Indian Culture and Pali Literature

Researchgate, 2021

Philosophy in the history of the world dates back to the 6th century BC. There are two main types of world philosophy. That is, as Eastern philosophy and Western philosophy. From these two philosophical areas, Eastern philosophy occupies a special place. That is because the philosophy here is activated based on spiritual factors. There are about 9 major philosophies in Eastern philosophy, of which Buddhism occupies a special place as a philosophy. This vision was presented to the world by Gautama Buddha. With the recognition of Buddhism in the modern world as a valid religion for modern society also for the Buddhist society(6th century BC). The world's attention was drawn to the background of this religion and the Gautama Buddha. As a result, the attention of the majority was drawn to the Buddha and his social background. Also, according to the events related to the character of the Buddha. The search for Indian society began during the time of Buddhism. Archaeological evidence was of paramount importance. The study will focus on whether the founders of Buddhism, who have been subjected to whitening studies so far, are truly historical inhabitants, and what is the current evidence for that. The study of the historical evidence such as literature and archaeological evidence of the places read in connection with the special occasions of the character of the Buddha are the basic factors that prove the facts here.

2013

After some preliminary considerations concerning orality and writing in India and the date of the Buddha, this article re-examines the questions of where and when a version of the Pali Canon was first set to writing and what were the contents of that collection. It then goes on to examine the origin and evolution of the Māgadha language we now call Pali, seeing it as derived from a written language which was in wide use over the major part of India during the last centuries B.C. rather than directly from spoken dialects.

The question regarding the literary character of religious Scripture in Judaism and Christianity has received elaborate and intense scholarly consideration. Not only does the literary approach to the Bible and the New Testament have a history of a few hundred -some would say a few thousand -years, there have even been published many histories of these modes of interpretation. 1 There is today a well-established consensus in respectable scholarly circles that the Bible and the Gospels can and should be read as literature. 2 Robert Alter and Meir Sternberg, for example, each speak about the relation between the historical and the literary in the Bible; although both agree that the aim of the text is historiographic, the manner in which the Bible approaches its subject matter involves conscious application of narrative considerations. 3 For Sternberg, historiography mediates between ideology and aesthetics. Alter speaks of fiction as the principal means for realizing history; the Bible is "an imaginative reenactment of history by a gifted writer" who interweaves between fact and legend. According to Alter:

Buddhism came into existence in the 6 th century B.C. in north India with the enlightenment of Siddhārtha Gautama, who is believed to be the Buddha. The enlightenment, or the realization of Gautama through which he was entitled to be known as the Buddha, consisted of the realization of the reality of the world and the final liberation of beings. The reality of the world, which he has realized, is known as the theory of dependent origination (Paticca-samuppāda) and the final liberation of the being, which he has experienced, came to be known as the extinction of cankers (Nibbāna or nirodha), are the two main doctrines of Buddhism. 1 All the other teachings of the Buddha seem to be centered on these two main doctrines.

2022

The present article features in Mathes and Kemp (2022) Buddha Nature Across Asia (Vienna: Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde, pp.21–50). In it I attempt a short overview of the state of the field with respect to the early history of teaching about buddha nature in India, focused on how relevant sources used the expressions tathāgatagarbha and buddhadhātu. Among other observations, I suggest that scholarship must keep in mind the difference between the literary history of the slippery and polyvalent term 'tathāgatagarbha', and apart from this the myriad ideas about 'buddha nature' that appear in Indian Mahāyānist literature, often (but not always) taught using the term tathāgatagarbha.

Religion, 2024

Research India Press, New Delhi, 2022