How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings (Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion) [Hardcover]

Richard F. Gombrich (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 1997 | ISBN-10: 0485174170 | ISBN-13: 978-0485174175

This book takes a fresh look at the earliest Buddhism texts and offers various suggestions how the teachings in them had developed. Two themes predominate. Firstly, it argues that we cannot understand the Buddha unless we understand that he was debating with other religious teachers, notably brahmins. For example, he denied the existence of a 'soul'; but what exactly was he denying? Another chapter suggests that the canonical story of the Buddha's encounter with a brigand who wore a garland of his victims' fingers probably reflects an encounter with a form of ecstatic religion. The other main theme concerns metaphor, allegory and literalism. By taking the words of the texts literally - despite the Buddha's warning not to - successive generations of his disciples created distinctions and developed doctrines far beyond his original intention. One chapter shows how this led to a scholastic categorisation of meditation. Failure to understand a basic metaphor also gave rise to the later argument between the Mahayana and the older tradition. Perhaps most important of all, a combination of literalism with ignorance of the Buddha's allusions to brahminism led buddhists to forget that the Buddha had preached that love, like christian charity, could itself be directly salvific.

Editorial Reviews

Review

...few indeed have attempted a critical study of the philosophical and religious ideas proffered by early Buddhists. How Buddhism Began...is an excellent small book that begins to fill this lamentable void in Buddhist studies...highly recommended for both the expert and novice in the field of Buddhist studies. --–John R. Holder, Philosophy East and West --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

About the Author

Prof. Gombrich is Boden Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford. --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 180 pages
• Publisher: Athlone Pr (January 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0485174170
• ISBN-13: 978-0485174175
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 13.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,572,171 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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27 of 28 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the Buddha Taught, April 1, 2001

By 

Jerome Chiu (Hong Kong) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings (Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion) (Hardcover)

This book is a revised version of Gombrich's 1994 Jordan Lectures delivered at SOAS, in which he explains a number of key strategies the Buddha employed in order to convert his listeners, many of whom were adherents to other religious persuasions, most notably Brahminism. Gombrich's theses, resulting from a close analysis of the earliest extant Buddhist canonical texts, that the Buddha deliberately used Brahminical concepts such as "karma" ("kamma" in Pali) in his sermons but covertly twisting their meanings to expound his doctrines, and that the Buddha used "satirical allegory" through, e.g., parodying Brahminical texts such as the B.rhadaara.nyaka Upani.sad, are utterly original contributions to the history of early Buddhist thought. Seen in this light, the Buddha was far from the solemn, straight-faced preacher many would have assumed; instead, his humour and clarity of mind shines through the pages of this book, as it would through the pages of the Pali passages on which Gombrich gives his inspirational interpretation.

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How the compilers may have altered the Buddha's teachings, February 10, 2009

By 

Daiho - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings (Jordan Lectures in Comparative Religion) (Hardcover)

This book is not an easy read. The four essays cover obscure scholarly topics, the arguments based on Pali and the Brahmanical cultural milieu of the Buddha's age.

Nonetheless, I found it quite compelling and refreshing.

Compelling because of the author's careful detective work; refreshing for it's approach to the Buddha and early Buddhism. This is no work of religious devotion, but a sober reflection on how the behavior of scholastics and practitioners influenced the creation and evolution of Buddhist thought.

How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings collects a series of four papers and one public lecture presented at the 1994 Jordan Lectures by Richard Gombrich, Pali and Sanskrit scholar and current Academic Director of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. He lays out his interests in the lecture as "how the Buddha's teachings emerged through debate with other religious teachers of his day," and "how his early followers, in attempting to preserve the Buddha's teachings, subtly and unintentionally may have changed them." His arguments proceed from the assumption that even though our oldest existing copies of the Pali texts are no more than 500 years old, by comparing recensions and the later commentaries, it may sometimes be possible to trace the development of ideas and, through the tracing, identify their earliest expression, as well as points along the way at which they were altered.

Over a 40 year career in which he taught extemporaneously to people from a wide variety of backgrounds and learning, Gombrich notes that the Buddha's "skill in means did not stop at conversion, or did not die out when the Buddha died, but must have gone on influencing formulations of the teachings." Debate within the sangha led to processes that over the years subtly altered the meaning of the texts, including banalization, or simplifying difficult ideas; literalism, creating unnecessary and unjustifiable distinctions based on synonymous terms or phrases; and systemization, the process of developing a unified theory. That such processes alter texts and ideas in modern life seems a rather commonplace observation, but one that seems to have been overlooked in Buddhist studies. At least what little I have read.

Many of Gombrich's findings are tentative, but that seems besides the point. He appears more interested in setting out a research agenda, a call to colleagues for more nuanced reading of the Pali texts, reading informed by a thorough history of the Buddha's age, reading responsive to competing interests within the Buddhist community, reading sensitive to satire and humor, metaphor and allegory.

For more details on the topics and specific arguments, see John Holder's 2000 review; for a critical reading of the book, see Bhikkhu Bodhi's 1997 review.

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15 of 17 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skeptical look at Pali texts, July 9, 2003

By 

Moten Swing (NYC) - See all my reviews

This review is from: How Buddhism Began: The Conditioned Genesis of the Early Teachings (Hardcover)

This book is extremely valuable because his approach is so rare: he looks at the Pali texts of the Theravada from a skeptical, scholarly point of view and uncovers what he sees as the overly literal and simplistic readings of many famous passages.
Theravada is, in my view, plagued with scriptural literalism, and this small book is a brilliant antidote.

If you are already familiar with some of the Pali texts, get this book get a fresh perspective. If you are new to Buddhism, on the other hand, this would likely be a bit over your head.