Overview and Comments on "Series on Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II" - Buddha was not Mythologized! What is Gen Nakamura's Criticism of the Historical View of Buddha?
The book introduced here is "Series Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II," published by Shunju-sha in 2013.
Let's take a quick look at the book.
Focuses on the Buddha and his world in the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures. In addition to the Buddha and the Pure Land as described in the three Pure Land sutras, the Vimala Sutra, and others, the book also includes a wide-ranging discussion of the rebirth of women and other topics.
This volume focuses on the three Pure Land sutras, the Vimalakaya Sutra, the 〓Buddhakaya Sutra, and the Gyoka Sutra, and specifically discusses their formation, mutual influence, and development, focusing on the various Pure Lands of the Buddha as expounded in the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures.
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This work, "Series on Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and the Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II" is the previous work in the series.Mahayana Buddhism Series, Vol. 4: Wisdom/World/Words Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures IThis is a collection of discussions of the Mahayana Buddhist scriptures following the
This work was especially interesting to me as a Jodo Shinshu monk because it is about the Pure Land scriptures.
The second chapter, "The Abyss of Mahayana Buddhism" by Mr. Tomomichi Nitta, was particularly shocking. This is a paper that should be read by all students of Buddhism.
The first thing that struck me was the following question posed at the beginning of this paper.
Gen Nakamura is probably one of the most prominent scholars in postwar Japanese Buddhist studies. There is no doubt that he has made great achievements and contributed greatly to the development of Indology and Buddhist studies. However, it cannot be denied that because of his greatness, his claims have not been adequately criticized or verified. One of his claims that requires such criticism is his theory of the deification of human Gautama, which I would like to discuss here.
Shunju-sha, Series Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II, p. 83
Speaking of Dr. Gen Nakamura, he has been on our blog for some time now.Buddha's Words.andAncient India.And furthermore, Dr. Gen Nakamura'sbiographyand many "Nakamura Gen Selected Works" have also been introduced.
The writings of Gen Nakamura are truly an inescapable part of the study of Buddhism. I myself have been inspired by Gen Nakamura's writings and have continued my study of Buddhism.
However, according to Tomomichi Nitta, despite the greatness of Gen Nakamura, there may be limits to his view of "exploring the human Buddha and the historical Buddha.
Dr. Gen Nakamura is just that.Gautama Buddha.I explored the "unmythologized Buddha" or "historical human Buddha" in a book called
However, Nitta carefully explains in this paper what would happen if this concept of an "unmythologized Buddha" itself is not valid.
Koichi Sotozono, for example, states that in attempting to demythologize Gautama, "It is only possible, from a relative standpoint, to select articles that are comparatively historically true and to make them as close to a human figure as possible. Masahiro Shimoda, through the research of Roger Pol Droit and Philippe Almond, also argues that the understanding of Gautama as "the human Buddha as a noble philosopher and moralist" created in 19th century European Buddhist studies was not actually derived from historical studies based on literature, but rather was based on the European ideal of the human image of the time. Rather, it was based on the ideal image of man that Europeans at the time held for Gautama. Shimoda then criticizes "Oldenburg and Lis Davis for assuming a priori the existence of the historical Buddha, and not for establishing his existence on the basis of extant documents.
He goes on to astutely point out the dangers of "reconstructing the historical Buddha from extant literature." According to him, a reader who attempts to extract the historical Buddha from a text will discard all of it, even if the text contains much richer content (beyond historical facts) or even if it teaches difficult and complex content about the Buddha. In other words, the reader is not reading the text, but modifying it in a way that is comprehensible to him or her from the perspective of the historical Buddha. Moreover, since it is assumed from the outset that the Buddha is not a Buddha, that he does not fit the frame of a historical figure, the Buddha as he appears in the text is not understood as he is. In other words, the search for the historical Buddha is different from the question "What is the Buddha?" under which the Buddha's significance is never revealed, but rather sorted out and truncated.
Moreover, it should be emphasized here that any attempt to demythologize Gautama will always end up being arbitrary, no matter how ingenious one might be in establishing criteria for the selection of historical facts. In other words, as Hirakawa Akira wrote, "The biography of a purely 'human Buddha' cannot be reproduced in the present. The demythologization of Gautama is, in the end, an impossible endeavor, as is clearly expressed in the words of Akira Hirakawa: "All of Buddha's works are colored in a mythical way.
Shunju-sha, Series Mahayana Buddhism, Vol. 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II, p. 85-86
The widely accepted hypothesis that "human Gautama was deified as time passed" not only lacks a literary basis, but also contains a crucial logical contradiction. Moreover, it is impossible to find a coherent understanding of the true nature of the Buddha on the basis of this hypothesis.
Shunju-sha, Series Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II, p. 89
We have previously discussed the problems with Buddhist studies on this blog.A History of Buddhism in New Asia 02 India II: The Formation and Development of Buddhism.and Gregory Schopen's writings.Monastic Life in India During the Rise of Mahayana Buddhism.and others, and the above quote is also taken from just such a context.
But Mr. Nitta takes it a step further,From the very beginning, people believed in the Buddha as a superhuman and mythical being."will be discussed.
The process cannot be presented in any more detail here because it would be too long, but we can conclude as follows.
In the early Buddhist scriptures, the historical Buddha was already understood as a transcendent and absolute being who had destroyed his individuality and become one with the Dharma, and various mythological and miraculous descriptions of him are thought to have been written to describe him. On the contrary, there are almost no records of historical facts about him in the early Buddhist scriptures. In Cologne's words, Gautama "took the form of a man, but was not a man at all.
Shunju-sha, Series Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II, p. 92
In other words,The Buddha who preached in primitive Buddhism was the human Buddha, and what he preached there was the true Buddhism.It became clear here that the criticism that "the world is not a good place to live" is no longer valid in the first place. (* Of course, this does not mean that Gen Nakamura and many other scholars are making such direct criticisms. (Of course, this is not a direct criticism of Dr. Nakamura or many other scholars.)
As a Japanese Buddhist monk, this is a very welcome suggestion. It is very encouraging for me to see such a clear counterargument in the midst of criticisms that still fly in the face of the supremacy of primitive Buddhism.
Finally, I will quote the conclusion of this paper in full, although it is a bit long. I will read it carefully because it is a very important point.
V. Conclusion
After all, we seem to have come to a conclusion that is perhaps quite obvious to Buddhists who have not been influenced by modern thinking. In other words, if we accept what is taught in the early Buddhist scriptures as they are, the historical Buddha Gautama, like other "mythical" Buddhas, was understood from the beginning of Buddhism as an absolute being who transcended the three worlds and was one with the Dharma. And as we have already seen in the words of Coomaraswamy, Gautama's individuality has been completely overshadowed by the Dharma, with which he has united himself. Therefore, not only is it unknown to us today, but it must have been meaningless and inconceivable for Buddhists during Gautama's lifetime to talk about his individuality.
It is true that even the literature that is collectively referred to as "early Buddhist scriptures" was not compiled overnight, but rather underwent a long process of development before being handed down to the present day. Comparing the relatively old and the newer parts of the literature, it is generally accepted that the former uses simple and plain expressions, while the latter contains more elaborate and detailed descriptions and more mythological tales. The latter is more elaborate and detailed, and tells more mythological tales. This has continued to lend a certain plausibility to the "deification of human Gautama" hypothesis.
In addition, after the Buddha's death, Buddhist orders sometimes disagreed over the understanding of certain doctrines or the establishment of precepts, which sometimes led to a division of the various factions. Among the issues that were often debated among the divided factions was how to understand the appearance of Gautama the Buddha (the debate was over whether the appearance of the Buddha was a "Buddha's appearance" or a "Buddha's appearance").supermundanedue to the existence ofin this world) Such discussions were mainly between the Theravada and popular factions. ) Such discussions took place mainly between the Theravada and the popular schools, and indeed, the latter emphasized the transcendental aspect of Gautama more than the former, leading some past scholars who tried to find the origin of Mahayana Buddhism in the latter to argue that "the Theravada basically understood Gautama as a human being, while the popular school understood him as a divinity and the Mahayana as a form of further development. The Theravada school basically understood Gautama as a human being, but the popular school deified him, and the Mahayana Buddhas were created as a further development of this understanding.
However, when we actually look into the Buddhist scriptures, we find that even in what is considered to be the earliest texts, there is no mention of "human Gautama" as an individual, and even in the Theravada literature, which is generally considered to have held a conservative view, there is a consistent depiction of Gautama as mythical and transcendental, as has been pointed out by some of the researchers mentioned above. As has been pointed out by some of the scholars already mentioned, the depictions of Gautama are consistently mythological and transcendental. Therefore, even though there is a historical nature to the formation of Buddhist scriptures, and even though new terminologies and modes of expression were developed within them as time passed, and even though there are some differences of opinion among traditional Buddhists regarding the appearance of the Buddha, the basic understanding of the Buddha's true nature remains the same from the beginning of Buddhism. The basic understanding of the nature of the Buddha seems to have remained consistent throughout the various developments that have taken place since the beginning of Buddhism.
To return to the title of this chapter, "The Origin of the Mahayana Buddhas," it can be said that the various Buddhas that appear in Buddhism, while having roles and characteristics specific to the context in which they are taught, have been understood from the beginning of Buddhism to the Mahayana The Buddha, on the other hand, has been understood from the beginning of Buddhism to Mahayana Buddhism as an entity that is no longer anything but an integral part of the Law. At the very least, there is no fundamental change in the understanding of the Buddha from early Buddhism to Mahayana Buddhism, such as the "transformation of relative beings into the Absolute," as in the hypothesis of the "deification of the human gautama.
Shunju-sha, Series Mahayana Buddhism, Vol. 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II, p. 98-100
After all, we seem to have come to a conclusion that is perhaps quite obvious to Buddhists who have not been influenced by modern thinking."
Even for Buddhists during Gautama's reign, it must have been meaningless and inconceivable to talk about his personal nature."
This is truly an eye-opener. We are so accustomed to modern thinking that we unconsciously try to see Buddhism in "our way of seeing things.
Buddhists at the time did not even consider the question of whether the Buddha was a historical or mythical being.
I think this is a very important point. I am a priest of Jodo Shinshu, and its founder, Shinran Shonin, must have viewed Buddhism from "the way things were then. He must have lived in a different world from the way we modern people see things. This reading made me think about that once again.
At the very least, the fundamental change in understanding of the Buddha, the "transformation of a relative being into the Absolute," as in the hypothesis of the "deification of the human Gautama," is not found in the process from early Buddhism to Mahayana Buddhism."
The last words of the summary, "I am a very strong person," have remained in my mind.
The "Series on Mahayana Buddhism" reflects the latest research as of the early 2010s. It was a first-hand experience of how the once mainstream understanding of Buddhism is no longer valid.
Of course, this does not mean that Dr. Nakamura's research was completely wrong and in vain. It is precisely because of Gen Nakamura's extensive research that new research results have emerged. I have read various works of Dr. Nakamura before reading this paper. It is precisely because I have read Nakamura's works in this way that the impact of Nitta's paper was so great. This is the true joy of learning. The more you learn, the more new worlds you see. Nothing is more stimulating and interesting.
The "Series on Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and the Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II," which contains the shocking treatise by Tomomichi Nitta, is a tremendous book that I recommend to all students of Buddhism. It is by far the most impressive work in this series. I highly recommend that you pick up a copy.
The above is a translation of "Tomomichi Nitta's "The Abyss of the Buddha in the Mahayana" - There was no mythologizing of the Buddha! What is Gen Nakamura's Criticism of the Historical View of Buddha? From "Series on Mahayana Buddhism, Volume 5: Buddha and Pure Land - Mahayana Buddhist Scriptures II".
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