Gethin - The Foundations of Buddhism

An OPUS book

The Foundations of
Buddhism

Rupert Gethin is Lecturer in Indian Religions in the Department of Theology and Religious Studies, and co-director of the Centre for Buddhist Studies, at the University of Bristol. He is author of The Buddhist Path to Awakening (1992) and is a specialist in Theravda Buddhism.

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Robert Evans
John Skorupski

OPUS books provide concise, original, and authoritative introductions to a wide range of subjects in the humanities and social sciences. They are written by experts for the general reader as well as for students.

Rupert Gethin

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Rupert Gethin 1998

First published as an Oxford University Press paperback 1998

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British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data
Data available

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Gethin, Rupert.
The foundations of Buddhism / Rupert Gethin.
Includes index.
1. Buddhism. 1. Title
BQ4012.G47 1998 294.3dc21 9812246
ISBN 0192892231

5 7 9 1 0 8 6

Typeset by Graphicraft Typesetters Ltd., Hong Kong
Printed in Great Britain by Cox & Wyman Ltd, Reading, England

For my mother

My understanding of the Buddhist tradition owes much to many. Some of what is owed and to whom is apparent from the notes and bibliography of the present volume, but some deserve special mention. To Lance Cousins, who first introduced me to Buddhism, I owe a special debt. A number of people have read drafts of parts of this book during the course of its writing; to Lance Cousins, Hugh Gethin, Michael Houser, Rita Langer, Ken Robinson, Alexander von Rospatt, Oman Rotem, Gregory Schopen, and Paul Williams I am especially grateful for their comments, criticisms, and encouragement. I am also grateful to my students and all those others whose questions and puzzled faces have prompted me to try to express what I understand of Buddhism more clearly. Finally a word of thanks to my editor at OUP, George Miller, for his patience and help.

siddhir astu
ubham astu

MAP I. The Ganges basin at the time of the Buddha

MAP 2. The spread of Buddhism in the ancient world

MAP 3. Buddhism in the modern world

The original language of Buddhist thought is problematic. It was not Sanskrit (Old Indo-Aryan) but a closely related Middle Indo-Aryan dialect similar to Pali, the canonical language of the Buddhism of Sri Lanka and South-East Asia. As Buddhism developed in ancient India it tended increasingly to speak the universal language of ancient Indian culture, Sanskrit. Subsequently Buddhist texts were translated into Chinese and Tibetan which became major Buddhist languages in their own right.

The general principle I have adopted is to quote universal Buddhist terms in both Sanskrit and (when there is a difference) Pali, placed in parentheses after the English translation so: aggregates (skandha/khandha). If the term is used again in the body of the text I have generally preferred the Sanskrit form, unless the context is exclusively that of Theravda Buddhism. Terms that are specific or characteristic of a particular Buddhist tradition are quoted in the appropriate language(s), either Pali or Sanskrit with, where appropriate, their Chinese or Tibetan, or occasionally their Japanese or Korean translation.

The transliteration of Indian languages follows the standard transliteration scheme (see A. L. Basham, The Wonder that Was India, 5068); Chinese is quoted according to the WadeGiles system, rather than Pin-Yin, Tibetan according to the Wylie system. Words that have become part of the English language (i.e. would be found in an English dictionary) are left unitalicized but the appropriate diacritical marks have been added, hence nirvna.

The term Buddhism refers to a vast and complex religious and philosophical tradition with a history that stretches over some 2,500 years, taking in, at one time or another, the greater part of Asia, from Afghanistan and parts of Persia in the west to Japan in the east, from the great islands of Sumatra and Java in the south to Mongolia and parts of southern Russia in the north. As one writer reminds us, over half the worlds population today lives in areas where Buddhism has at one time or another been the dominant religious influence.

1. The Theravda tradition of Sri Lanka and South-East Asia, also sometimes referred to as southern Buddhism. Its canonical scriptures are preserved in Pali, an ancient Indian language closely related to Sanskrit. The school exemplifies a certain conservatism. Relative to the other two traditions, it can be regarded as generally closer in doctrine and practice to ancient Buddhism as it existed in the early centuries BCE in India. Today it is the religious tradition followed by a population of over 100 million in Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Cambodia, and Laos.

2. The East Asian tradition of China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, also sometimes referred to as eastern Buddhism. Its scriptures are preserved in Chinese and its general outlook is that of the Mahyna or Great Vehicle, a movement of ancient Indian Buddhist thought and practice that from about the beginning of the Christian era dubbed those who did not adopt its overall vision of Buddhismrepresented today by the Theravdafollowers of the Lesser Vehicle (