Setting Out on the Great Way; Essays on Early Mahāyāna Buddhism; Paul Harrison

Edited by

Paul Harrison [+–]

Stanford University

Paul Harrison is the George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University.

Setting Out on the Great Way brings together different perspectives on the origins and early history of Mahāyāna Buddhism and delves into selected aspects of its formative period. As the variety of the religion which conquered East Asia and also provided the matrix for the later development of Buddhist Tantra or Vajrayāna, Mahāyāna is regarded as one of the most significant forms of Buddhism, and its beginnings have long been the focus of intense scholarly attention and debate.

The essays in this volume address the latest findings in the field, including contributions by younger researchers vigorously critiquing the reappraisal of the Mahāyāna carried out by scholars in the last decades of the 20th century and the different understanding of the movement which they produced. As the study of Buddhism as a whole reorients itself to embrace new methods and paradigms, while at the same time coming to terms with exciting new manuscript discoveries, our picture of the Mahāyāna continues to change. This volume presents the latest developments in this ongoing re-evaluation of one of Buddhism’s most important historical expressions.

Chapter 1

Sara Boin-Webb: Translator of Buddhist Texts [+–] 1-5

Russell Webb FREE

Independent Scholar

Russell Webb has been active since the 1960s as a member and office-holder of the British Mahābodhi Society and the London Buddhist Association. He has published papers on various aspects of Buddhism, particularly on the study of Buddhism in the West, and was founding editor of the Buddhist Studies Review, which in 1998 became the official organ of the United Kingdom Association of Buddhist Studies.

If and when the definitive history of Buddhism in the United Kingdom is written, space should be allocated to an unassuming yet highly competent translator of key Buddhist texts. The author’s late wife Sara Boin- Webb – to use her professional surname – possessed the necessary background training and ability to go beyond the world of academia and reach those whose understanding of Buddhism would be enriched by the revelation of practical and philosophical writings hitherto inaccessible to all but the cognoscenti.

Chapter 2

Early Mahāyāna: Laying out the Field [+–] 7-31

Paul Harrison £17.50

Stanford University

Paul Harrison is the George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University. Educated in his native New Zealand and in Australia, he specializes in Buddhist literature and history, especially that of the Mahāyāna, and in the study of Buddhist manuscripts in Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan. He is the author of The Samādhi of Direct Encounter with the Buddhas of the Present, and of numerous journal articles on Buddhist sacred texts and their interpretation. He is also one of the editors of the series “Buddhist Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection.” Paul’s current projects include editions and translations of a number of Mahāyāna and Mainstream Buddhist sūtras and śāstras, including the Vajracchedikā (Diamond Sutra) and the Vimalakīrtinirdeśa, as well as a general study of issues of authority, textual transmission and innovation in Mahayana Buddhism.

This chapter begins with some general observations about the study of early Mahāyāna Buddhism and of its origins. It goes on to consider briefly a number of issues which continue to pose challenges to our understanding. These include the controversial role of araṇyavāsins or ‘forest-dwellers’; the role of the laity; the periodization of Mahāyāna sūtra-literature (and of this form of Buddhism as a whole); the relationship between Mahāyāna engagement and nikāya affiliation; and the problem of the archaeological and art-historical record. True to the ambiguity of its title, the chapter concludes by asking whether early Mahāyāna and Mahāyāna origins remain worthwhile objects of study in the 21st century, or whether they should be prepared for burial.

Chapter 3

How the Unborn was Born: The Riddle of Mahāyāna Origins [+–] 33-71

Peter Skilling £17.50

Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok

Peter Skilling retired from the French School of Asian Studies (EFEO) in 2017. He lectures at the section of South Asian Languages, Faculty of Arts, Chulalongkorn University, Bangkok. He recently published Imagination and Narrative: Lexical and Cultural Translation in Buddhist Asia (co-edited with Justin McDaniel, Silkworm Books, Chiang Mai, 2017). His interests include the archaeology of Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia and the evolution of Mahāyāna literature.

As it developed in South Asia, ‘the Mahāyāna’ is a complex package made up of systems of thought, practice and training. In terms of practice and orientation, it encourages the individual to aim for Buddhahood by setting out on the bodhisatva path. Its signature product was a copious and exuberant literature, an outpouring of sūtras that is unparalleled in Indian or world literature. The production of sūtras began in the second to first centuries BCE, and soon enough was supplemented by cognate śāstras and treatises. In this chapter, the author ruminates on two distinctive and recurrent themes of Mahāyāna literature and ideology as possible clues to the riddle, ‘How was the unborn born?’

Chapter 4

The Forest Hypothesis [+–] 73-93

David Drewes £17.50

University of Manitoba

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David Drewes is Associate Professor in the Department of Religion at the University of Manitoba, Canada. His publications focus mainly on early Mahāyāna and early Buddhism.

This chapter examines the ‘Forest Hypothesis’ of early Mahāyāna, which has been influential in recent decades. It argues that the theory has little evidentiary support and is primarily based on the old idea that Buddhism is essentially focused on the pursuit of religious experience or ‘awakening’.

Chapter 5

Recruitment and Retention in Early Bodhisattva Sodalities [+–] 95-118

Daniel Boucher £17.50

Cornell University

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Daniel Boucher is Associate Professor of Sino-Indian Buddhism in the Department of Asian Studies at Cornell University in Ithaca, NY. His research focuses on the social history of the early Mahāyāna as well as problems related to the early translation of these texts into Chinese. His last book was Bodhisattvas of the Forest and the Formation of the Mahāyāna: A Study and Translation of the Rāṣṭrapālaparipṛcchā-sūtra (Honolulu, 2008).

This chapter attempts to reorient the question of the origins of the Mahāyāna away from single-hypothesis explanations by turning toward a more nuanced appreciation of the way some authors of its earliest literature actively engaged in efforts to recruit new members to the bodhisattva fold and retain them once they were in. Drawing from the sociology of New Religious Movements, I show that two voices among the earliest texts assumed very different postures with regard to bodhisattva relations with their Mainstream brethren.

Chapter 6

Abhidharma in Early Mahāyāna [+–] 119-140

Johannes Bronkhorst £17.50

University of Lausanne (retired)

Johannes Bronkhorst is retired professor of Sanskrit, University of Lausanne, Switzerland. He is interested in the history of Indian thought, broadly conceived. Some of his recent books are: Greater Magadha (Leiden, 2007), Buddhist Teaching in India (Boston, 2009), Language and Reality (Leiden, 2011), Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism (Leiden, 2011), Karma (Honolulu, 2011), Absorption (Paris, 2012), and How the Brahmins Won (Leiden, 2016).

This chapter argues that Abhidharma as it was developed in Greater Gandhāra, i.e. the northwestern parts of the Indian subcontinent, during the final centuries preceding the Common Era exerted a determining influence on Mahāyāna right from its beginnings. What is more, there are reasons to think that Mahāyāna as it finds expression in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā and other texts underwent the influence of Abhidharma in that same region.

Chapter 7

The Concept of ‘Remodelling the World’ [+–] 141-176

Shizuka Sasaki £17.50

Hanazono University, Japan

Shizuka Sasaki is Professor of Indian Buddhism at Hanazono University, Kyoto, Japan. His research interests include Indian Buddhist monasticism (especially the Vinaya), the history of Mahāyāna Buddhism, Buddhist philosophy, and the relationship between Buddhism and science.

A case study of one of the conceptual building-blocks of Mahāyāna Buddhism, this chapter addresses the idea commonly found in Mahāyāna sūtras that an important aspect of the bodhisattva path is the construction of an ideal world or, in effect, a remodelling of this one (usually referred to as buddha-kṣetra-pariśuddhi, or ‘purification of the domain of an awakened one’). This idea is premised on certain developments in the theory of karma which have major cosmological ramifications. The author traces these developments in various Abhidharma texts, particularly those of the Sarvāstivādin school, compiled during the period in which the first Mahāyāna sūtras were also being written.

Chapter 8

Altered States and the Origins of the Mahāyāna [+–] 177-205

Douglas Osto £17.50

Massey University

Douglas Osto is a Senior Lecturer in the Asian Studies and Philosophy programmes at Massey University, Palmerston North, New Zealand. He is the author of Altered States: Buddhism and Psychedelic Spirituality in America (New York: Columbia University Press, 2016) and Power, Wealth and Women in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Gaṇḍavyuha-sūtra (London: Routledge, 2008).

This chapter argues that literary accounts of visions in some Mahāyāna sources (often referred to as samādhis) possess characteristics that are strikingly similar to reports of actually visionary experiences that individuals have undergone while their psychologies and physiologies were profoundly altered in some way. Moreover, some of the methods used to induce actual visions also parallel methods recommended or described in some Mahāyāna sūtras. These parallels are strong enough to suggest that visionary altered states of consciousness formed an experiential basis for the emergence of new Mahāyāna sūtras, which contributed to the imaginative restructuring of Buddhist cosmology found within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism.

Chapter 9

Early Mahāyāna in Gandhāra: New Evidence from the Bajaur Mahāyāna Sūtra [+–] 207-242

Ingo Strauch £17.50

University of Lausanne

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Ingo Strauch is Professor of Sanskrit and Buddhist Studies at the University of Lausanne. His research focusses on Buddhist literature from Gandhāra and Indian epigraphy and palaeography.

The chapter investigates some aspects of the so-called ‘Bajaur Mahāyāna sūtra’. This text is part of the growing corpus of Mahāyāna literature from ancient Gandhāra. According to its palaeographical and linguistic features the manuscript can be dated to the first or second century CE and therefore represents one of the oldest preserved remains of early Mahāyāna literature. Although the edition and translation of this text are still ongoing, the chapter highlights some aspects of this hitherto unknown text that can help to establish its doctrinal position in comparison with other witnesses of early Mahāyāna, in particular those of the Prajñāpāramitā literature.

Chapter 10

Looking for Mahāyāna Bodhisattvas: A Reflection on Visual Evidence in Early Indian Buddhism [+–] 243-273

Juhyung Rhi £17.50

Seoul National University

Juhyung Rhi is Professor of Art History in the Department of Archaeology and Art History at Seoul National University, Seoul, Korea. He has written extensively on early Indian Buddhist art, especially that of Gandhāra.

Identifying images of specific bodhisattvas whose names appear in Mahāyāna scriptures is one possible way to track evidence for the early Mahāyāna, and the author turned to this method on several previous occasions in discussing the presence of Mahāyāna in Gandhāran Buddhism. This chapter extends the search for Mahāyāna bodhisattvas to the rest of India in the period prior to the conspicuous emergence of Mahāyāna in its established form, but adopts a different approach, focusing on the complexity of identifying bodhisattvas and its implications for interpreting their representations.

End Matter

Index [+–] 275-301

Paul Harrison FREE

Stanford University

Paul Harrison is the George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University.

Setting Out on the Great Way brings together different perspectives on the origins and early history of Mahāyāna Buddhism and delves into selected aspects of its formative period. As the variety of the religion which conquered East Asia and also provided the matrix for the later development of Buddhist Tantra or Vajrayāna, Mahāyāna is regarded as one of the most significant forms of Buddhism, and its beginnings have long been the focus of intense scholarly attention and debate. The essays in this volume address the latest findings in the field, including contributions by younger researchers vigorously critiquing the reappraisal of the Mahāyāna carried out by scholars in the last decades of the 20th century and the different understanding of the movement which they produced. As the study of Buddhism as a whole reorients itself to embrace new methods and paradigms, while at the same time coming to terms with exciting new manuscript discoveries, our picture of the Mahāyāna continues to change. This volume presents the latest developments in this ongoing re-evaluation of one of Buddhism’s most important historical expressions.

Figures [+–] 303-319

Paul Harrison FREE

Stanford University

Paul Harrison is the George Edwin Burnell Professor of Religious Studies at Stanford University.

Reviews

The collection is, rather obviously, an important overview of the topic, one that all scholars working on Indian Buddhism, and not just on the specific question of Mahāyāna origins, would do well to familiarize themselves with. As important as this work is for the field of Buddhist studies, it also provides a critical reflection on the current working conceptions of the field of religious studies.
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Setting Out on the Great Way

Essays on Early Mahāyāna Buddhism

Paul Harrison [+–]

Stanford University

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