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Alexander Wynne on Greater Magadha: Studies in The Johannes Bronkhorst. Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India. Handbook of Oriental Studies Series. Leiden: Brill, 2007. xix + 414 pp. $182.00, cloth, ISBN 978-90-04-15719-4. Reviewed by Alexander Wynne Published on H-Buddhism (July, 2011) Commissioned by Daniel A. Arnold (University of Chicago) According to standard textbook histories of religion fourished. According to Patañjali’s ancient India, Hinduism, or at least some similar Mahābhāṣya (ca. 150 BCE) and the Baudhāyana form of Brahminism, was the dominant religion and Vasiṣṭha Dharma Sūtras, this area extended rejected by the Buddha, who, in response to the as far as the confluence of the Gaṅgā and Yamunā class privileges and rituals of the Brahmins, for‐ rivers. Earlier evidence from the Śatapatha and mulated a “new” Dharma. This understanding of Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇas suggests that Vedic Brah‐ the cultural and intellectual background to early mins considered their neighbors to the East bar‐ Buddhism is frmly rejected in Johannes barous and inferior for linguistic reasons, while Bronkhorst’s Greater Magadha. Countering a the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa further states that the view he believes is “largely mistaken,” Bronkhorst “demonic” (āsurya) people of the East constructed instead proposes that Buddhism originated in the round “sepulchral mounds,” a distinct funerary non-Vedic culture of “Greater Magadha,” an area practice later adopted by the Buddhists (pp. 4-5). he defines as “roughly the geographical area in The remainder of the book builds on this evi‐ which the Buddha and Mahāvīra lived and taught. dence for geographical, linguistic, and cultural With regard to the Buddha, this area stretched by differences by attempting to reconstruct the dis‐ and large from Śrāvastī, the capital of Kosala, in tinct culture of Greater Magadha. Compelling evi‐ the north-west to Rājagṛha, the capital of Magad‐ dence for a distinct culture is cited in part 1 (“Cul‐ ha, in the south-east” (pp. xi, 4). tural Features of Greater Magadha”): Bronkhorst’s The basic evidence for this alternative cultur‐ studies of the Jains and Ājīvikas are persuasive, al history is outlined in the introduction. and his survey of ancient medicine shows that the Bronkhorst frst draws attention to early Brah‐ empirical approach of the Āyurveda was derived manical sources on the āryāvarta, “domain of the from the cultural region of Greater Magadha, Aryas,” i.e., the area in which Vedic culture and rather than a Vedic source. When considered H-Net Reviews against the extensive evidence for a Vedic culture is, Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, chapters 3-4). He steeped in magic, curses, and spells, one feels con‐ claims that this text was known to the grammari‐ vinced that “there was indeed a culture of Greater ans Kātyāyana and Patañjali as a separate work-- Magadha which remained recognizably distinct the “Brāhmaṇa of Yājñavalkya”--and that Patañ‐ from Vedic culture until the time of the grammari‐ jali dated it to the time of Pāṇini, i.e., the mid- an Patañjali (ca. 150 BCE) and beyond” (p. 265). fourth century BCE. These considerations, Persuasive as this is, Bronkhorst also argues Bronkhorst argues, indicate that the text’s pas‐ that the ideas of karma, rebirth, and liberation sages on karma, rebirth, and liberation postdate originated within Greater Magadha. This is prob‐ the Buddha. lematic, however, because these ideas are stated As I have argued elsewhere, however, the evi‐ in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya Up‐ dence from Kātyāyana and Patañjali does not sug‐ aniṣads--texts usually assigned to the sixth or ffth gest that the Yājñavalkya-kāṇḍa was composed in century BCE, early enough to suppose an origin the mid-fourth century BCE.[2] All Bronkhorst within the sphere of Vedic religion.[1] To show proves is that this text was known and accepted that this was not the case, Bronkhorst must there‐ within orthodox circles at this point; but this gives fore argue that these Upaniṣads are not so old, no reason to doubt that it was composed before and that they borrowed from an alien source. this, as, indeed, its setting in the pre-Buddhist This he does in part 3 (“Chronology”) and part 2 kingdom of Videha suggests. (Bronkhorst strug‐ (“Brahmanism vis-à-vis Rebirth and Karmic Retri‐ gles to make sense of this fact [p. 237n35].) bution”) respectively, the implication being that Bronkhorst’s rigorous analysis suggests, rather, the ideas were a late borrowing from Greater Ma‐ that this most important part of the Bṛhadāraṇya‐ gadha. ka Upaniṣad is very old but initially circulated A further argument reinforcing both points is outside the Vedic āryāvarta. If so, there is no rea‐ stated in chapter 1, section1, and chapter 2, sec‐ son to doubt that it was an important source for tion A.3, of part 1. Bronkhorst here argues that the ideas of karma, rebirth, and liberation. Upaniṣadic teachings on the self differ from the Further evidence cited by Bronkhorst (chap‐ general understanding of the self in the Vedic tra‐ ter 2, section A.3, “The Early Upaniṣads”) does not dition, and that spiritual praxis in the early Up‐ suggest that the early Upaniṣads borrowed these aniṣads is similar to that described in early Jain ideas from a non-Vedic source. The oldest Up‐ texts. Both points suggest that the early Upaniṣads aniṣadic passages on karma, rebirth, and libera‐ belonged to the same, basic religious culture as tion are found in the account of two paths by that described in early Jain texts, i.e., that of which the dead man goes: either to Brahman/the Greater Magadha. While much that Bronkhorst gods, from which there is no return, or to the an‐ says on all these points recommends reconsider‐ cestors, from whom a return to this world is in‐ ing the received wisdom (especially regarding the evitable (Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad 6.2, Chāndo‐ textual history of the Vedas), the argument that gya Upaniṣad 5.3-10). Although both passages at‐ the early Upaniṣads were late, with key ideas be‐ tribute the ideas to thekṣatriya Pravāhaṇa Jaivali, ing borrowed from a separate source, is not en‐ it is surely odd that a Brahmanical borrowing of tirely convincing. an alien idea would be admitted outright. Fur‐ Bronkhorst’s most important argument thermore, Bronkhorst goes to great lengths to against the pre-Buddhist antiquity of the Up‐ show that these passages took much trouble to aniṣads is based on points regarding the textual present “the doctrine of rebirth and karmic retri‐ history of the important Yājñavalkya-kāṇḍa (that bution in a Vedic garb” (p. 120). But if so, why give 2 H-Net Reviews the game away by owning up to a borrowing from this could merely indicate that the idea was a new a non-Brahmanical source at the outset? development at the time, i.e., a secret teaching or These difficulties are resolved, however, as “Upaniṣad” rather than a non-Vedic borrowing. soon as we realize that nothing alien has been This prospect is frmly rejected when Bronkhorst borrowed at all. Bronkhorst admits that there is considers Herman W. Tull’s theory of a Vedic ori‐ “no explicit mention of karmic retribution” in the gin of karma (The Vedic Origins of Karma [1989]). Bṛhadāraṇyaka passage, and that even the sec‐ But this argument--that there is no such thing as tion on karma in the Chāndogya passage is kept “bad” ritual karma--overlooks the late Vedic belief entirely separate from the teaching on rebirth in different levels of ritual purity; a major con‐ and liberation (pp. 115, 121). In fact, the latter, cern of the Dharma Sūtras, for example, is the rit‐ brief section on karma (Chāndogya Upaniṣads ual means of eradicating pollution (e.g., by fre, 5.10.7)--which states that pleasant action leads to water, or Vedic mantras). This shows that pollu‐ a good rebirth, whereas unpleasant action leads tion was believed to inhere in a person, and if so to the opposite--is quite clearly a later addition to it is easy to imagine the Vedic belief that this a teaching that otherwise has nothing to say about could affect a person’s fate after death. The simple karma. Bronkhorst further admits that both pas‐ ethicization of this notion of karmic purity or pol‐ sages develop older Vedic ideas about the “jour‐ lution could easily have led to the formulation of ney which presumably links one existence to the the classical karma doctrine. next,” and that the idea of rebirth might not be Apart from his arguments about karma, re‐ alien to the Vedic tradition after all (p. 121).[3] birth, and liberation, greater continuity can be es‐ This leaves us with the idea of liberation as tablished between late Vedic speculation and the the only unprecedented aspect of these teachings. early Upaniṣads than Bronkhorst allows. In chap‐ And yet both the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya ter 2, section A.3 (“The Early Upaniṣads”), Upaniṣads passages indicate that liberation is an Bronkhorst claims that the Yājñavalkya-kāṇḍa’s eternal, heavenly sort of existence with--or in the philosophy of an inactive, immutable self differs worlds of--Brahma and the gods. This could easily from the Vedic correspondence between self and be explained as a development of Brahmanic cosmos; his argument is that the Yājñavalkya- ideas: it is not difficult to imagine some Vedic kāṇḍa “distinguishes itself from these other Up‐ thinkers turning away from the old idea of circu‐ aniṣadic passages in that the correspondence of lation between the ancestral and human worlds, the self with the macrocosm plays no role in it” and instead proposing an esoteric means of reach‐ (p. 129). But this is simply incorrect. At numerous ing the eternal abode of the gods.
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