buddha, a deva, a ṛṣi, or an emanation of one of these beings; however, they must first receive certification from

Vyūha - Misplaced Pages Continue

3712-662: Is the Vaiṣṇava doctrine of Vyūha or the doctrine of formation . The Chatur-vyūha forms of Viṣṇu are related to four of the six causes of creation which six are God Himself as the final cause of creation and His five aspects – Narāyaṇa (thinking), Vāsudeva (feeling), Sankarśana (willing), Pradyumna (knowing), and Aniruddha (acting) successively. Each divinity controls its specific creative energy. The six gunas – jnana (omniscience), aishvarya (lordship), shakti (potency), bala (force), virya (virtue) and tejas (self-sufficiency), acting in pairs and in totality, are

3828-630: Is the Buddhist Diamond Sutra (c. 868) and the first hand colored print is an illustration of Guanyin dated to 947. The concept of buddhavacana (word of the Buddha) is important in understanding how Buddhists classify and see their texts. Buddhavacana texts have special status as sacred scripture and are generally seen as in accord with the teachings of the historical Buddha , which is termed "the Dharma ". According to Donald Lopez ,

3944-415: Is to discover the relations between ritual, cosmic realities (including gods), and the human body/person, postulating Ātman and Brahman as the "summit of the hierarchically arranged and interconnected universe", but various ideas about the relation between Atman and Brahman can be found. 108 Upanishads are known, of which the first dozen or so are the oldest and most important and are referred to as

4060-505: Is unknown. Sarvapalli Radhakrishnan states, "almost all the early literature of India was anonymous, we do not know the names of the authors of the Upanishads". The ancient Upanishads are embedded in the Vedas, the oldest of Hinduism's religious scriptures, which some traditionally consider to be apauruṣeya , which means "not of a man, superhuman" and "impersonal, authorless". The Vedic texts assert that they were skillfully created by Rishis (sages), after inspired creativity, just as

4176-616: The Bhagavad Gita and the Brahmasutra (known collectively as the Prasthanatrayi ), are interpreted in divergent ways in the several later schools of Vedanta . Translations of the Upanishads in the early 19th century started to attract attention from a Western audience. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer was deeply impressed by the Upanishads and called them "the most profitable and elevating reading which ...

4292-771: The Vimanavatthu (as well as its Chinese parallel, the Vimānāvadāna ). There are also some unique individual texts like the Milinda pañha (literally The Questions of Milinda ) and its parallel in Chinese, the Nāgasena Bhikśu Sūtra (那先比丘經). These texts depict a dialogue between the monk Nagasena , and the Indo-Greek King Menander (Pali: Milinda). It is a compendium of doctrine, and covers

4408-595: The Brahmana and Aranyaka layers of Vedic text, compiled into separate texts and these were then gathered into anthologies of the Upanishads. These lists associated each Upanishad with one of the four Vedas. Many such lists exist but they are inconsistent across India in terms of which Upanishads are included and how the newer Upanishads are assigned to the ancient Vedas. In south India, the collected list based on Muktika Upanishad, and published in Telugu language , became

4524-470: The Buddha ," many of which are known as " sutras ", and other texts, such as " shastras " (treatises) or " Abhidharma ". These religious texts were written in different languages, methods and writing systems . Memorizing, reciting and copying the texts was seen as spiritually valuable. Even after the development and adoption of printing by Buddhist institutions, Buddhists continued to copy them by hand as

4640-582: The Chandogya , the oldest. The Aitareya, Kauṣītaki and Taittirīya Upanishads may date to as early as the mid-1st millennium BCE, while the remnant date from between roughly the 4th to 1st centuries BCE, roughly contemporary with the earliest portions of the Sanskrit epics . One chronology assumes that the Aitareya, Taittiriya, Kausitaki, Mundaka, Prasna , and Katha Upanishads has Buddha's influence, and

4756-552: The Dharmaguptaka , Mahāsāṅghika , Mahīśāsaka , Mūlasarvāstivāda , and others. The most widely studied early Buddhist material are the first four Pāli Nikayas , as well as the corresponding Chinese Āgamas . The modern study of early pre-sectarian Buddhism often relies on comparative scholarship using these various early Buddhist sources. Various scholars of Buddhist studies such as Richard Gombrich , Akira Hirakawa, Alexander Wynne, and A. K. Warder hold that early Buddhist texts contain material that could possibly be traced to

Vyūha - Misplaced Pages Continue

4872-759: The Gandharan Buddhist Texts , dated to the 1st century BCE and constitute the Buddhist textual tradition of Gandharan Buddhism which was an important link between Indian and East Asian Buddhism. Parts of what is likely to be the canon of the Dharmaguptaka can be found among these Gandharan Buddhist Texts . There are different genres of early Buddhist texts, including prose " suttas " ( Sanskrit : sūtra , discourses), disciplinary works ( Vinaya ), various forms of verse compositions (such as gāthā and udāna ), mixed prose and verse works ( geya ), and also lists ( matika ) of monastic rules or doctrinal topics. A large portion of Early Buddhist literature

4988-852: The Rudrahridaya Upanishad and the Mahanarayana Upanishad , assert that all the Hindu gods and goddesses are the same, all an aspect and manifestation of Brahman , the Vedic concept for metaphysical ultimate reality before and after the creation of the Universe. The Principal Upanishads, also known as the Mukhya Upanishads , can be grouped into periods. Of the early periods are the Brihadaranyaka and

5104-622: The Shorter Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra . The term "Sukhāvatīvyūha" may translated as "description of Sukhāvatī ". The Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra has been translated as "The Basket’s Display". Upanishads Divisions Sama vedic Yajur vedic Atharva vedic Vaishnava puranas Shaiva puranas Shakta puranas The Upanishads ( / ʊ ˈ p ʌ n ɪ ʃ ə d z / ; Sanskrit : उपनिषद् , IAST : Upaniṣad , pronounced [ˈʊpɐnɪʂɐd] ) are late Vedic and post-Vedic Sanskrit texts that "document

5220-522: The Sūtra Piṭaka ("Basket of Discourses") of the canons of the early Buddhist schools. Most of the early sutras that have survived are from Sthavira nikaya schools, no complete collection has survived from the other early branch of Buddhism, the Mahāsāṃghika . However, some individual texts have survived, such as the Śālistamba Sūtra (rice stalk sūtra). This sūtra contains many parallel passages to

5336-842: The Theravāda Abhidhamma and the Sarvastivada Abhidharma , which survives in Chinese translation. However, texts of other tradition have survived, such as the Śāriputrābhidharma of the Dharmaguptaka school, the Tattvasiddhi Śāstra ( Chéngshílun ), and various Abhidharma type works from the Pudgalavada school. Later post-canonical Abhidharma works were written as either large treatises ( śāstra ), as commentaries ( aṭṭhakathā ) or as smaller introductory manuals. They are more developed philosophical works which include many innovations and doctrines not found in

5452-930: The Theravāda tradition , the Chinese Buddhist Canon used in East Asian Buddhist tradition , and the Tibetan Buddhist Canon used in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism . The earliest Buddhist texts were not committed to writing until some centuries after the death of Gautama Buddha . The oldest surviving Buddhist manuscripts are the Gandhāran Buddhist texts , found in Pakistan and written in Gāndhārī , they date from

5568-552: The historical Buddha himself or at least to the early years of pre-sectarian Buddhism . In Mahāyāna Buddhism , these texts are sometimes referred to as " Hinayana " or " Śrāvakayāna ". Although many versions of the texts of the early Buddhist schools exist, the only complete collection of texts to survive in a Middle Indo-Aryan language is the Tipiṭaka (triple basket) of the Theravāda school. The other (parts of) extant versions of

5684-475: The nagas ) until people were ready to hear them, or by stating that they had been revealed directly through visions and meditative experiences to a select few. According to David McMahan, the literary style of the Mahāyāna sūtras reveals how these texts were mainly composed as written works and how they also needed to legitimate themselves to other Buddhists. They used different literary and narrative ways to defend

5800-412: The śrāvaka texts as well as generating more spiritual merit and benefit. Thus, they are seen as superior and more virtuous to non-Mahāyāna sutras. The Mahāyāna sūtras are traditionally considered by Mahāyāna Buddhists to be the word of the Buddha. Mahāyāna Buddhists explained the emergence of these new texts by arguing that they had been transmitted in secret, via lineages of supernatural beings (such as

5916-851: The " Jatakas ", or birth stories. Various Vinaya collections survive in full, including those of the following schools: Theravāda (in Pali ), Mula-Sarvāstivāda (in Tibetan translation) and the Mahāsānghika , Sarvāstivāda , Mahīshāsika, and Dharmaguptaka (in Chinese translations). In addition, portions survive of a number of Vinayas in various languages. Aside from the Sutras and the Vinayas, some schools also had collections of "minor" or miscellaneous texts. The Theravāda Khuddaka Nikāya ('Minor Collection')

SECTION 50

#1732773394142

6032-422: The 37 factors leading to Awakening . Scholars like Erich Frauwallner have argued that there is an "ancient core" of early pre-sectarian material in the earliest Abhidharma works, such as in the Theravada Vibhanga , the Dharmaskandha of the Sarvastivada , and the Śāriputrābhidharma of the Dharmaguptaka school. Only two full canonical Abhidharma collections have survived both containing seven texts,

6148-422: The Abhidhamma, which is widely used to teach Abhidhamma. Buddhaghosa is known to have worked from Buddhist commentaries in the Sri Lankan Sinhala language , which are now lost. Sri Lankan literature in the vernacular contains many Buddhist works, including as classical Sinhala poems such as the Muvadevāvata (The Story of the Bodhisattva's Birth as King Mukhadeva, 12th century) and the Sasadāvata (The Story of

6264-452: The Bodhisattva's Birth as a Hare, 12th century) as well as prose works like the Dhampiyātuvā gätapadaya (Commentary on the Blessed Doctrine), a commentary on words and phrases in the Pāli Dhammapada . The Theravāda textual tradition spread into Burma and Thailand where Pali scholarship continued to flourish with such works as the Aggavamsa of Saddaniti and the Jinakalamali of Ratanapañña. Pali literature continued to be composed into

6380-437: The Brahmasutras state that Atman and Brahman are different in some respects particularly during the state of ignorance, but at the deepest level and in the state of self-realization, Atman and Brahman are identical, non-different. This ancient debate flowered into various dual, non-dual theories in Hinduism. Two different types of the non-dual Brahman-Atman are presented in the Upanishads, according to Mahadevan. The one in which

6496-494: The Brihadaranyaka Upanishad as the area of Videha, whose king, Janaka, features prominently in the Upanishad. The Chandogya Upanishad was probably composed in a more western than eastern location in the Indian subcontinent, possibly somewhere in the western region of the Kuru-Panchala country. Compared to the Principal Upanishads, the new Upanishads recorded in the Muktikā belong to an entirely different region, probably southern India, and are considerably relatively recent. In

6612-399: The Buddha, ṛṣis , and devas were considered capable to transmitting buddhavacana. The content of such a discourse was then to be collated with the sūtras , compared with the Vinaya , and evaluated against the nature of the Dharma. These texts may then be certified as true buddhavacana by a buddha, a sangha , a small group of elders, or one knowledgeable elder. In Theravāda Buddhism,

6728-477: The Buddhas Amitabha , Akshobhya and Vairocana , and the bodhisattvas Maitreya , Mañjusri , Ksitigarbha , and Avalokiteshvara . An important feature of Mahāyāna is the way that it understands the nature of Buddhahood . Mahāyāna texts see Buddhas (and to a lesser extent, certain bodhisattvas as well) as transcendental or supramundane ( lokuttara ) beings, who live for eons constantly helping others through their activity. According to Paul Williams, in Mahāyāna,

6844-507: The Buddhist monastic community ( sangha ). However, Vinaya as a term is also contrasted with Dharma, where the pair (Dhamma-Vinaya) mean something like 'doctrine and discipline'. The Vinaya literature in fact contains a considerable range of texts. There are, of course, those that discuss the monastic rules, how they came about, how they developed, and how they were applied. But the vinaya also contains some doctrinal expositions, ritual and liturgical texts, biographical stories, and some elements of

6960-399: The Karma doctrine is presented in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad , which is the oldest Upanishad. While the hymns of the Vedas emphasize rituals and the Brahmanas serve as a liturgical manual for those Vedic rituals, the spirit of the Upanishads is inherently opposed to ritual. The older Upanishads launch attacks of increasing intensity on the ritual. Anyone who worships a divinity other than

7076-401: The Pali suttas. As noted by N. Ross Reat, this text is in general agreement with the basic doctrines of the early sutras of the Sthavira schools such as dependent origination , the " middle way " between eternalism and annihilationism, the " five aggregates ", the " three unwholesome roots ", the Four Noble Truths and the Noble Eightfold Path . Another important source for Mahāsāṃghika sutras

SECTION 60

#1732773394142

7192-402: The Self, to become complete and perfect. But who is to be meditated on? The opposition to the ritual is not explicit in the oldest Upanishads. On occasions, the Upanishads extend the task of the Aranyakas by making the ritual allegorical and giving it a philosophical meaning. For example, the Brihadaranyaka interprets the practice of horse-sacrifice or ashvamedha allegorically. It states that

7308-509: The Theravada Nidānakathā and the Dharmaguptaka Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra . One of the most famous of biographies is the Buddhacarita , an epic poem in Classical Sanskrit by Aśvaghoṣa . Aśvaghoṣa also wrote other poems, as well as Sanskrit dramas . Another Sanskrit Buddhist poet was Mātṛceṭa, who composed various pious hymns in slokas . Buddhist poetry is a broad genre with numerous forms and has been composed in many languages, including Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese and Japanese. Aside from

7424-446: The Tibetan and Chinese Buddhist canons (the Kangyur and the Taishō Tripiṭaka respectively) which then developed their own textual histories. Sanskrit had been adopted by Buddhists in north India during the Kushan era and Sanskrit Buddhist literature became the dominant tradition in Buddhist India until the decline of Buddhism there . Mahāyāna sūtras are also generally regarded by the Mahāyāna tradition as being more profound than

7540-509: The Tripitakas of early schools include the Chinese Āgamas , which includes collections by the Sarvāstivāda and the Dharmaguptaka . The Chinese Buddhist canon contains a complete collection of early sutras in Chinese translation, their content is very similar to the Pali, differing in detail but not in the core doctrinal content. The Tibetan canon contains some of these early texts as well, but not as complete collections. The earliest known Buddhist manuscripts containing early Buddhist texts are

7656-400: The Upanishads are categorized as "sectarian" since they present their ideas through a particular god or goddess of a specific Hindu tradition such as Vishnu, Shiva, Shakti, or a combination of these such as the Skanda Upanishad . These traditions sought to link their texts as Vedic, by asserting their texts to be an Upanishad, thereby a Śruti . Most of these sectarian Upanishads, for example

7772-460: The Upanishads, god becomes synonymous with self, and is declared to be everywhere, inmost being of each human being and within every living creature. The one reality or ekam sat of the Vedas becomes the ekam eva advitiyam or "the one and only and sans a second" in the Upanishads. Brahman-Atman and self-realization develops, in the Upanishad, as the means to moksha (liberation; freedom in this life or after-life). According to Jayatilleke ,

7888-551: The Upanishads. The Shvetashvatara Upanishad , for example, includes closing credits to sage Shvetashvatara , and he is considered the author of the Upanishad. Many scholars believe that early Upanishads were interpolated and expanded over time. There are differences within manuscripts of the same Upanishad discovered in different parts of South Asia, differences in non-Sanskrit version of the texts that have survived, and differences within each text in terms of meter, style, grammar and structure. The existing texts are believed to be

8004-594: The Vedic Upanishads. The main Shakta Upanishads, for example, mostly discuss doctrinal and interpretative differences between the two principal sects of a major Tantric form of Shaktism called Shri Vidya upasana . The many extant lists of authentic Shakta Upaniṣads vary, reflecting the sect of their compilers, so that they yield no evidence of their "location" in Tantric tradition, impeding correct interpretation. The Tantra content of these texts also weaken its identity as an Upaniṣad for non-Tantrikas. Sectarian texts such as these do not enjoy status as shruti and thus

8120-400: The areas immediately to the south and west of these. This region covers modern Bihar , Nepal , Uttar Pradesh , Uttarakhand , Himachal Pradesh , Haryana , eastern Rajasthan , and northern Madhya Pradesh . While significant attempts have been made recently to identify the exact locations of the individual Upanishads, the results are tentative. Witzel identifies the center of activity in

8236-402: The authority of the new Upanishads as scripture is not accepted in Hinduism. All Upanishads are associated with one of the four Vedas— Rigveda , Samaveda , Yajurveda (there are two primary versions or Samhitas of the Yajurveda: Shukla Yajurveda , Krishna Yajurveda ), and Atharvaveda . During the modern era, the ancient Upanishads that were embedded texts in the Vedas, were detached from

8352-592: The canonical Abhidharma works are generally claimed by scholars not to represent the words of the Buddha himself, but those of later Buddhists. There are different types and historical layers of Abhidharma literature. The early canonical Abhidharma works (like the Abhidhamma Pitaka ) are not philosophical treatises, but mainly summaries and expositions of early doctrinal lists with their accompanying explanations. These texts developed out of early Buddhist lists or matrices ( mātṛkās ) of key teachings, such as

8468-538: The canonical Abhidharma. The early Buddhist schools also preserved other types of texts which developed in later periods, which were variously seen as canonical or not, depending on the tradition. One of the largest category of texts that were neither Sutra, Vinaya nor Abhidharma includes various collections of stories such as the Jātaka tales and the Avadānas (Pali: Apadāna ). These are moral fables and legends dealing with

8584-516: The classic Upanishads , being less subtle and more formalized. As a result, they are not difficult to comprehend for the modern reader. There is no fixed list of the Upanishads as newer ones, beyond the Muktika anthology of 108 Upanishads, have continued to be discovered and composed. In 1908, for example, four previously unknown Upanishads were discovered in newly found manuscripts, and these were named Bashkala , Chhagaleya , Arsheya , and Saunaka , by Friedrich Schrader , who attributed them to

8700-404: The contents of consciousness through yogamaya with each formation concealing yet another formation. The five layers of matter ( prakrti ) that constitute the human body are the five sheaths ( pañcakośa ), one moves inwards from the visible layers through more refined invisible layers in search of own true self. The Pāñcarātra Āgama , which are based on Ekāyana recension of the Śukla Yajurveda ,

8816-403: The conventional language and narrative stories found in the sutras. The prominent modern scholar of Abhidharma, Erich Frauwallner has said that these Buddhist systems are "among the major achievements of the classical period of Indian philosophy ." Modern scholars generally believe that the canonical Abhidharma texts emerged after the time of the Buddha, in around the 3rd century BCE. Therefore,

8932-474: The criteria for determining what should be considered buddhavacana were developed at an early stage, and that the early formulations do not suggest that Dharma is limited to what was spoken by the historical Buddha. The Mahāsāṃghika and the Mūlasarvāstivāda considered both the Buddha's discourses and those of his disciples to be buddhavacana . A number of different beings such as Buddhas, disciples of

9048-538: The early Magadhan language and Pāli through the use of repetition, communal recitation and mnemonic devices. These texts were later compiled into canons and written down in manuscripts. For example, the Pāli Canon was preserved in Sri Lanka where it was first written down in the first century BCE. There are early texts from various Buddhist schools, the largest collections are from the Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda schools, but there are also full texts and fragments from

9164-483: The essence of the concrete physical human body, "an essence, a life-force, consciousness, or ultimate reality." The Chāndogya Upaniṣhad (6.1-16) "offers an organic understanding of ātman, characterizing the self in terms of the life force that animates all living beings," while the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣhad "characterizes ātman more in terms of consciousness than as a life-giving essence." Brahman may refer to

9280-538: The fifth century, with very few manuscripts having been found before then (the exceptions are from Bamiyan ). However, according to Walser, the fifth and sixth centuries saw a great increase in the production of these texts. By this time, Chinese pilgrims, such as Faxian , Yijing , and Xuanzang were traveling to India, and their writings do describe monasteries which they label 'Mahāyāna' as well as monasteries where both Mahāyāna monks and non-Mahāyāna monks lived together. Mahāyāna sūtras contain several elements besides

9396-526: The first century BCE to the third century CE. The first Buddhist texts were initially passed on orally by Buddhist monastics , but were later written down and composed as manuscripts in various Indo-Aryan languages (such as Pāli , Gāndhārī , and Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit ). These texts were collected into various collections and translated into other languages such as Buddhist Chinese ( fójiào hànyǔ 佛教漢語) and Classical Tibetan as Buddhism spread outside of India . Buddhist texts can be categorized in

9512-485: The first prose period of the Upanishads. The text of three of them, namely the Chhagaleya , Arsheya , and Saunaka , were incomplete and inconsistent, likely poorly maintained or corrupted. Ancient Upanishads have long enjoyed a revered position in Hindu traditions, and authors of numerous sectarian texts have tried to benefit from this reputation by naming their texts as Upanishads. These "new Upanishads" number in

9628-503: The foundation of Indian traditions. For example, the Chandogya Upanishad includes one of the earliest known declarations of Ahimsa (non-violence) as an ethical precept. Discussion of other ethical premises such as Damah (temperance, self-restraint), Satya (truthfulness), Dāna (charity), Ārjava (non-hypocrisy), Daya (compassion), and others are found in the oldest Upanishads and many later Upanishads. Similarly,

9744-690: The fourth chapter of the Kaushitaki Upanishad, a location named Kashi (modern Varanasi ) is mentioned. There are more than 200 known Upanishads , one of which, the Muktikā Upanishad, predates 1656 CE and contains a list of 108 canonical Upanishads, including itself as the last. These are further divided into Upanishads associated with Shaktism (goddess Shakti), Sannyasa (renunciation, monastic life), Shaivism (god Shiva), Vaishnavism (god Vishnu), Yoga , and Sāmānya (general, sometimes referred to as Samanya-Vedanta). Some of

9860-534: The general view of what is and is not buddhavacana is broadly similar between East Asian Buddhism and Tibetan Buddhism. The Tibetan Kangyur, which belongs to the various schools of Tibetan Vajrayāna Buddhism , in addition to containing sutras and Vinaya, also contains Buddhist tantras and other related Tantric literature. The earliest Buddhist texts were passed down orally in Middle Indo-Aryan languages called Prakrits , including Gāndhārī language ,

9976-476: The hundreds, cover diverse range of topics from physiology to renunciation to sectarian theories. They were composed between the last centuries of the 1st millennium BCE through the early modern era (~1600 CE). While over two dozen of the minor Upanishads are dated to pre-3rd century CE, many of these new texts under the title of "Upanishads" originated in the first half of the 2nd millennium CE, they are not Vedic texts, and some do not deal with themes found in

10092-580: The impossibility of origin) - Brahma-Sūtras (II.ii.42) refutes the Bhāgavata view that the Catur-vyūha forms originate successively from Vasudeva , for any origin for the soul is impossible, an implement cannot originate from its agent who wields it. Whereas in a vyūha an army re-sets its different able warriors and weaponry into a specific arrangement as per battle demands, the Supreme Being re-sets

10208-521: The instruments and the subtle material of pure creation. Vyūhas are the first beings created, and they represent the effective parts of a coherent whole. Here, vyūha means – projection; the projection of the svarūpa ('own form') as bahurūpa ('manifest variously'). The Mahabharata and the Manu Samhita list by name and formation many vyūhas ('battle formations'), some were small in size and others, gigantic, such as: In Mahāyāna Buddhism,

10324-553: The legitimacy of these texts as Buddha word. Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Gaṇḍavyūha also often criticize early Buddhist figures, such as Sariputra for lacking knowledge and goodness, and thus, these elders or śrāvaka are seen as not intelligent enough to receive the Mahāyāna teachings, while more the advanced elite, the bodhisattvas, are depicted as those who can see the highest teachings. These sūtras were not recognized as being Buddha word by various early Buddhist schools and there

10440-631: The modern era, especially in Burma, and writers such as Mahasi Sayadaw translated some of their texts into Pali. There are also numerous Esoteric Theravada texts, mostly from Southeast Asia . This tradition flourished in Cambodia and Thailand before the 19th century reformist movement of Rama IV . One of these texts has been published in English by the Pali Text Society as "Manual of

10556-456: The most common by the 19th-century and this is a list of 108 Upanishads. In north India, a list of 52 Upanishads has been most common. The Muktikā Upanishad's list of 108 Upanishads groups the first 13 as mukhya , 21 as Sāmānya Vedānta , 18 as Sannyāsa , 14 as Vaishnava , 14 as Shaiva , 8 as Shakta , and 20 as Yoga . The 108 Upanishads as recorded in the Muktikā are shown in

10672-432: The most important literature in the history of Indian religions and culture, the Upanishads document a wide variety of "rites, incantations, and esoteric knowledge" departing from Vedic ritualism and interpreted in various ways in the later commentarial traditions. The Upanishads are widely known, and their diverse ideas, interpreted in various ways, informed later traditions of Hinduism. The central concern of all Upanishads

10788-621: The name of this āgama is derived on account of its description of the five-fold manifestation of the Supreme Being viz, para (supreme or the transcendental form), vyūha (formation or manifestation as the four vyūha ), vibhava (reincarnation or descent to earth as avtāra), arcā (visible image of God) and antaryāmi (cosmic form of God). Lakshmi accompanies Vishnu in His Chatur-vyūha (four-fold manifestation) as Vāsudeva (creator), Saṅkarṣaṇa (sustainer), Pradyumna (destroyer), and Aniruddha (spiritual knowledge promulgator). This

10904-508: The names of certain Buddhas or bodhisattvas, maintaining Buddhist precepts, and listening to, memorizing, and copying sutras." Some Mahāyāna sūtras claim that these practices lead to rebirth in Pure lands such as Abhirati and Sukhavati , where becoming a Buddha is much easier to achieve. Several Mahāyāna sūtras also depict important Buddhas or Bodhisattvas not found in earlier texts, such as

11020-530: The non-dual Brahman-Atman is the all-inclusive ground of the universe and another in which empirical, changing reality is an appearance (Maya). Buddhist texts Buddhist texts are religious texts that belong to, or are associated with, Buddhism and its traditions . There is no single textual collection for all of Buddhism. Instead, there are three main Buddhist Canons : the Pāli Canon of

11136-557: The older texts were composed over a wide expanse of time from about 600 to 300 BCE." Stephen Phillips places the early or "principal" Upanishads in the 800 to 300 BCE range. Patrick Olivelle , a Sanskrit Philologist and Indologist , gives the following chronology for the early Upanishads, also called the Principal Upanishads : Meanwhile, the Indologist Johannes Bronkhorst argues for

11252-465: The over-lordship of the earth may be acquired by sacrificing a horse. It then goes on to say that spiritual autonomy can only be achieved by renouncing the universe which is conceived in the image of a horse. In similar fashion, Vedic gods such as the Agni , Aditya , Indra , Rudra , Visnu , Brahma , and others become equated in the Upanishads to the supreme, immortal, and incorporeal Brahman-Atman of

11368-488: The previous births of Gautama Buddha in both human and animal form. The different Buddhist schools had their own collections of these tales and often disagreed on which stories were canonical. Another genre that developed over time in the various early schools were biographies of the Buddha. Buddha biographies include the Mahāvastu of the Lokottaravadin school, the northern tradition's Lalitavistara Sūtra ,

11484-515: The principal or main ( mukhya ) Upanishads. The mukhya Upanishads are found mostly in the concluding part of the Brahmanas and Aranyakas and were, for centuries, memorized by each generation and passed down orally . The mukhya Upanishads predate the Common Era , but there is no scholarly consensus on their date, or even on which ones are pre- or post-Buddhist. The Brhadaranyaka

11600-584: The promotion of the bodhisattva ideal, including "expanded cosmologies and mythical histories, ideas of purelands and great, 'celestial' Buddhas and bodhisattvas , descriptions of powerful new religious practices, new ideas on the nature of the Buddha, and a range of new philosophical perspectives." These texts present stories of revelation in which the Buddha teaches Mahāyāna sutras to certain bodhisattvas who vow to teach and spread these sutras. These texts also promoted new religious practices that were supposed to make Buddhahood easy to achieve, such as "hearing

11716-435: The ritual of introspection", and that "not rituals, but knowledge should be one's pursuit". The Mundaka Upanishad declares how man has been called upon, promised benefits for, scared unto and misled into performing sacrifices, oblations and pious works. Mundaka thereafter asserts this is foolish and frail, by those who encourage it and those who follow it, because it makes no difference to man's current life and after-life, it

11832-492: The self is called a domestic animal of the gods in the Brihadaranyaka Upanishad . The Chāndogya Upanishad parodies those who indulge in the acts of sacrifice by comparing them with a procession of dogs chanting Om! Let's eat. Om! Let's drink . The Kaushitaki Upanishad asserts that "external rituals such as Agnihotram offered in the morning and in the evening, must be replaced with inner Agnihotram,

11948-584: The standard collection of buddhavacana is the Pāli Canon, also known as the Tripiṭaka ("three baskets"). Generally speaking, the Theravāda school rejects the Mahāyāna sūtras as buddhavacana (word of the Buddha), and do not study or see these texts as reliable sources. In East Asian Buddhism , what is considered buddhavacana is collected in the Chinese Buddhist canon ; the most common edition of this

12064-494: The student sitting down near the teacher while receiving spiritual knowledge (Gurumukh). Other dictionary meanings include "esoteric doctrine" and "secret doctrine". Monier-Williams ' Sanskrit Dictionary notes – "According to native authorities, Upanishad means setting to rest ignorance by revealing the knowledge of the supreme spirit." Adi Shankaracharya explains in his commentary on the Kaṭha and Brihadaranyaka Upanishad that

12180-445: The table below. The mukhya Upanishads are the most important and highlighted. The central concern of all Upanishads is to discover the relations between ritual, cosmic realities (including gods), and the human body/person, postulating Ātman and Brahman as the "summit of the hierarchically arranged and interconnected universe," but various ideas about the relation between Atman and Brahman can be found. The Upanishads reflect

12296-490: The thinkers of Upanishadic texts can be grouped into two categories. One group, which includes early Upanishads along with some middle and late Upanishads, were composed by metaphysicians who used rational arguments and empirical experience to formulate their speculations and philosophical premises. The second group includes many middle and later Upanishads, where their authors professed theories based on yoga and personal experiences. Yoga philosophy and practice, adds Jayatilleke,

12412-505: The transition from the archaic ritualism of the Veda into new religious ideas and institutions" and the emergence of the central religious concepts of Hinduism . They are the most recent addition to the Vedas -- the oldest scriptures of Hinduism, and deal with meditation, philosophy , consciousness , and ontological knowledge. Earlier parts of the Vedas dealt with mantras, benedictions, rituals, ceremonies, and sacrifices. While among

12528-489: The twenty Yoga Upanishads to be probably from the 100 BCE to 300 CE period. Patrick Olivelle and other scholars date seven of the twenty Sannyasa Upanishads to likely have been complete sometime between the last centuries of the 1st-millennium BCE to 300 CE. About half of the Sannyasa Upanishads were likely composed in 14th- to 15th-century CE. The general area of the composition of the early Upanishads

12644-426: The wife of Yajnavalkayva, also feature occasionally. Each of the principal Upanishads can be associated with one of the schools of exegesis of the four Vedas ( shakhas ). Many Shakhas are said to have existed, of which only a few remain. The new Upanishads often have little relation to the Vedic corpus and have not been cited or commented upon by any great Vedanta philosopher: their language differs from that of

12760-483: The word vyūha means "arrangement", the like of marvelous, supernatural, magical arrangements, or supernatural manifestations. It is also extant in the Pali language, where it means "an array" or "grouping of troops." The term is also found among the titles of some Buddhist texts . In Pure Land Buddhism , the character of Amitābha Buddha is elaborated upon in both the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra and

12876-578: The word means Ātmavidyā , that is, "knowledge of the self ", or Brahmavidyā "knowledge of Brahman". The word appears in the verses of many Upanishads, such as the fourth verse of the 13th volume in the first chapter of the Chandogya Upanishad. Max Müller as well as Paul Deussen translate the word Upanishad in these verses as "secret doctrine", Robert Hume translates it as "mystic meaning", while Patrick Olivelle translates it as "hidden connections". The authorship of most Upanishads

12992-640: The work of Aśvaghoṣa, another important Sanskrit poet was Mātr̥ceṭa, known for his One Hundred and Fifty Verses. Buddhist poetry was also written in popular Indian languages, such as Tamil and Apabhramsa . One well known poem is the Tamil epic Manimekalai , which is one of the Five Great Epics of Tamil literature . Other later hagiographical texts include the Buddhavaṃsa , the Cariyāpiṭaka and

13108-627: The work of many authors. Scholars are uncertain about when the Upanishads were composed. The chronology of the early Upanishads is difficult to resolve, states philosopher and Sanskritist Stephen Phillips, because all opinions rest on scanty evidence and analysis of archaism, style and repetitions across texts, and are driven by assumptions about likely evolution of ideas, and presumptions about which philosophy might have influenced which other Indian philosophies. Indologist Patrick Olivelle says that "in spite of claims made by some, in reality, any dating of these documents [early Upanishads] that attempts

13224-402: Was lively debate over their authenticity throughout the Buddhist world. Various Mahāyāna sūtras warn against the charge that they are not word of the Buddha, showing that they are aware of this claim. Buddhist communities such as the Mahāsāṃghika school were divided along these doctrinal lines into sub-schools which accepted or did not accept these texts. The Theravāda school of Sri Lanka also

13340-475: Was perhaps never definitively established among many early Buddhist schools. Early Buddhist texts which appear in such "minor" collections include: Abhidharma (in Pāli , Abhidhamma ) texts which contain "an abstract and highly technical systematization" of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist sutras. It is an attempt to best express the Buddhist view of "ultimate reality" ( paramartha-satya ) without using

13456-444: Was split on the issue during the medieval period. The Mahavihara sub-sect rejected these texts and the (now extinct) Abhayagiri sect accepted them. Theravāda commentaries mention these texts (which they call Vedalla/Vetulla ) as not being the Buddha word and being counterfeit scriptures. Modern Theravāda generally does not accept these texts as buddhavacana (word of the Buddha). The Mahāyāna movement remained quite small until

#141858