Potyczki Kryszny z Buddą. Kilka uwag o polemicznej wymowie Bhagawadgity wobec wczesnego buddyzmu

Abstract

Krishna’s skirmishes with the Buddha. Remarks on the polemical meaning of the Bhagavadgītā towards early Buddhism: The paper discusses the issue of the confrontation of the Bhagavadgītā with some aspects of the early Buddhist doctrine as presented in the Pāli canon. The confrontation points to the Bhagavadgītā as being a poem of the (broadly understood) orthodox current of Indian religious thought, which also contains some polemical elements, these mostly addressed to the most powerful heterodox religious current in the first centuries B.C. (which is most probable the date of the Bhagavadgītā’s composition). Several parts of the famous Sanskrit poem are compared and confronted with the respective parts of the Pāli canon in order to demonstrate, firstly, the different approaches of both currents, mostly in ethics and metaphysics, and secondly, the Bhagavadgītā’s reaction to particular elements of early Buddhism. The first six chapters of the Sanskrit poem have been subjected to analysis in this respect.