Buddhist Thought Research Articles

Buddhist Approach to the Ethical Analysis of Premeditated Murder

The purpose of the research is to explicate the Buddhist principles of ethical analysis of premeditated murder as an immoral act. The author solves this problem through the method of case study of exegetical treatises of outstanding Buddhist thinkers Vasubandhu (4th-5th centuries) and Yašomitra (8th century). It is shown that the ethical analysis of premeditated murder is based on a religious anthropological concept (the Buddhist doctrine of human action producing karmic retribution). Sinful intent is interpreted as an immoral mental urge that generated a verbal intention to take the life of a certain person or a certain animal. According to the canonical point of view, there are three mental roots of immoral acts - greed, hatred, ignorance. The ethnical analysis of sinful intent is aimed at determining the connection of intent with any of these three mental phenomena. In accordance with this principle, Buddhist thinkers have identified three types of premeditated murder. All of them produce a “black” (unfavorable) karmic fruit, i.e. an unfortunate form of rebirth, exacerbating physical suffering. Great attention is paid by the author to the problem of the karmic responsibility of individuals ordering murders and the executors of such orders. In the considered sources, the verbal order to kill and its physical execution are interpreted as equally immoral actions that produce collective karmic responsibility. The author of the research examines in detail a special class of premeditated murder, fraught with inevitable infernal retribution. This class includes murders of benefactors (mother, father, arhat) and Buddhist ascetics practicing asceticism. These malicious sins were interpreted as an insurmountable obstacle to achieving a soteriological goal, even in the distant transcendental future. It is shown that Buddhist exegetes have developed principles for diagnosing these sins and characterized the immoral personal characteristics of sinners (disrespect towards parents, Buddhist preachers and religious ascetics, heretical denial of spiritual values, shamelessness, arrogance, ignorant self-will, misanthropy).

기무라 다이켄 『원시불교사상론』의 유정론(有情論)과 의지주의

Taiken Kimura (木村泰賢) was a distinguished Buddhist scholar active during Japan's Taisho period. As a monk affiliated with the Japanese Soto Zen, he completed his education in the Department of Indian Philosophy at Tokyo Imperial University. Subsequently, he pursued further studies in Europe, including stints in England and Germany. During his European sojourn, he authored On Primitive Buddhist Thought (Genshi bukkyō shisōron), which was published in Japan in 1922. Within this publication, Kimura posited that both Primitive Buddhism and Mahayana Buddhism were underpinned by voluntarism. He underscored Mahayana Buddhism's continuity with Primitive Buddhism. Kimura extensively employed voluntarism to analyze the Twelvefold Dependent Origination in Primitive Buddhism. Notably, he associated the concept of “ignorance”(avijjā) within the Twelvefold Origination with “blind will”, a notion articulated by Schopenhauer.
 Central to Kimura's perspective was the belief that the essence of sentient beings lay in desire, constituting the driving force behind life's activities. He identified two desires within the Twelvefold Dependent Origination, “craving”(taṇhā) and “ignorance”(avijjā), understanding them as manifestations of will. According to his viewpoint, the life activities of sentient beings unfolded as expressions of desire or will.
 Nevertheless, Kimura contended that desire transcended its role as a mere producer of “defilements” (kilesa), extending into an absolute “actual reality”(dharmatā). He frequently associated the concept of “nibbana without residue”(anupdisesanibbana) or absolute “actual reality” with the will, sometimes identifying it as a material or metaphysical reality. His theoretical framework could be characterized as a form of Metaphysics of Will. Drawing from the apparent reality of sentient beings as driven by desires, Kimura aimed to elucidate not only the life activities of sentient beings amid suffering but also to expound upon the absolute world that transcends suffering.

The Soul and Buddha-Nature in Jesuit–Buddhist Debates in the Late Ming Fujian–Zhejiang Regions

The Jesuit missionary in Fujian, Giulio Aleni, ingeniously integrated Christian teaching concerning the soul into the traditional Chinese understanding of human nature. He adeptly reconciled the Christian notion of the soul, created by God, with the neo-Confucian belief in human nature bestowed by heaven. However, during the late Ming period, Chinese Buddhist thinkers held a contrasting perspective rooted in the Buddha-nature theory. According to this theory, Buddha-nature is intrinsic to every sentient being, devoid of a Creator. This fundamental discord in the understanding of human nature sparked intense debates between Jesuit missionaries and Buddhists in the Fujian–Zhejiang regions. These debates probed intricate themes, ranging from the ontological origin of nature to the associated soteriology surrounding human nature, as well as the hierarchical relationships between humans and other sentient beings.

An Irrealist Theory of Race

ABSTRACT In this article I draw upon an analogy between a debate in the critical philosophy of race over the metaphysics of race and a debate in Buddhist philosophy of mind over the metaphysics of selves. I argue that there is a defensible irrealist theory of race, corresponding to the performativist theory of self found in certain Buddhist thinkers.

The Annual Difference: How a Four-Century Debate between Confucian, Daoist, and Buddhist Thinkers on a Problem of Classical Exegesis Shaped a Predictive Mathematical Construct

In China, the precession of the equinoxes was conceptualized as an “annual difference” (suicha 歲差) between the tropical and sidereal year. The idea was introduced in the fourth century, it saw universal acceptance from the eighth century on, and it was in the four centuries in between that it was tried, debated, and spread whilst a Mediterranean-origin concept thereof arrived from India. Its four-century journey from fringe idea to universal truth is a well-studied point of interest in the history of astronomy. In this article, we will shift focus to the idea’s polymathic protagonists and epistemic foundations to explore how a scientific idea was born, debated, transmitted, and taught in Confucian commentary and, no less important, how politics, geography, regional schools, foreign transmission, and the Buddhist and Daoist religions shaped how thinkers engaged with it as individuals and as communities. Inspired by the work of Chen Kanli and Randall Collins, the goal is to show that there is nothing simple or inexorable about how even an empirically useful tool of predictive astronomical modeling is received in the relevant expert community, as it is but one element in a complex network of people and ideas aligning and opposing in ever-evolving strategies to assert relevance.

The Difference of Chinese Buddhist Thought During the Spread of Japan -Combination with Shinto Religious Though

The Difference of Chinese Buddhist Thought During the Spread of Japan -Combination with Shinto Religious Though

The Philosophical Proposition “A Piercing Glance Elevates the Mind” and the Buddhist Thought in Zong Bing's “Preface to the Painting of Landscape”

“A Piercing Glance Elevates the Mind” is a philosophical proposition offered by Zhou Yong (?–493) in his debate with Zhang Rong (444–497) over the similarities and differences between Daoism and Buddhism. The appearance of this previously unknown proposition shows that as early as the Liu-Song dynasty (420–479) writers already went beyond the limitations of the native Chinese conception of “image” (xiang) and consciously applied Buddhist concepts to come to new understandings of the objects, methods, and effects of the visual sense and to probe their transcendental religious significance. Utilizing this proposition as a framework of analysis, this article rereads Zong Bing's (375–443) “Preface to the Painting of Landscape” in terms of the visual sense, to show how the terms, concepts, propositions, and discourse of the text's five sections form a logically coherent, fully systematic Buddhist exposition on painting. Support for the validity of Buddhist interpretations of all its terms and concepts is provided by intertextual readings of Zong Bing's “Elucidating Buddhism” and the poetry and prose by the Buddhist monks of Mt. Lu. We also demonstrate how Zong's consistently Buddhist theory of painting served as a firm foundation over which the Tang poet Wang Changling (698–757) built his Buddhist theory of the world of physical objects (wujing shuo).

복합위기 시기, 불교의 사유에 근거한 생태적 돌봄 전망하기

복합위기 시기, 불교의 사유에 근거한 생태적 돌봄 전망하기

한국철학사에서 자기정체성과 타자성의 문제

The other is a stranger to the a subject. The myth of Dangun mythologically in Korea expresses the process in which the other changes the subject through the process of metamorphosis. Just as an individual's identity is formed in social relationships, the identity of philosophy is also formed through relationships with others. There are typically three ways in a philosophical tradition that makes responses when it interacts with other traditions: conversion(轉向), confrontation(對決), and consilience(統攝). Firstly, in conversion, one admits that the other is superior and gives up one’s own self-identity all together. There are two types in the conversion.: collective conversion and individual conversion. As a case of collective conversion, there is a case in which the royal family of Silla collectively turned to Buddhism, and as an example of an individual conversion, there is the case of Choe Byeong- heon who converted from a Neo-confucian scholar to a Protestant Christian. Secondly, in confrontation, one believes that one’s system of beliefs is correct and other’s is incorrect so a conflict is inevitable. Wijeongcheoksa(衛正斥邪) theory belongs to the case of confrontation. The root of Wijeongcheoksa theory lies in the Horak(湖洛) debate. Thirdly, the case of consilience is found in Wonhyo(元曉), a Buddhist thinker of Silla. Hwajaeng(和諍=harmonization of disputes) was Wonhyo's method of integrating the theories of other lineage within Buddhism, but it was also applied to theories outside of Buddhism. Western philosophy is the other that Koreans confronted for the last time in the history of Korean philosophy. After the introduction of Western philosophy, Korean philosophy suffered a serious crisis of identity confusion. After the Japanese colonial period, the traditional subject-other or host-guest relationship is reversed. This situation is a very uncomfortable truth for Eastern or Korean philosophers to accept. Now, what is the direction Korean philosophy should go in the future, and where is the identity to be newly formed? In the global world, the relationship between the subject and the other is not fixed and is constantly evolving. In the global knowledge field, the subject and the other will exchange information more actively than ever before, forming a new amalgam.

An intercultural dialogue: the Buddha, Schopenhauer and Beckett. Angela Moorjani in Colloquy with Asijit Datta

ABSTRACT This colloquy between two Beckett scholars, one Western, one Eastern, scrutinises the twenty-first-century reassessment of Buddhist resonances in Beckett’s writing and the consequent interconnections between Eastern and Western thought. The introduction describes the recent archival evidence linking Beckett’s knowledge of the Buddha’s philosophy to his early reading of Arthur Schopenhauer and establishing that, beyond affinity, Beckett knowingly secreted Buddhist allusions into his texts. The subsequent discussion probes Beckett’s writing practice in the light of: the Buddha’s teachings on suffering and guilt, on the renouncing of desire and self and on an ultimate non-nihilist plenum void, entailing the critique of language, logic and dichotomising thought; the correspondences between Beckett’s posthumous and pre-birth voices and the spectrality of many of his ‘creatures’ and the Buddhist doctrine, of which Beckett was aware, of an immanent, timeless unborn; the two philosophical vantage points of Beckett’s ‘ideal real’, combining the empirical and the metaphysical; the parodic appearance of pseudo-divine figures in his texts in contrast to his ‘elsewhere’ parallel to an unknowable nirvanic beyond; the apocalyptic settings of some of his plays; and his concepts of homelessness and ‘unspeakable home’. Beckett’s negative aesthetics receives special attention in its convergence with Buddhist thinking.

“The Diamond Needle”: The Buddhist Roots of a Brāhmaṇic Text

The similarity between the contents of the Vajrasūcika-upaniṣad and the Āpta-vajrasūcī-upaniṣad (both ascribed to Śaṃkara, 9th century) and that of the Vajrasūcī (ascribed to the Buddhist thinker Aśvaghoṣa, 2nd century) demonstrates that the dividing line between the Buddhist and Brāhmaṇic written cultures were not entirely impermeable. These texts describe what makes one a true brāhmaṇa. Aśvaghoṣas authorship of the Vajrasūcī is proved by three facts: (1) tradition unambiguously ascribing its authorship to him, (2) the worship formula in the maṅgala-śloka is addressed to Bodhisattva Majuśrī and (3) some stylistic features bring this treatise together with the style of early Mahāyāna texts (Madhyamaka school). At the same time, the treatise is composed within pure Brāhmaṇic conceptual field, it contains neither mentions nor allusions to Buddhist notions, but its main thesis is that the concept of brahminhood is internally contradictory. Besides, different authoritative texts give conflicting expositions of qualities that make one a brāhmaṇa. Nevertheless, this text was accepted by Brāhmaṇic school of Advaita Vedānta and ascribed to Śaṃkara, and its main thesis was reformulated as the idea that it is only knowledge of Ātman that makes one a true brāhmaṇa.

Subtle, hidden, and far-off: The intertextuality of the Yogasūtras

Abstract Modern scholarship discusses ‘Buddhist influences’ on the Patañjali’s Yogasūtras (YS). Indeed, Patañjali borrowed key Buddhist concepts, particularly from Yogācāra. But this borrowing does not evince that the YS is just ‘crypto-Buddhism’. In fact, during the first millennium CE, the YS was equally influential on Buddhist thinkers. I make this argument by focusing on YS 3.25, which discusses the yogic ability to see subtle (sūkṣma), hidden (vyavahita), and far-off (viprakṛṣṭa) objects. Tracing textual occurrences of these three words, I use this stable mimetic trope to demonstrate the influence of YS on Buddhist, Nyāya, and Vaiśeṣika writings. This influence is all the more interesting given that Buddhists explicitly disagree with many of the theoretical suppositions latent in YS 3.25. I demonstrate that despite this theoretical disagreement, Buddhists make ample use of YS 3.25. This paper thus complicates any clear direction of influence between Buddhist and Hindu traditions, and further questions the cogency of strict delineations between different philosophical schools. I also offer the method used in this paper as a novel approach to textual exegesis. By focusing on stable textual memes and tracing their occurrences across sources, we gain a powerful method to more deeply plumb India's rich intertextual intellectual history.

‘Seeing forms and hearing sounds’ in Japanese garden design

The landscape features of the karetaki or dry waterfall, and karesansui or dry garden style have been well codified in Japanese garden design since at least the appearance of the 11th century treatise Sakuteiki (Records of garden making) by Tachibana Toshitsuna (1028–1094). Numerous contemporary scholars have suggested how encounters with these features literally evoke the sound of water even though they exist in the absence of water and are constructed primarily from carefully selected stones and gravel. In this article, I develop an interpretive semantics of these features by drawing on the influence of Buddhist philosophy on Japanese garden design. This semantic framework emerges from a non-canonic utilization of the logic of the catuṣkoṭi (Jp. shiku) or tetralemma — a series of four propositions that is most famously associated to the Mahāyāna Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna (c. 150–c. 250 CE). I introduce examples in Zen discourses on sound and then use the catuṣkoṭi as a novel reasoning tool to investigate the ontology of sound as it pertains to the relationship between sound-images and landscape forms in the karetaki and karesansui.

The Buddhist Pramāṇa-Epistemology, Logic, and Language: with Reference to Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti

Abstract As the title of the present article shows, it highlights the three philosophically integrated areas – (1) pramāṇa-epistemology (theory of comprehensive knowledge involving both perception and inference), (2) logic (although a part of pramāṇa-epistemology, it has two modes, namely, inductive reasoning and deductive reasoning), and (3) language (or semantics, i.e. the double negation theory of meaning, which falls under inference). These are interconnected as well as overlapping within the Buddhist mainstream tradition of the process philosophy as opposed to the substantialist philosophy. The same is the case with the three celebrated Buddhist thinkers – Vasubandhu, Dignāga (also spelt as Diññāṇa), and Dharmakīrti – who develop their radical and critical views focusing on these areas in historical-cum-philosophical order. It is worth noting that within the same mainstream Buddhist tradition, each one of the three thinkers picks up the problematic issues from their predecessors – from the Buddha to their immediate predecessors respectively – for their solutions against the backdrop of the two conflicting mainstream traditions – Buddhist and non-Buddhist. The central focus of these thinkers is first to identify the crucial issues, doctrinal principles, terminology, and methodology in their own ways and conceptual frameworks, which generate not only the mutual conflicts in the course of dialogues but also strengthen their positions by means of their new radical ideas, innovations, terminologies, methodologies, and doctrinal principles. As a result, the three selected areas and their crucial issues are explained, elaborated, and interpretated for better understanding. All of which are rooted in the Buddha’s path of wisdom, ethics, and liberation from the human predicament (duḥkha-nivṛtti). In this grand project of the deepest concerns, the Buddha utilized multiple strategies like understanding and controlling the problematic nature of the mind (Pāli citta, manasa) and its concomitance (Pāli cetasika, dhammā) by means of the concentrative meditation (Pāli jhāna, Sanskrit (hereafter Skt., dhyāna), cultivation of knowledge (Pāli vijjā, Skt. vidyā) and conduct/moral purity (Pāli caraṇa, Skt. ācaraṇa), destruction of afflictions/defilements (Pāli kilesa, Skt. kleśa), critical and logical thinking with valid arguments, and so on. His disciples also treat him as the possessor of valid method, arguments, meaning, practice, and purpose (Skt. pramāṇabhūta, the term used by Dignāga). He believed in the common humanity as the community of sufferers and the autonomy of every human being (Pāli attakāra), but strongly rejected the hierarchy of humanity on the basis of caste, birth, and dogmatic religious identity. For these reasons, following the Buddha and his celebrated followers like Vasubandhu, Dignāga, and Dharmakīrti, my task in this article is how to clearly and elaborately discuss the above identified issues and theories, first to understand them for myself and then logically prove the whole process of knowledge and the designed purpose through communication to those who have the intention to hear and understand the framework of common language for their benefits. I wish the readers like students and young teachers benefit from my research work. Further, since my learning of the Tibetan language is zero, but comfortable in Sanskrit and Pāli, I have been heavily dependent on three great modern thinkers who have widely written independently and also translated the Buddhist Tibetan texts, which were translated from the original Sanskrit texts now lost, into English in the areas of Buddhist epistemology, logic, and semantics. These modern scholars are Masaaki Hattori, Shoryo Katsura, and Richard Hayes. Besides them, I have also little benefitted from some other scholars who have worked in the same areas.

ADDING FLESH TO BONES: KIYOZAWA MANSHI'S SEISHINSHUGI IN MODERN JAPANESE BUDDHIST THOUGHT. . Edited by Mark L.Blum and MichaelConway. Pure Land Buddhist Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022. Pp. xiv + 476. Hardback, $72.00.

Religious Studies ReviewVolume 49, Issue 1 p. 97-97 Short Reviews of Recent Publications: East Asia ADDING FLESH TO BONES: KIYOZAWA MANSHI'S SEISHINSHUGI IN MODERN JAPANESE BUDDHIST THOUGHT. . Edited by Mark L. Blum and Michael Conway. Pure Land Buddhist Studies. Honolulu: University of Hawai‘i Press, 2022. Pp. xiv + 476. Hardback, $72.00. First published: 24 April 2023 https://doi.org/10.1111/rsr.16396Read the full textAboutPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL No abstract is available for this article. Volume49, Issue1Special Issue: Unique Approaches to Christianity in Africa and BeyondMarch 2023Pages 97-97 RelatedInformation

Impact of Buddhist thoughts on Cultural Nationalism of India

The colonized nations saw a rise in nationalistic feelings during the height of colonialism in the middle of the 19th century, putting special stress on the concept of shared ancestry, culture, and language. It is important to note that this idea has strong roots in India, where there is a plethora of ancient literature that emphasizes on cultural nationalism, whether it is Vedic, Jain, or Buddhist. In most regions of the continent, Buddhism has had a major geographic and historical presence often for very long times. Additionally, it has had a significant impact on the creation of particular states as well as less formal interpretations and shaping of social and political processes, and this influence has persisted to the present day. It promoted the notion of tolerance and diversity and integrity. Asoka, Kanishka, and Harshavardhan became passionate nationalists who sought to reunite India under a unified state. Both the Mughals and the British did this afterward. Thus, it seems likely that Buddhism contributed to national cohesion. Buddhism has a significant impact on Indian society and culture in every way. The restrictions placed on the populace by the Latter Vedic religion society and literature was lifted. It advocated for social harmony and spoke out against the caste system. Buddhism has had an impact on a variety of art genres, including painting, sculpture, literature, and architecture. Buddhism promoted unrestricted trade between India and other nations. Buddhist monks began disseminating the Buddha's teachings to other countries in the third century B.C. and pilgrims and students from other Buddhist countries began travelling to India to further their education. When foreigners visited India, the rich culture of Buddhism engulfed them; they abandoned their own identities and creeds in favour of Buddhist names and the faith. These outsiders included the mythical Kushana ruler Kanishka and Greek emperors. Buddhism thus had a significant influence on the synthesis that led to the development of contemporary Indian civilization. This paper highlights Buddhism's history, including its rise and fall, as well as how Buddhist teachings have influenced cultural nationalism of India.

Recent Insights into a Manuscript of Ornate Poetry from Toyoq: A new Fragment of Mātṛceṭa’s <i>Varṇārhavarṇa</i>

The article continues a series of publications of the Sanskrit manuscript fragments written in the Proto-Śāradā script, kept in the Serindia Collection of the Institute of Oriental Manuscripts of the Russian Academy of Sciences. The authors introduce into scientific circulation a fragment of the Varṇārhavarṇa, the work of the famous Buddhist thinker and poet Mātṛceṭa. The article provides the paleographic analysis of the manuscript fragment, as well as brief information about the author, his works, the Varṇārhavarṇa structure. The article provides transliteration and translation of the fragment.

Seeing as Worldmaking: Ten Views of a Lingbi Rock and Yogācārin Epistemology in Late Ming China

This paper examines Wu Bin’s (c. 1543–c. 1626) Ten Views of a Lingbi Rock (1610) from the perspective of Buddhist epistemological notions in seventeenth-century China. In studying a series of gazes focusing on a single object—a stone with a very complex surface—my discussion posits an act of excessive seeing as a process of making worlds. I take a theoretical cue from contemporaneous intellectual discourses, especially those that flourished with the revival of Yogācāra Buddhism in late Ming China. This paper will show how an art object comes into being in perceivable worlds interconnected by the individual’s sensory experiences. My study aims to inquire into the role of illusion as sensory experiences, phenomenological processes, and even notions of soteriological efficacy beyond formal artistic devices. To that end, this paper is the first attempt to situate Ten Views of a Lingbi Rock alongside Buddhist thoughts and artmaking.

Logic and language in Indian religions

This article concentrates on certain beliefs that many Indian thinkers implicitly accepted and that show up in an analysis of reasoned arguments they presented. These beliefs concerned the relationship between language and reality. For Brahmanical thinkers, who owed their privileged position in society in great part to their mastery of texts — the Veda — that were deemed to be directly connected to reality, this relationship between language and reality was a matter of course. For reasons of their own, Buddhist thinkers had come to think that the world of our experience is largely determined by language. This shared belief, which most often though not always remained implicit, found its way into certain arguments. These arguments remain unintelligible without an awareness of the underlying belief.

Becoming and Negation, Protagoras and Nāgārjuna

ABSTRACT This essay explores a curious point of intersection in the historical pairing of becoming and negation, between two thinkers and two traditions: the Sophist Protagoras of fifth-century BCE Greece and the second-century CE South Asian Buddhist thinker Nāgārjuna. I offer a speculative account of how becoming and negation are linked in Protagoras—speculative because only so much can be deduced from the extant fragments and testimony. I compare that account to the more coherent picture offered by Nāgārjuna—more coherent because a complete account of the logic that links becoming and negation is carefully preserved in the works attributed to Nāgārjuna. While no specific conclusions regarding the bridge that linked India and Greece may be reached, the similarities between these thinkers and the greater coherence of the Buddhist tradition nevertheless offer hypothetical possibilities for reconstructing the larger architecture of the world of sophistic thought that is now lost to us.