Romans 1:26-27 is quite well-known and discussed. Of course there are hundreds of exegetes discussing it from various angles.
Also see 1 Corinthians 6:9-10 and 1 Timothy 1:9-10.
These are in the Pauline epistles; Romans and 1 Corinthians are considered ‘undisputed’ in terms of authorial authenticity generally speaking.
More importantly, keep in mind that “Christianity” is not “the statements found in the New Testament.” That has never been the case nor could it be. So if someone were to say “Jesus was homophobic,” that’s a different issue. But ‘Christianity’ as a series of movements and ideas across space-time certainly had a history of homophobia, and the Hebrew Bible which condemns it is considered canonical in the Christian bible, not even turning to Christian doctrine as a whole.
I’m not defending one particular side over another, just calling this to attention. When we discuss ‘Buddhism’ or ‘Christianity,’ we should be clear what exactly we mean by those terms in what context.
I appreciate the post. And I think this is where I made my mistake …
I could clarify my position by saying there is little evidence of homophobia in the gospels, but that would, as you point out, not represent the basis of organized Christianity, and would be something of a straw man.
So, thank you. I stand corrected. And my apologies to Bhante.
Just to confirm, I agree that homophobia is marginal in the Bible, but I was speaking of Christianity more generally, which in many modern incarnations has a weird obsession with promoting homophobia throughout the world.
There are, basically it appears in marginal contexts. But I would posit that such arguments are mostly prompted by a felt need to explain away a bit of unpalatable mythology. For myself, I like mythology and I’m glad the Buddha wasn’t normal all the time!
I am definitely only an amateur and not terribly well-read, but this strikes me as a fairly remarkable claim that challenges literally everything I know about the composition of the EBTs. Unless something has changed radically in the last few years, I was under the impression that the scholarly consensus was that they were orally transmitted and not written until around the 1st century CE. I would love to have more information on this, if you can point me to further reading.
Just to address this one point — this is completely unfounded. And for others reading — as far as you’ve said and I’m aware — this is your unique opinion which all Indologists or scholars of Buddhism disagree with to my knowledge. Even among skeptics of the historicity of the Buddha, I have yet to encounter someone who suspects something else, which is essentially just conspiracy theory.
If anything written is rendered invalid, what kind of evidence for oral transmission do you want — a tape recording from 300 BCE?
The entirety of the early texts assume and frequently mention explicitly an oral culture of textual transmission. This is supported by the Vinaya narratives and commentarial tradition, and by the very make up of the texts themselves which is obviously and unambiguously one of an oral culture. Written transcriptions and records frequently abbreviate oral repetitions and the texts are replete with recitation remarks and cues for keeping track of content and introducing topics.
If you want evidence for this, look at any literature at all discussing these texts or their transmission and the references therein. Or, just examine the composition of the texts themselves.
It’s 2 lines in a single narrative account (not “so many chronicles and commentaries”) – which was written de-novo in circa the 5th century by one monk (not a committee of historians or scholars who were recording a consensual traditional account).
In the beginning it says the Śakyamuni is the 7th tathāgata (and names the mythological tathāgatas before him), and also says that Shakyamuni visited Sri Lanka three times. Since it says so, those are all no doubt historical truths, right? Not to me.
The translation of those two verses you’ve posted is partly erroneous - the verses don’t say that people were falling away from religion, and in any case people falling away from religion has nothing to do with bhikkhus continuing an oral transmission.
It literally says that the 3 pitakas and the atthakathas thereon were brought as oral texts by bhikkhus of great intellect and thereafter, perceiving that people were getting diminished (in mental calibre, thus no longer being capable of the nearly superhuman memorizing feats of yore), and with the intention that the dharma may survive for a long time - caused them to be written down in books.
So the reason adduced for writing them down was because the earlier bhikkhus who came from India bearing the 3 pitakas along with their atthakathas (all orally) were therefore of superior mental calibre - whereas after getting to Lanka and living there for a few centuries, the mental capacity of their successors diminished such an extent to a point where writing it all down was the only way to preserve the dhamma. Believable? Maybe for you. I dont believe that the Indian bhikkhus in general were any way more capable at memorizing than their Sri Lankan successors.
Presumably then everywhere (all across India) too the same mass-decline in mental capacities of Buddhist bhikkhus (of all early-Buddhist sects) happened, and everyone everywhere must have simultaneously come to the same conclusion that oral transmission would have to be abandoned, and transferred their oral canons and commentaries to written books. That is how it probably happened historically, right? Not to my knowledge.
Now it also says the Bhikkhus who came over to Sri Lanka for the first time carried not just the 3 pitakas but also their atthakathas orally to Sri Lanka. What language were these 3rd century BCE atthakathas on the 3 Pali pitakas composed in? Pali itself perhaps? So what happened to those 3rd century BCE atthakathas after they were written down? Vanished without further mention? Vanished also in India?
A commentarial tradition is almost always a written tradition (even for oral texts). Also commentaries are normally composed only when the source-texts become partly or wholly incomprehensible, not when the source text is itself brand new. This talk of the existence of oral commentaries in the 3rd century BCE really cements the idea that the author of the Mahavamsa was not even trying to sound credible.
Who wrote the so-called early Sinhala atthakathas thereafter and how did they too magically disapper before Buddhaghosa et al rewrote yet another set of atthakathas again in Pali?
The Niddesa (Maha & Culla) on parts of the Sutta Nipata is a relatively early commentary (perhaps datable to the beginning of the common era). It has been included as part of the canon and it very likely was composed in India, not in Sri Lanka. As I said, commentaries are almost always written documents, and the fact that the Niddesa was added to the canon indicates that the canon wasn’t considered closed until it was written and included therein. So an open canon still accepting written Pali texts to be included in it was not likely an oral (or even complete) canon to begin with.
An oral canon cannot be translated or recast into another language orally. Even if it could be recast orally, it cannot simultaneously be memorized orally without any change to the original translation. If it could not be memorized without change it wouldnt be Buddhavacana any longer. This means no translations or linguistic recasts could have been made of the original canon (orally). But we know that parallel EBTs existed at least in Gandhari and Sanskrit from BCE times - and their mere existence indicates of there being an extensive network of written manuscripts in Pali, Gandhari and Sanskrit that were being edited and collated for centuries before the common era. These things cannot happen orally.
The centre of gravity for the Pali tradition was India until well into the common era - and it was only after the 7th or 8th century CE that it shifted to Sri Lanka for good. That being the case, when it was first put into writing in Sri Lanka has no bearing on the Pali Buddhist tradition as a whole as the home of Pali (India) was still its center of gravity for nearly a thousand years since the Buddha’s demise. It is more likely that the Sri Lankan Pali tradition in the 1st century BCE had no concerns about the texts disappearing anytime soon - as the centre of gravity of Pali tradtion was in India and Sri Lankan monks still looked up to (and were in constant contact with) their Indian sources for help and religious/scholarly sustenance of the Pali tradition. There is no evidence that Sri Lankan monks in the 1st century BCE functioned independently or could decide independently what to put into writing and what to retain orally.
The word piṭaka is related to the words peṭaka, peṭikā etc and means a literal physical box or container to store things. In the case of the buddhist canon, they were originally very likely boxes in which manuscripts were filed in order, stored and carried around.
The word Piṭaka is elsewhere in coeval Mauryan era (circa 3rd century BCE) texts such as the Arthaśāstra, Rāmāyaṇa & Mahābhārata, used only in the sense of a physical box. The Arthaśāstra, for example says about implements used normally in in a storehouse:
“tulāmānabhāṇḍaṃ rocanīdṛṣanmusalolūkhalakuṭṭakarocakayantrapattrakaśūrpacālanikākaṇḍolīpiṭakasaṃmārjanyaścopakaraṇāni”
tulā-māna-bhāṇḍaṃ = implements to weigh and measure
rocanī-dṛṣad = grinding mill stones
musala-ulūkhala = mortars and pestles
kuṭṭaka-rocaka-yantra = machines for pounding and grinding
pattraka = sheets
śūrpa = winnowing baskets
cālanikā = sieves or strainers
kaṇḍolī = bamboo/cane baskets (used for grains) piṭaka = boxes
saṃmārjanī = brooms
ca upakaraṇāni = (are the) implements used.
Recitation of suttas (as part of a group or as an individual) would have meant reading them out from such manuscripts (not from memory). There is no unambiguous proof (or even claim mentioned anywhere) that early-Buddhists were reciting large parts of the canon from memory.
Do you see all these problems that I see in just these 2 verses? Do you see why I think they aren’t actually anything to do with history but simply a made up story?
That is not correct - they are prominent personalities of Brahmanism from the late-Vedic era.
Kaṇhadīpāyana is the pāli spelling of Kṛṣṇa-Dvaipāyana, to whom the authorship of the Mahābhārata is attributed.
Asita-Devala is also a well known sage and he figures in the Mahabharata and a few other texts of the early Buddhist era, and to him the authorship of Devala-smṛti (a dharmaśāstra text like the Manusmṛti) is attributed.
The story of Kaṇha (Skt. Kṛṣṇa) in DN3 is a cooked up story intended to justify the patronymic Kaṇhāyana. There is no gotra called Kaṇhāyana, Ambaṭṭha was rather from the lineage of Kāṇva (therefore he was a Kāṇvāyana).
The comments “These are mysterious sages, associated with the south, with dark skin, and with magical powers, who irrupt in contention with existing norms. Doubtless it is correct to associate them with native wisdom men rather than Brahmanical rishis” are all misconceived.
I haven’t looked much into these figures in Sanskrit traditions, so speak mostly from their roles as portrayed in Buddhism. But just please, your information and perspective is helpful, blanket dismissal is not.
He’s a character in the Mahābhārata, authorship is attributed much later so far as I can see. Do you see any connection apart from the name? I’m not familiar enough to be able to say.
Now, just quickly checking his story, he was the son of a Vedic rishi Parashara with a local fisherwoman, thus (as in DN 3) the offspring of a violation of caste rules. He had to be hidden in an island, and was named for his dark complexion—again as in DN 3, as a son of a native woman—and hiding place. Parashara then magically restored her virginity. Lucky her, I guess. Very mysterious! Anyway, she marries a king, and is associated with a complex story about royal lineages, and ultimately she gets her son Kaṇhadīpāyana to magically impregnate royal widows.
Thus his story is bound up with anxieties over bloodlines and lineage, and well suits the dark hermit archetype.
I’m not so much interested in what later traditions say about these, as that is often a lot! But as I note on MN 93,
“Asita Devala is probably meant to be the legendary seer known as Asita or Devala son of Kāśyapa who composed Rig Veda 9.5–24, although they seem to share little but the name”.
Again, are you aware of anything they share in common?
Thanks for the link. The story is, in fact, a typical “dark hermit” narrative.
When Asita met Jaigīṣavya, whose powers are deliberately presented as mysterious, he traveled to the sea (to the south), after which he evolved from Vedic ritualism to develop tapas, yoga, and renunciation as a sannyasin, all ascetic practices adopted as the late Vedic tradition fused with local practices. By ascending to the Brahma realm he shows the superiority of yoga as opposed to the soma rituals of his Vedic verses.
Any other examples you know of would be most welcome.
I just stumbled on an interesting detail, Asita’s teacher Jaigīṣavya is mentioned in the Buddhacarita. There, Udraka Ramaputra has just taught the jhanas for the attainment of the Brahmaloka, and says that the seers Jaigīṣavya, Janaka, and Vṛddha Parāśara have all done the same. The note identifies Vṛddha Parāśara with Pañcaśikha and says they are all Samkhya sages.
Another detail, Devi Bhagavata Purana says “the great Yogi Śaṅkhacūḍa obtained the Kṛṣṇa Mantra from Mahaṛṣi Jaigīṣavya”. Again Jaigīṣavya, who so far as I know has no Vedic antecedent, is association with introducing mysterious “dark” powers into the Vedic tradition, just as the Brahma mantra is introduced via Krishna in DN 3.
As opposed to the sober, journalistic history of the Mahabharata passage you just posted? Fun fact, most mythology is “cooked up stories”, including those in Sanskrit.
Do you have a source for this?
Or, and hear me out here, they are all true, and the Pali texts offer an earlier and more authentic presentation of the changes in the culture that were happening at the time, which have been smoothed away in later Brahmanical mythologizing.
Yes, he is. So are Yājñavalkya, Śākalya (author of the Ṛgveda Padapāṭha), many upanishadic teachers like Upamanyu, Uddālaka, Śvetaketu, etc (whose names occur in the upaniṣads), many Vedic Ṛṣis who authored vedic hymns, many pre-Buddhist kings (mentioned in the several vedic brahmana texts), and many other historical personages of the late vedic era - they all appear in the Mahābhārata, and their stories are quasi-real to varying levels.
In the Mahābhārata Dvaipāyana is mentioned about 85 times (in 13 of the 18 books therein) by that name. He is the only one who is attested by that surname as well (it is not a common surname) – the Pali EBTs therefore were not talking about another Ṛṣi Kṛṣṇa-Dvaipāyana of the same name, just as they were not talking about another Ajātaśatru or another Udāyī-Bhadra.
There were no parallel Buddhist societies or people bearing the same names. Just as pre-existing Brahmanical religion, gods, philosophical concepts were redefined and borrowed by early Buddhism, the people found in Brahmanical texts (such as Ikṣvāku etc), were also borrowed and their personalities redefined to suit new narratives in early-Buddhist texts i.e. they were depicted as early Buddhists themselves, or as people favourable to Buddhism. How much of it is genuine belief is open to disagreement.
His other patronymic Pārāśarya (i.e. descendant of the Brahmin Parāśara) is also found separately attested in the Pāli canon, as I mentioned earlier. So he and his lineage are not so mysterious or contentional to mainstream brahmanical circles as you imagine. Neither did he irrupt in contention with his father, his clan, or with other Brahmins or their mainstream culture and religion - nor did they irrupt in contention with him (as far as the literary evidence goes). So the dark native hermit appellation doesnt apply to him, all you are going by evidently is just the meaning of the name Kṛṣṇa, which means dark. Having dark skin (even if that was why he was named as such - which itself is not beyond doubt) is not a proof that he was not a mainstream Indo-Aryan brahmin. Skin colour was not such a big thing as you take it to be.
I am not sure what caste rules you have in mind (and whether they did exist or apply at the time of his birth). Having a Brahmin father and a Śūdra mother was not encouraged, but were still considered anuloma (allowable/tolerable i.e. they weren’t considered as proscribed or being a violation). Gotras were (and are) invariably passed patrilineally, not matrilineally - so the fact that he had a Brahmin Ṛṣi (Parāśara) as his father and a fisherwoman as his mother by itself wouldn’t have caused him to become any such thing as what you call a “native dark hermit”. Such a thing as a native dark hermit was not even recognized to be a thing back then (and such a concept is not referred to in any original literature that I have read). In the Vedic period anuloma marriages where the men married women of any class was not so uncommon even for brahmins - it became less usual later in the common era.
Being a fisherwomn (or belonging to other working-class communities) were ipso-facto not proof of their being non Indo-Aryans - which you call ‘natives’ and ‘locals’ - thereby also apparently implying that the Brahmins (and other Indo-Aryans) were not natives or locals.
In the time of the Buddha - the Indo-Aryans had been in India for at least 1000-1500 years if not more. Therefore I dont think making such nativity distinctions is meaningful or appropriate after such a long period (as much as it would not be appropriate to today brand modern Englishmen living in England non-natives, or to call the Celtic speakers natives in contrast to people of Anglo-Saxon heritage, just because 1500 years ago their Anglo-Saxon ancestors migrated and settled in England from abroad).
In India, such questions of root identity are deeply politically divisive and sensitive (and have their roots in colonial divide-and-rule policy - it pits Indians against Indians to brand some of their mainstream cultures and histories native and others as non-native) - generates much resentment and feeds Nazi-ish genocidal narratives against modern Brahmins in particular. I am sure you dont want to put your foot into all that - so please dont make controversial comments on politically and culturally sensitive topics.
The Indo-Aryans had conclusively been Indians for over a millenium before the Buddha - so there it should be allowed to rest - unless you want to intentionally provoke some Indians politcally and culturally by insinuating that their ancestors weren’t “native” to India in the time of the Buddha (who was himself Indo-Aryan from a Brahmanical or Aristocratic background). It doesnt add to the quality of the discussion either. Please use neutral terms like Indo-Aryan and non-Indo-Aryan if you want to show such nuances.
The translation of kaṇha-dīpāyana as “Dark-Light” is not correct as the word “dīpāyana” does not mean “light” (and the words ‘dark-light’ are a contradiction in terms). Rather it means “one born in an island” (the word Dvaipāyana is semantically deconstructed in Sanskrit as dvīpaṃ ayanaṃ utpattisthānaṃ yasya saḥ). The idea that he would have been the son of a fisherwoman would have been a later mythology to explain why his surname name meant “born in an island” - the story of his birth very likely did not precede his name - and using the mythological story of his fisherwoman mother to claim that he was a “native dark hermit” is problematic from many different angles.
Moreover,
the story of his imprecation leading to the demise of the entire Vṛṣṇi clan is told in the Mahābhārata – cf. mausale vṛṣṇivīrāṇāṃ vināśo brahmaśāpajaḥ
His name is also mentioned in the Arthaśāstra in connection with the same incident – harṣād vātāpir agastyam atyāsādayan vṛṣṇisaṃghaśca dvaipāyanam
the same incident is also told in the Pāli Jātaka verses (Saṅkiccajātaka) - kaṇhadīpāyanāsajja , isiṁ andhakaveṇḍayo ,
aññoññaṁ musalā hantvā , sampattā yamasādhanaṁ .
(“being imprecated by the Ṛṣi Kṛṣṇa-Dvaipāyana, the andhaka-vṛṣṇi clan killed one another with clubs and reached Yama’s abode i.e. the world of the dead”).
the andhaka-vṛṣṇis were historical late-vedic clans also mentioned by Pāṇini in his Aṣṭādhyāyi sūtra 4.1.114. ṛṣy-andhaka-vṛṣṇi-kurubhyaś-ca (where he talks about certain grammatical rules to be applied for certain clan names)
So it is clear that the Pāli canon is talking about the same person as the Mahābhārata (and very likely has borrowed the character from the Mahābhārata). Therefore it’s not true that the Pali texts are either earlier or more authentic in their portrayal of anyone (except their portrayal of early-Buddhists). In some cases, Pali sources could possibly be earlier or more authentic - but not across the board.
Not quite. The anxieties you mention were rather for the royal women who feared their children wouldn’t be recognized as royals under normative patrilineal primogeniture (and therefore unfit to rule a Kingdom) if they didnt have royal bloodlines - as a result of being fathered by a Brahmin. That has nothing to do with any dark hermit archetype for Dvaipāyana himself.
How do you come to that conclusion - and where do you find evidence for the authorship of the Mahābhārata being attributed to anybody else (or nobody else) before being attributed to him (and when and why did such a change of attribution happen)?
No - that mysterious and distinct origin that you take for granted is not so self-evident. You will need to show independently that there were once ascetic traditions independent of Vedic sources (practiced by non-Indo-Aryan people in India), and that they fused together, and that the historically attested ascetic traditions of the late-vedic period are the result of such fusing. I am a south Indian myself and I have a fair idea of what mainstream non-Indo-Aryan culture looks like (and must have looked like in the Buddha’s time) in India, and I am not convinced of the historicity of any such native (non-Indo-Aryan) dark hermit traditions that you posit. As a matter of fact, practically all such early ascetic traditions (or at any rate all those falling under the rubric of Hinduism) and all their core early texts are attributed to brahmin figures - and are invariably written in Sanskrit. There is no evidence of any merger of disparate cultural sources that is self-evident from the mere fact of their philosophical diversity (or the mere fact of their scholastic opposition to one another or to specific aspects of the early-Vedic ritualism). The Sankhya, the Yoga, the Vedanta, etc are all Brahmanical traditions from the beginning - that doesnt mean that other classes of Indo-Aryan society (apart from Brahmins) didnt learn them in Sanskrit, or practice them, or even contribute to them. Even early-Buddhism and early-Jainism are predominantly or exclusively Indo-Aryan in origins.
Travelling to the sea does not ipso facto mean travelling south - as India has the sea on 3 of its four cardinal directions. Jaigīṣavya’s ṛddhi or supernatural powers (iddhi in Pāli) and his departure to the world of Brahman (as recounted in the Mahābhārata) is because he was more spiritually and religiously accomplished than Devala and is not an evidence of his mysterious origins, southern origins, non-Indo-Aryan origins, dark hermithood etc. Jaigīṣavya is evidently an Indo-Aryan kṣatriya patronymic (meaning son of a jigīṣu - jigīṣu means “one who wishes for victory” and is usually an epithet for someone royal).
Yes, the Bhaiṣajyavastu in the Tibetan Kangyur (based on originally Mūlasarvāstivādan sanskrit sources) recounts the Ambattha sutta (DN3) where - upon being asked of his family name - he says it is ‘Kāṇvāyana’ - which is a historically valid brahmin surname. So the Pāli account appears less authentic in this respect as there is no attested evidence of any brahmin clan called kaṇhāyana - while there were definitely kāṇvāyanas (descendants of the Ṛgvedic Ṛṣi Kaṇva) in that period. There is even a Kāṇva-śākhā version of the Śatapatha-Brāhmaṇa and the Bṛhadāraṇyaka-Upaniṣad still available (apart from the Mādhyandina-Śākhā version that we usually find translated online).
No it is not. It is a Sanskrit word borrowed into Tamil (and other Dravidian languages).
The word Jaṭila is a taddhita derivative from jaṭā + ilaC pratyaya. The grammatical formation (and semantic scope) of jaṭila, and other similar words such as phenila, lomila, kapila, sikatila, tundila etc. - is described by Pāṇini in the Aṣṭādhyāyī sūtra 5.2.99 phenādilac ca.
The noun jaṭā (on which the taddhita derivative jaṭila is based) is also a Sanskrit word (attested in both BCE & CE texts) – and is considered Indo-Aryan by Prof. Mayrhofer in his etymological dictionary of Sanskrit – “Nebenformen wie *jaṭṭa-, *jāṭā- (Tu, a.a.O.), ep. kl. saṭā- (KEWA
III 420) wurden als Indizien für nicht-Indoeuropäer. ursprung herangezogen (Lit. in KEWA I 413, Tu 5086); die dravid. wortsippe von ta. caṭai ‘Haarlocken’ wird jetzt jedoch als indoar. entlehnung im Dravid.” (Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen, vol 1, page 564).
One of the methods in the Oral-Transmission tradition of the Vedas is called the Jaṭā-pāṭha (literally “braided recitation”).
The Madras University Tamil Lexicon also considers both of them loanwords from the Sanskrit (as there is no way to explain their etymology and grammatical form in Tamil).
சடிலம் caṭilam , n . < jaṭila 1. Closeness, thickness; denseness, as of hair, foliage;
சடை⁴ caṭai , n . < jaṭā . 1. Matted locks of hair; சடையாக அமைந்த மயிர்முடி. விரிசடைப் பொறையூழ்த்து (பரிபா. 9, 5). 2. Plaited hair; பின்னியகூந்தல். (பிங்.) 3. Bushy, shaggy or thick hair; அடர்ந்த மயிர்.
It is absolutely the case that when studying ancient European mythology, the introduction of the languages, customs, and stories of the Indo-Aryans into the pre-existing European cultures is a critical lens through which to understand the dynamics and changes.
Historical scholarship isn’t the problem. Hindutva fundamentalism is.
Thanks! That’s a great sign of a scholar of care and integrity.
Hi I’ve just read Chapter One of this book and the opening paragraph is intriguing to say the least:
Its first section deals with the history of early Buddhism which was largely written by Brahmans centuries after the Buddha lived. Although the Buddha came from a mixed ethnic and linguistic background, much of his background has been obscured by a Brahmanical overprint which obfuscates his connection with the indigenous tribes and presents the Buddha as an exclusive product of an Indo-Aryan Brahmanical culture.
And then later on:
For the Sakyas were historically a Dravidian and/or Munda speaking group—or perhaps more accurately described, based on the proportions of words borrowed into Pāli, as a Dravidian speaking group with a Munda substrate—and the Buddha almost certainly taught them in their own language, but none of his teachings have survived except the loan-words borrowed into Middle Indic.
Is Levman claiming that the sutta piṭaka is incomplete and only contains teachings which have been delivered in Pali, and excludes teachings delivered in other languages?
Up till now I thought conventional wisdom was that the Buddha may have taught in a variety of languages, but they were all homogenised/translated into Pali in the sutta piṭaka. If only the Pali teachings have been retained and the other teachings “lost” that would be sad indeed, but understandable.
As I said, I think this is somewhat of a straw-man argument. It’s true in popular culture, but in scholarly circles, while the pre-IE links are doubtless understudied, no-one really contests that they are there. There is, for example, the influential theory of “Greater Magadha” by Bronkhorst, which again i find to be overblown, but which argues that the region was dominated by the pre-IA culture and Brahmanization came later.
The wording is confusing, but I think he’s saying that he would have taught the Sakyans in Dravidian, but none of those Dravidian teachings have survived. Generally he argues the Buddha, or at least the early community, used a koine.
Indeed, something like that. Personally I think it would be almost impossible for him not to use different dialects. Pretty much most people do, especially if you’re travelling among regions for most of your life.
Thanks, there seems to be a thread amongst scholars such as Gombrich, Polak etc. to imply that the “Brahmanisation” of the Buddha’s heritage came later, and brahmanic and Vedic references were added to the suttas at a much later stage.
I find the idea that there was a koine interesting, and in countries like Malaysia it is common to intermix words from multiple languages into a kind of common language that was intelligible to multiple races and cultures, but I certainly would not want to teach a soteriology in that way!
It’s also interesting that amongst modern Indians I detect a tendency to use English as a koine when Indians from different backgrounds communicate with each other.
In some of the suttas with obvious brahmanic references it seems that the Buddha had a deep knowledge of Vedic texts, or someone else with a deep knowledge of Vedic texts inserted them later and attributed them to the Buddha, and I wonder how someone without such a knowledge can possibly hope to interpret these texts correctly, and realise the “Buddha” was criticising and parodying them.
I am now reading Chapter Two, and whilst Levman’s discussion of the possible Dravidian origins of various words is compelling, it doesn’t necessarily imply there was a koine and could equally be evidence of an original Dravidian passage translated into Pali with the help of loan words.
Indeed. I hope Lauren Bausch’s work, and also my own, puts this to rest.
The problem is that later Buddhist traditions were uninterested in Brahmanism and lost such detailed knowledge. Of course they would have known basic things, but the commentary often completely misses references.
Malaysian language is so complex. In a way, yes, there’s a common language, but isn’t it also highly personalized, especially in more diverse places like KL or Penang? It seems to me that people pick up on, say, what Chinese dialect the person they’re speaking to uses, or the degree to which they’re fluent in Bahasa or English, and mixes those words and references in. And it can vary completely with the next speaker!
It is very individualistic, and yet more uniform that you might think. For example, I discovered even speakers from East vs West Malaysia can understand each other perfectly and there are enough common cultural context to enable communication.
Of course, a Chinese speaker from Penang is more likely to interject Hokkien words in the conversation and a speaker from KL is more likely to add Cantonese words, but somehow they would both understand each other perfectly. And of course, the ability to swear in multiple languages is an ability that many possess!
It’s also interesting that many Pali words made it into Malay/Indonesian (utara, bhumi as well the more obvious raja, putera/puteri, etc.) and I guess the region would have been Buddhist/Hindu at one point before converting to Islam.
So I do find the idea of a koine not too outlandish, and it would have been invented by traders and merchants carrying goods across towns and villages. The Buddha in his travels would have no doubt picked it up and used it. Pali itself could have evolved out of this koine, with some Sanskritisation and standardisation of technical terms.
How this happens is honestly kind of mystifying to someone who grew up in a monolingual society. Except the last part, which to an Australian makes perfect sense!
Right, but that’s not what Levman means by a koine.
That would require that, say, all Chinese speakers—leaving aside the difficulties of differing language groups—used the same pronunciation, something like a hyper-Mandarin, which comes closest to the ideal of a koine. This form would a reduced version possessing the common features of all.
So the word for Buddha might be fo. Everyone would say that. Then a later generation would “translate” it into dialects to produce fut, fat, put, and so on.
It’s actually the opposite of a polyglot language that is mixed and remixed ad hoc.
Yes, but what I find interesting is the tendency for Malaysians to use the grammatical constructs for one language, and apply it to words from another language.
For example, in Malay there is a tendency to repeat a word for emphasis or to signify plurality, Malaysians will often repeat words in English or various Chinese dialects for the same effect, and this grammatical construct is understood (and appreciated) by the other speaker. For example instead of saying “boleh boleh” the speaker will just substitute the English word: “can can”, signifying assent or agreement to do an action. I’ve even heard Chinese speakers use the repeating pattern on Chinese words when speaking to another Chinese speaker.
Or adding the English “-ing” affix to Malay words, or the Malay “ber-” prefix to English words, etc. Or, for even greater emphasis, the use of both on a word (of any language) to emphasise an action is in progress.
Sometimes, an English affix can even be attached to an English word creating a new word (not actually present in “proper” English) with a new meaning. For example, the word “actsy” or “act-sy” signifying someone who is full of themselves or a bit conceited.
So it’s not just intermixing of words, it’s a creation of a quasi common language with a unique superset of grammatical constructs.
To me, this seems similar to the “koine” examples cited by Levman. So I find it plausible for example Sanskrit or Pali case endings could be applied to a Dravidian word, and the result will be intelligible.
