‘THUS HAVE I HEARD’ AND OTHER CLAIMS TO AUTHENTICITY: DEVELOPMENT OF RHETORICAL DEVICES IN THE SARVSTIVDA 1A3P D BHIDHARMA TEXTS
BART DESSEIN
The Abhidharma texts as they have been transmitted to the present either from the outset were, or later have become part of a Buddhist ‘scriptural’ tradition that is rooted in the Indian context of oral literature. When dealing with the problem of rhetorical devices employed in these Abhidharma texts, we have to address both those peculiarities that derive from this overall oral/aural tradition, as well as those rhetorical aspects that are (or have become) typical for the written format of these texts. Apart from these intra-textual rhetorical devices, we also have to take into account inter-textual rhetorical devices. By the latter, I mean those rhetorical elements that derive from the literary context in which the Buddhist texts were recited and produced, and that are peculiar for an oral/aural tradition.
The Oral Origin of Abhidharma Texts
The Buddhist ‘scriptural’ tradition is rooted in an overall oral/aural Indian literary tradition. With respect to the audience for which religious texts were performed, and the purpose of such a performance, Georg von Simson differentiated two phases leading to the peculiar Buddhist religious texts as third phase of this development.1 The first phase is the period of the Vedic texts. These texts primarily aimed at delivering a message to the realm of the gods, and did not serve as a means of communication between people of equal religious belief, nor did they try to convince someone of the truth expounded in these texts. This explains why Vedic texts do not present themselves as products of rational activity, but rather as texts for a passive spectator. These Vedic texts were followed by the Brhma"a prose texts and the Upani$ads. The Brhma"a prose texts explain the offers performed. They, thus, are of an explanatory character. In this sense, they parallel
1 Von Simson 1965:139141; see also Oldenberg 1917:39. 122 BART DESSEIN the Upani$ads that only diverge from the Brhma"a prose texts in their object of description: The Upani$ads are directed more towards the speculative than the Brhma"a prose texts are. Both types of texts further have in common with the Vedic texts that they do not serve to convince someone of the truth expounded in them. Herein lays the fundamental difference of these texts with the Buddhist texts.
Table 1: Buddhist Texts as a Genre in the Indian Oral Tradition
PURPOSE AUDIENCE
REVEALED Vedic texts [- communication TRUTH between people] realm of the gods [- convincing the audience of the truth] passive spectators
[- explanatory]
REVEALED Brhma"a [- communication TRUTH and between people] Upani$ads [- convincing the people of equal audience of the truth] religious belief
[+ explanatory]
REVEALING Buddhist [+ communication TRUTH texts between people]
[+ convincing the people of different audience of the truth] religious belief
[+ explanatory]
The Buddhist faith originated as an innovative movement in the Indian religious world. 2 For Buddhist texts, therefore, convincing the audience of the truth the Buddha has realized is of primary importance.
2 For more on this, see Lamotte 1958:5859; see also, for example, the Dharma- cakrapravartanas$tra, the ‘Discourse Setting in Motion the Wheel of the Law,’ in which the Buddha revealed the four noble truths to those who were to be his first disciples.