06.16.11

Buddhism and Hinduism comment and AIT/OIT discussion resumed

Posted in General at 12:07 pm by nemo

Comment from Richard on Hinduism and Buddhism. See blockquotes below.

We are having a good discussion of secular buddhism, so let’s continue. But the issue of Indian religion in general is very tricky. I held the standard view for many years, but suddenly about a year and a half ago (?) realized that people like Danielou are right. Richard dissents here. I did not specify beliefs in reincarnation necessarily, only the age of the Indic tradition. But I think some form of belief in rebirth has always been present. If we examine the Indo-European corpus we see nothing there on this, or anything whatever like Buddhism or yoga.

The suspicion that South India was the source of the great Indian tradition is strong, and critics like Elst themselves are beset with South Indian protests here against the distortion of the tradition.
Richard’s objections to Jainism miss the point, I think: Jainism as we know it now is a cultural movement and culture that produces no buddhas. A frozen tradition, its state since the passing of Mahavir. Mahavir was the closer in a great tradition of twenty four teertankers, and after that lineage died out and modern Jainism was born as a tradition: Nota bene: the tradition arises as a form of the original in decline or at its end point.
The perception is obvious: Jainism flowers one last time in the Axial period, then the current moves to the Buddhist stream which is born in the same period. We can see from the records such as they are of Mahavir that his teaching and teaching ashram resembled that of Buddhism. The same world of mendicants and their guru/sangha. So we dare not judge that from the cultural Jainism that we know now.
A strange question arises here: where do we put the great Jain tradition before Mahavir, twenty four teertankers, two of which (including Mahavir) appear in the Axial interval. The great tradition at one per century takes us right back to about -3000BCE, bullseye. The next interval would go back to ca. -5500BCE, which I suspect is the age of the great birth of state/social religion as we know it visible in the great temple complexes of the Mesopotamina (north) field. Indian religion to this day has a Neolithic cast, with its goddess religion and much else.
So there are several questions: the birth of the Indic stream, and the Aryan Invasion theory. It is possible, just possible, that Aryans were present in India from the start, Indian religion in any case going back to the Neolithic (or before). This seems to be Elst’s claim. Nicholas Wade talks about the Aryan variant theory of the IE languages springing from the Middle East (Turkey) at the beginning of the Neolithic. That’s a tough claim. The problem I am having here is that people don’t seem to grasp the resemblance of Sanskrit and Homeric Greek grammars. You have at the outside a millennium leeway here, and that’s probably too much. If Homeric Greek appears in the second millennium, then you can’t be putting the Rig Veda’s Sanskrit back in the Neolithic. No way. The claim is balderdash. If the Rig Veda records astronomical events of the Neolithic, still that won’t change the problem. The data must have arisen in some other form or language.

Thus I think that a competent study of the IE linguistics problems makes the AIT in many possible variants the only plausible answer, but I can’t be sure, and that is a different question than that of the antiquity of Indian religion.
The critics of AIT are throwing sand in our faces: the case of the IE entering Greece should make it clear. We cannot push that back to the Neolithic. period. So why is India different? IE Greeks appear in Greece in the second millennium, transform a Cretan predecessor, then decline, then flower in the Axial producing or transcribing an epic corpus into the Homeric Greek language. Therefore it seems like the IE entered India in rough parallel, produced a brief civilization from the predecessors in India, then went into brief decline, until they flowered once again in the Axial period, producing the Upanishads as a kickoff, and an epic literature with themes showing a family resemblance to the Greek.
The data is too fixed in place here for the rival theories to make sense. In any case, I remain open, since the only thing that seems to me definite is the antiquity of Indian religion, whatever culture or language is involved.

In any case, the question of Buddhism only makes sense in terms of this long view, at least to mee. Otherwise we have a reform movement appearing at the same time as what it wants to reform, that phantom called Hinduism, which was actually a mishmash at that point.
To say there is no evidence here is misleading. There is no evidence otherwise. The point Danielou was making was that evidence might be found by a dispassionate Sanskrit scholar who studied the obvious source of clues: material that was South Indian of great antiquity, transcribed into Sanskrit, at a later date. Noone can say there is no evidence here, if they won’t look. In any case, the progression of age periods (so reminiscent of the eonic effect) suggests that an early Shavism/goddess religion began in the Neolithic, spawned the Jain tradition in the next phase, and Buddhism in the third. An entirely elegant solution to the whole question.

All of this said, it is important to see the dramatic effect of the Axial period on the cultures in its mainline: there are lots of things we can see coming into existence discontinuously, especially in Greece where the documentation is more extensive. Just as many things with a prior existence are transformed or amplified.

So there is not absolute reason for saying the Indic tradition has to show great antiquity. The revolutionary effect of the Axial Age may have injected the whole tradition as we know it into the existing culture. But I suspect it is a case of both being the case. The apparition of the Upanishads is a case in point. They seem to appear out of nowhere in the right Axial time-frame. Mysterious.

Richard
207.138.47.153 Submitted on 2011/06/16 at 9:19 am
I should point out that I don’t agree with Nemo here. I’m not convinced about Jainism and Shaivism being as old as Danielou claims (he has an interesting thesis, but it is highly speculative to say the least). It wouldn’t surprise me if reincarnation/karma theories developed during a speculative phase in Brahmanical circles (wouldn’t be surprising since it happens in other religions as well). Star’s link is interesting is that I’ve always wondered why those aspects of the Rig Veda are ignored. There does seem to be some link with the Brihadaranyaka.

I also don’t agree with Buddhism being a continuation of Jainism. Jainism (if the Niganthas are Jains) gets the harshest treatment from the Buddha in the Nikayas. He seems to have more respect for the Brahmins in their interactions.

I should point out that I don’t agree with Nemo here. I’m not convinced about Jainism and Shaivism being as old as Danielou claims (he has an interesting thesis, but it is highly speculative to say the least). It wouldn’t surprise me if reincarnation/karma theories developed during a speculative phase in Brahmanical circles (wouldn’t be surprising since it happens in other religions as well). Star’s link is interesting is that I’ve always wondered why those aspects of the Rig Veda are ignored. There does seem to be some link with the Brihadaranyaka.

I also don’t agree with Buddhism being a continuation of Jainism. Jainism (if the Niganthas are Jains) gets the harshest treatment from the Buddha in the Nikayas. He seems to have more respect for the Brahmins in their interactions.
Richard
1

——————–

nemo
history-and-evolution.com
nemonemini@aol.com
64.12.117.69 Submitted on 2011/06/16 at 11:16 am | In reply to Richard.
I will write something on this today: the issue of Jainism is confusing because the ‘religion’ that arose after Mahavira (the last in a great line) was totally different from what came before. The real Jainism was essentially frozen in place.
The issue of secular buddhism doesn’t require a stance on this, but I persist in recommending the ‘long view’ of the Indic tradition: it is hard to see such an abrupt start in the tradition under the rubric of Hinduism. More later.

Permalink