Early Buddhism : a new definition

Early Buddhism, 2019

I used the following criteria for the search after early Buddhist doctrines. 1) Autobiographical discourses of the Buddha; 2) Discourses in the Saṃyutta-Nikāya which also figure in the Pāli Vinaya; 3) and in all cases provided that any doctrine finds support in parallel or similar discourse(s) of other schools, and preferably not only in a Vinaya. The application of those criteria led to the following selection of credible early Buddhist doctrines. These doctrines may be divided into four groups according to traditional stages of the life of the Buddha.

Numen-international Review for The History of Religions, 1998

There is a quiet revolution afoot in our understanding of Early Buddhism, Pyrrhonism, and the Greek, Indian, and Central Asian cultural world of Hellenistic antiquity. The implications for the history of philosophy and religion are potentially profound. Christopher Beckwith's recent remarkable and provocative book, Greek Buddha: Pyrrho's Encounter with Early Buddhism, is the latest work breaking important new ground in this area. 1 It offers no less than a wholesale geographical and chronological restructuring of traditional Buddhism, upsetting decades of scholarship. Along the way, Beckwith advances the following audacious claims: 1. That the Buddha was a Scythian, not an Indian. 2. That he lived much later than commonly thought, most likely well into the 5th century BCE. 3. That the earliest datable form of Buddhism anywhere is the ancient Greek school of Pyrrhonism, founded by Pyrrho of Ellis in the late fourth century BCE, based on his experiences with Buddhists in central Asia, where he accompanied Alexander the Great on his campaigns. 4. That what we would recognize as "normative" Buddhism-that is, Buddhism as we know it-can only be attested in the first century CE, long after the Buddha's lifetime.

Dissertation, 2021

This dissertation investigates the relation of early Buddhism to the Brahmanism of its time. Both religions are usually researched by their own academic traditions, and due to the lack of bigpicture crossover research we still find the opposing views that Buddhism was anti-Brahmanical and, in contrast, that it developed as a reformed Brahmanism. In order to provide more clarity to the religions’ connection this study offers an analysis and discussion of several main topics as they are presented in the Buddhist suttas: the portrayal of different types of Brahmins, rituals, deities and supernatural beings, and the concepts of brahman and ātman. Throughout this study we also attempt to stratify the Buddhist content linguistically and contextually and to arrive at statements whether a specific content related to Brahmanism belongs to an early or a later Buddhist sutta period. In the end we conclude that early Buddhism had a very differentiated relationship to Brahmanism: The Buddha’s relationship to Brahmins is mostly portrayed as benevolent and respectful. Only later suttas display an attitude of polemic criticism. Early Buddhist concepts of deities and supernatural beings are strongly influenced by Vedic Brahmanism, and likewise the concept of spiritual studentship (brahmacariya). Further, the early suttas are not anti-ritualistic but deem Brahmin rituals to be ineffective. Instead of condemning all rituals, they replace the Vedic gods with the Buddha and declare that devotion and religious giving to the Buddha and his monastics are the most efficient ways for lay people to secure a good afterlife. The Buddhist anattā (not-self) turns out to be a general strategy and not specifically directed at Brahmin concepts of ātman (self). Additionally, statistical analyses of the suttas show that Brahmins were less likely to receive the teaching of anattā. We come to the conclusion that early Buddhism as a whole has developed independently from Brahmanism, with selective influences from Brahmanism and non-Vedic spiritual movements, altering and utilizing these influences for its own growth against its religious competition.

This textbook, bases on the earliest stratum of Buddhist texts, provides a holistic and proportionate account of the range of the Buddha’s Dharma, interpreted for the modern student. We discover in the earliest teachings a corpus that is astonishingly profound and comprehensive, consistent, brilliantly coherent and still intelligible today. Topics include not only the higher training of meditation, psychology and the path to awakening, but also practical advice on virtue, harmony, community and basic human values. This book is divided into two parts, each of which can be studied independently: Buddhist Life concerns living devoutly, virtuously, harmoniously and in community. Buddhist Path, on the higher course of training toward awakening based on the noble eightfold path.

Religion, 1975