Richard Gombrich [+–]

University of Oxford / Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

Richard Gombrich is founder and President of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. Before his retirement in 2004, he held the Boden Chair of Sanskrit at Oxford University and a Professorial Fellowship at Balliol College for 28 years. He supervised nearly 50 theses on Buddhist topics, and is the author of 200 publications. He continues to lecture and teach at universities round the world.

Winner of Choice Outstanding Academic Title award 2010

In What the Buddha Thought, Richard Gombrich argues that the Buddha was one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of all time.

Intended to serve as an introduction to the Buddha’s thought, and hence even to Buddhism itself, the book also has larger aims: it argues that we can know far more about the Buddha than it is fashionable among scholars to admit, and that his thought has a greater coherence than is usually recognised. It contains much new material. Interpreters both ancient and modern have taken little account of the historical context of the Buddha’s teachings; but by relating them to early brahminical texts, and also to ancient Jainism, Gombrich gives a much richer picture of the Buddha’s meaning, especially when his satire and irony are appreciated. Incidentally, since many of the Buddha’s allusions can only be traced in the Pali versions of surviving texts, the book establishes the importance of the Pali Canon as evidence.

The book contains much new material. The author stresses the Buddha’s capacity for abstraction: though he made extensive use of metaphor, he did not found his arguments upon it, as earlier thinkers had done. He ethicized and radically reinterpreted older ideas of karma (human action) and rebirth. Similarly, building on older texts, he argued for the fundamental importance of love and compassion, and analysed fire as a process which could stand as a model for every component of conscious experience. Morally, the Buddha’s theory of karma provided a principle of individuation and asserted each individual’s responsibility for his own destiny. To make the book completely accessible to the general reader, the author provides an introductory section of ‘Background Information,’ for easy reference.

Series: Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies Monographs

Prelims

Preface [+–] vii – x

This book argues that the Buddha was one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of all time.

Background Information [+–] xi – xv

Winner of Choice Outstanding Academic Title award 2010 In What the Buddha Thought , Richard Gombrich argues that the Buddha was one of the most brilliant and original thinkers of all time. Intended to serve as an introduction to the Buddha’s thought, and hence even to Buddhism itself, the book also has larger aims: it argues that we can know far more about the Buddha than it is fashionable among scholars to admit, and that his thought has a greater coherence than is usually recognised. It contains much new material. Interpreters both ancient and modern have taken little account of the historical context of the Buddha’s teachings; but by relating them to early brahminical texts, and also to ancient Jainism, Gombrich gives a much richer picture of the Buddha’s meaning, especially when his satire and irony are appreciated. Incidentally, since many of the Buddha’s allusions can only be traced in the Pali versions of surviving texts, the book establishes the importance of the Pali Canon as evidence. The book contains much new material. The author stresses the Buddha’s capacity for abstraction: though he made extensive use of metaphor, he did not found his arguments upon it, as earlier thinkers had done. He ethicized and radically reinterpreted older ideas of karma (human action) and rebirth. Similarly, building on older texts, he argued for the fundamental importance of love and compassion, and analysed fire as a process which could stand as a model for every component of conscious experience. Morally, the Buddha’s theory of karma provided a principle of individuation and asserted each individual’s responsibility for his own destiny. To make the book completely accessible to the general reader, the author provides an introductory section of ‘Background Information,’ for easy reference.

Abbreviations [+–] xvi – xvi

Introduction [+–] 1 – 18

I have been motivated to write this book mainly by two feelings: admiration and exasperation. My admiration is for the Buddha, whom I consider to be one of the greatest thinkers ñ and greatest personalities ñ of whom we have record in human history. Ranking people in an order of merit is a pursuit fit only for parlour games, but I maintain that the Buddha belongs in the same class as Plato and Aristotle, the giants who created the tradition of western philosophy. I think that his ideas should form part of the education of every child, the world over, and that this would help to make the world a more civilized place, both gentler and more intelligent.

More about Karma, and Its Social Context [+–] 19 – 28

For the Buddha, the idea of karma is inextricably connected with the idea of rebirth. He saw karma, intentional action, as a matter of cause and effect. Good karma would bring good effects for the doer, bad karma bad effects. It would not be right to call these rewards and punishments, because there is no rewarder or punisher. The effects are produced, rather, by a law of nature, analogous for us to a law of physics. For the Buddha and others in ancient India, however, the model was agriculture. One sows a seed, there is a time lag during which some mysterious invisible process takes place, and then the plant pops up and can be harvested. The result of an intentional act is in fact normally referred to as its ëfruití. The time between the act and its fruit is unpredictable.

The Antecedents of the Karma Doctrine in Brahminism [+–] 29 – 44

In this chapter and the next I shall try to outline the earlier Indian ideas of rebirth and karma which led up to those taught by the Buddha. In this chapter I shall be dealing with brahminism, but only those aspects of it strictly relevant to that theme. Other aspects of brahminism which fundamentally influenced the Buddha are postponed till Chapter 5.

Jain Antecedents [+–] 45 – 59

Influences of Jainism on Buddhism

What Did the Buddha Mean by ´No Soul´? [+–] 60 – 74

Introductions to the Buddhaís thought usually begin by highlighting two of his ideas: the First Noble Truth, that ´everything is suffering´; and the teaching of No Soul or No Self. So far I have devoted only a few short sentences in the Introduction to those ideas. There I showed that in my view the key to the Buddhaís thought is the doctrine of karma and the idea that we are all responsible for ourselves ñ an idea that has an important metaphysical aspect but is above all an ethical principle.

The Buddha’s Positive Values: Love and Compassion [+–] 75 – 91

This is an ambitious chapter, because in it I wish to illustrate simultaneously several different dimensions of the Buddhaís thought and teaching; one of them I regard as of central importance. In the next chapter, I am going to set out my method, and above all my justification for claiming that the evidence favours our ascribing these ideas to the Buddha, a single person. As I have already written, the proof of the pudding is in the eating, and I believe that my case will carry conviction if I can demonstrate how my method produces results.

Assessing the Evidence [+–] 92 – 110

Unfortunately, nowadays students are taught that when they embark on research they first have to learn methodology, and that when they write up that research they should start by explaining their methodology. Even worse, they are often led to believe that there is such a subject as methodology. This needs to be unravelled.

Everything Is Burning: The Centrality of Fire in the Buddha’s Thought [+–] 111 – 128

This chapter is about how the Buddha reacted to Vedic ideas and practices concerning fire, and how this focus may have led him to what is perhaps his most important philosophical idea, the substitution of non-random processes for objects. It will provide more examples of how the Buddha reused brahminical religious terms, turning them to his own purposes.

Causation and Non-random Process [+–] 129 – 143

For which of the Buddhaís ideas was he most famous among the mass of his followers in ancient India? The theory of karma may not have been understood by later followers to be the Buddhaís distinctive contribution, because it soon came to have such a great influence on other Indian religious traditions as well. Yes, he was associated with the teaching of ëno soulí, but that was a label; the precise idea was probably understood by few. If we look, however, for the idea which provided Buddhists with their popular selfdefinition, my question has a clear answer. Buddhist institutions in ancient India provided pilgrims and other devotees with thousands and thousands of small terracotta plaques, most of which bore the same words.

Cognition; Language; Nirvana [+–] 144 – 160

We have seen in Chapter 5 that the Vedic tradition blended (from our perspective: confused) ontology, the question of what exists, with epistemology, the question of what we can know, and how. We have also seen there and in Chapter 8 that the Buddha argued against positing a category of ´being´, and altogether substituted for the question ´What exists?´ the question ´What can we experience?´

The Buddha’s Pragmatism and Intellectual Style [+–] 161 – 179

Again and again the Buddha emphasized that his goal as a teacher was entirely pragmatic. His followers came to know him as the great physician; the Dhamma was the medicine he prescribed, the SaΔgha were the nurses whose calling it was to administer that medicine. Though there is no canonical evidence for this interpretation, modern scholars have plausibly argued that the formulation of the Four Noble Truths follows the medical idiom of the time: first the disease is diagnosed, then its origin or cause is established, then it is accordingly stated what a cure would consist of, and finally the treatment to achieve that cure is prescribed. The Buddha described himself as the surgeon who removes the arrow of craving.

The Buddha as Satirist; Brahmin Terms as Social Metaphors [+–] 180 – 192

Buddhist popular literature regularly presents brahmins in a most unfavourable light. The Vessantara Jåtaka,1 the account of the Buddhaís last birth on earth before this final one, is probably the best-known story in the entire Theravada tradition, and has been important in other Buddhist traditions too.

Is This Book To Be Believed? [+–] 193 – 201

I have tried in the pages above to show that the Buddha’s main ideas are powerful and coherent. If I had a more thorough knowledge of the Pali Canon than, alas, I can claim, I would have made a better job of it; but surely I have done enough to show that this coherence is not imposed by my fantasy, but exists in the texts. Yet, according to the fashionable view represented by my critic, Buddhism, which at least in numerical terms must be the greatest movement in the entire history of human ideas, is a ball which was set rolling by someone whose ideas are not known and – one may presume from what he writes – can never be known. So the intellectual edifice which I have described came together by a process of accumulation, rather like an avalanche. I am reminded of the blindfolded monkeys whose random efforts somehow produce a typescript of the complete works of Shakespeare.

Appendix

The Buddha’s Appropriation of Four (or Five?) Brahminical Terms [+–] 202 – 206

This book shows how the Buddha both borrowed and twisted brahminical terminology. Five cases which seem to me important but not central I have here segregated in an appendix so that readers who find my discussions too technical can lighten their load by skipping them.

Notes

Notes [+–] 207 – 226

Bibliography

Bibliography [+–] 227 – 232

References

Index

Index [+–] 233 – 240

Index

Outstanding Academic Title, Choice 2010

Reviews

…a great advance on most other studies of early Buddhism, for these generally tend to minimise the originality of the early Buddhist movement… .In What the Buddha Thought, then, we get much more vivid sense of the history of early Buddhism than has previously been achieved. …This important book provides us with an invaluable starting point from which to pursue such investigations into early Buddhist thought.
Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society Vol. 20 (1), July 2010

Remarkable for its clarity and depth, this volume will be exciting for coursework in philosophy, comparative religion, and Buddhist studies. Summing Up: Highly recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above; general readers.
L. J. Alderink emeritus, Concordia College, Choice

This is by no means an easy book to read despite the lucidity of Gombrich’s prose and exposition. The trouble is, however, worth taking for anybody interested in the ideas of the Buddha and their importance for humankind.
Rudrangshu Mukerjee, The Telegraph, Calcutta, 8 January 2010

If you are fascinated by the Buddha but put off by the scholarly tomes that seek to explain his life and words, then you have reason to feel excited. Richard Gombrich, renowned scholar of Buddhism and Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford between 1976 and 2004, has just written a book, What the Buddha Thought, that aims to do precisely what its title says: tell ordinary but inquisitive readers about the ideas that the Buddha preached and how they came about. It requires a special kind of imagination to bring a genius like the Buddha to life, and Gombrich precisely has that spark of eccentricity. Although the book deals with some very complex ideas, Gombrich adheres to a lucid style.
Somak Ghoshal, The Telegraph, Calcutta, 25 October 2009

…Gombrich has provided a masterly study of how much of the Buddha’s teaching may be understood by reference to the accepted wisdom of his day. …this is a stimulating book and presents an excellent, closely-reasoned argument. It is a valuable addition to the canon of Buddhist studies, not only for the information it contains and the challenges it poses, but also as an example of how to study the historical material of the field.
BASR Bulletin, May 2012

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What the Buddha Thought

Richard Gombrich [+–]

University of Oxford / Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies

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