Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism Handbook of Oriental Studies Section Two South Asia Edited by Johannes Bronkhorst VOLUME 24 Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism By Johannes Bronkhorst LEIDEN • BOSTON 2011 This book is printed on acid-free paper. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Bronkhorst, Johannes, 1946– Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism / By Johannes Bronkhorst. pages cm. — (Handbook of Oriental Studies. Section 2, South Asia, ISSN 0169-9377 ; v. 24) Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-90-04-20140-8 (hardback : alk. paper) 1. Buddhism—Relations— Brahmanism. 2. Brahmanism—Relations—Buddhism. 3. Buddhism—India—History. I. Title. BQ4610.B7B76 2011 294.5’31—dc22 2010052746 ISSN 0169-9377 ISBN 978 90 04 20140 8 Copyright 2011 by Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, The Netherlands. Koninklijke Brill NV incorporates the imprints Brill, Hotei Publishing, IDC Publishers, Martinus Nijhoff Publishers and VSP. All rights reserved. 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CONTENTS Preface ................................................................................................. vii Chapter One Introduction: Buddhism Before the New Brahmanism .......................................................................... 1 1.1 The original context ............................................................ 1 1.2 Interactions ........................................................................... 6 1.3 Imperial help ........................................................................ 12 Chapter Two Brahmanism ............................................................ 27 2.1 The new Brahmanism ......................................................... 27 2.2 The spread of Sanskrit ........................................................ 42 2.3 The brahmanical colonization of the past ....................... 65 2.4 The brahmanization of borrowed features ...................... 74 Chapter Three Buddhism Confronted with Brahmanism ....... 99 3.1 A courtly challenge .............................................................. 99 3.2 Science and religion in classical India ............................. 113 3.3 A new language .................................................................... 122 Appendix to chapter 3.3: Jainism, Mathurā and Sanskrit .................................................................................. 130 3.4 Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit, the original language ........... 142 3.5 Buddhism sanskritized, Buddhism brahmanized ........... 153 3.6 Philosophical encounters .................................................... 170 3.7 The relics of the Buddha .................................................... 193 Relic worship ...................................................................... 193 What happened to the body of the Buddha? .................... 206 Appendix to Chapter 3.7: What happened to Mahāvīra’s body? ............................................................... 225 3.8 Adjustment to political reality ........................................... 230 References ........................................................................................... 247 Abbreviations ..................................................................................... 281 Index .................................................................................................... 285 PREFACE Material contained in this book has been used in lectures and series of lectures given at various occasions during the past five years in different places, among these, in alphabetical order: Atlanta, Austin, Barcelona, Dubrovnik, Düsseldorf, Jaipur, Krakow, Lausanne, Leiden, London, Mysore, Seoul, Singapore, Tokyo, Turin, Warsaw, Zurich. Thanks are due to those who gave me the opportunity to share my thoughts and submit them to their critical comments. If, in spite of these comments, mistakes remain in this book, the responsibility is entirely mine. Some of these lectures have been published or are in press. An ear- lier version of part of chapter 3.7 (Relic worship) appeared in French (“Les reliques dans les religions de l’Inde”) in Indische Kultur im Kon- text: Festschrift für Klaus Mylius, ed. Lars Göhler, Wiesbaden: Har- rassowitz, 2005, pp. 49–85; the part What happened to the body of the Buddha? has been published as “Hendrik Kern and the body of the Buddha” in Asiatische Studien / Études Asiatiques 63(1), 2009, pp. 7–27; an earlier version of chapter 3.2 appeared as “Science and reli- gion in classical India” in Indologica Taurinensia 33, 2007 [2008], pp. 183–96; an earlier version of chapter 3.4 came out under the same title “Buddhist hybrid Sanskrit: the original language” in Aspects of Bud- dhist Sanskrit, ed. Kameshwar Nath Mishra, Sarnath: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 1993, pp. 396–423; materials from “Modes of debate and refutation of adversaries in classical and medieval India: a preliminary investigation” (Antiqvorvm Philosophia 1, 2007, 269–80) have been included in chapter 3.6, as have materials from an article (“Buddhist thought versus brahmanical thought”) that should come out in the proceedings of the International Conference “World view and theory in Indian philosophy”, held in Barcelona in 2009; an ear- lier version of chapter 2.2 has come out as “The spread of Sanskrit” in From Turfan to Ajanta, Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff, Lumbini 2010, 117–39; an earlier version of the Appendix to chapter 3.7 will appear in the proceedings of the 11th Jaina Studies Workshop (SOAS, London); chapter 2.4 uses material that will be published in the pro- ceedings of the Fifth Dubrovnik International Conference on the San- skrit Epics and Purāṇas (“Āśramas, agrahāras, and monasteries”). viii preface A residency at the Liguria Study Center for the Arts and Humani- ties, Bogliasco (Italy), allowed me to put the different bits together into this book. This is not the first time that a stay at the Liguria Study Cen- ter, so conducive to academic work, has enabled me to finalize a book, and I owe a debt of gratitude to the Bogliasco Foundation. The greatest debt, however, I owe to my wife, Joy Manné, who has been instrumen- tal in maintaining ideal working conditions back home, where most of the work was done. Pully, November 2010 CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION: BUDDHISM BEFORE THE NEW BRAHMANISM 1.1 The Original Context Buddhism, we are often told, was a reaction against vedic Brahman- ism. Vedic Brahmanism is the religion that finds expression in the Veda, an immense corpus of texts. Vedic Brahmanism, we are made to understand, is much older than Buddhism and was indeed the dominant religion in northern India, including the area in which Bud- dhism arose. I do not share this opinion. I do not deny that many vedic texts existed already, in oral form, at the time when the Buddha was born. However, the bearers of this tradition, the Brahmins, did not occupy a dominant position in the area in which the Buddha preached his message, and this message was not, therefore, a reaction against brah- manical thought and culture. I have argued this position at length in a book—Greater Magadha— that came out in 2007. In this introduction no full justice can be done to the arguments there presented. In order to understand what fol- lows, it is yet necessary to be acquainted with some of its findings. These will here be briefly reviewed. Further information, arguments and references can be found in Greater Magadha.1 1 Geoffrey Samuel, in a recent publication (2008: 48 ff.; also 61 ff.) which how- ever refers back to an earlier unpublished manuscript of Thomas Hopkins, presents on the basis of primarily archaeological evidence a notion of “two cultural processes moving more or less concurrently toward the use of iron and urbanization from two separate sources: one in the eastern Punjab, Rajasthan, the Doab, and northward to the Himalayas west of 81° longitude, identified with the Painted Grey Ware culture and the Aryans; the other—based on the Eastern Gangetic culture with its apparent initial connection to the Malwa-type cultural complex—in the region of Patna, in the valleys of the Ghagara and Gandak rivers northwest of Patna, and westward to the region around the lower Doab.” The two areas correspond to those distinguished in Greater Magadha. To the list of aspects in which the two “worlds” may have differed from each other, Samuel (p. 89 ff.) adds gender attitudes. Samuel is no doubt right in concluding (p. 343): “It seems to me that an initial tension between the values of the 2 chapter one We do not know exactly when the historical Buddha died. For a long time Buddhist scholars thought they knew. Most Western schol- ars agreed upon a date close to the year 480 bce. Few scholars still accept this date. A study in which many participated has not led to a result upon which scholars agree.2 However, many of them approve of a date not too distant in time from the year 400 bce, give or take a few decades in either direction. 400 bce means before the incursion into India by Alexander of Macedonia in the second