Okay, I’m reading Jurewicz now and making some remarks along the way.
Another commonality, although less precise, is that the created beings first reflect on Brahma and their status in relation to him.
I think what she’s getting at is that the Upanishads constantly speak of “the unseen seer, the unheard hearer, the unthought thinker, the unknown knower”. The Upanishads and the suttas treat the situation of ordinary cognition as complex and unstable. The Upanishads resolve it by merging into to ocean of consciousness, the suttas by the ending of consciousness.
To phrase the discussion as “subject-object duality” is to introduce an idea from later thought which I would avoid personally. The concept of “object” is just as problematic when applied to Vedism as it is in early Buddhism. The very idea of an “object” is something that exists “objectively”, but in Vedism everything is ultimately an aspect of the self, so that even things that appear to exist externally only do so in a transient way that will ultimately resolve back to the Self. Likewise in the suttas, things externally exist in relation to cognition, not as independent “objects”.
Although I think the phrasing is unfortunate, I don’t think the point she’s getting at is too far off the mark. Of course this is just an aspect of DO, it’s not really the problem DO sets out to solve.
On pg. 171 she says DO is a “simple linear process” which is an oversimplification at best.
One valid point she makes is that the Buddha expressed himself in “explicit language”, this being one of the key features of the Buddha’s teaching as compared to the Vedas and Upanishads (“for the gods love hidden things”, parokṣapriyā iva hi devāḥ).
On avijja she makes the rather subtle but, I think, valid point that asat conveys unknowability. Generally speaking words for knowability and existence are closer in Indic than in English (eg. paññāyati, loka, etc.). Still, it remains the fact that this is not very convincing if considered as a direct response.
More directly, “darkness” is an obvious metaphor for ignorance. The creative power that births the One from darkness is tapas, which regardless of whether it is an actual parallel or not, is functionally equivalent to sankhara in DO, which is oddly not noted by Jurewicz.
In this whole passage she basically discusses only the Satapathabrahmana, which begs the question, what of the Nasadiya? I’m surprised on rereading how little use she actually makes of the Nasadiya. She says that it was the first creation myth, then others followed along the same lines. Okay, there is truth to that, but it also allows her to cherry-pick things she thinks are similar, without really giving due value to the ways the ideas change and evolve, and why they are presented in a certain way in a certain text.
And I agree, the inferences in this passage are absurdly distant. In no way is DO an actual response or polemic related to this passage. At best it shows some contextual usage of saṅkhāra before Buddhism.
On vijñāna, her discussion is based on the Taittiriya Upanishad, again not mentioning the Nasadiya at all, and using a method that actually gives the opposite of an actual parallel. She points to the five koshas, fine, then says we can reverse them to make a cosmogenesis (which, dubious but okay). The problem is that in the direct order mano leads to vijñāna. Now mano is frequently used in active contexts where it has a similar sense to saṅkhāra, and of course we find manosaṅkhāra at this point in DO. So the forward order from mano to vijñāna is in fact similar to DO’s saṅkhāra to viññāṇa, but she flips it for obscure reasons missing the actual parallel to create a false one.
In any case, if it is a parallel it is a slim one.
Again, it seems to me there is a simpler and more direct parallel in the Nasadiya, since the One was birthed by tapas, and that One (= brahman) is elsewhere equated with vijñāna. It’s a pretty small step from tapas (heat) birthing the One, to saṅkhāra (energy) birthing consciousness.
Interesting. It has the sense “to pour out” and clearly invokes the offering of soma to the fire. The Buddha’s terminology is more “scientific”.
The discussion of āyatana refers to two occurrences of the word in a creation myth in the Aitareya Upanishad, where the “senses” find an “abode”, which is the puruṣa. Hmm, interesting. It certainly argues against the implausible commentarial idea that āyatana means “base” as a cause.
Also note that the Sanskrit Cologne dictionary notes a huge range of meanings for āyatana, which it says are mostly attested in Buddhist texts. So it seems that, for whatever reason the Buddha used the term, he did employ it much more prominently.
Right, and even more odd because once again she prefers, like the Vedas themselves, the hidden and obscure to the obvious and clear. It doesn’t take a Buddha to see that desire lies at the root of human activity. And there are countless cases in the Upanishads where thirst motivates creation.
The Aitareya Upanishad, which she has just quoted, is a good example. When the “deities”, i.e. the separate aspects of a sentient beings , still lost and formless in the ocean, experience hunger and thirst, and for this reason He creates the purusha for them, so that they can eat. No need for a detour via a fire metaphor.
I mean fair enough, fire metaphors are common and important, and in some cases clearly draw on a Vedic context (eg. the Aditapariyayasutta). But there’s a difference between postulating an affinity and using this connection to prove a point.
She says (p. 178)
the last three links of the pratityasamutpada evidently may refer to the activity of fire which may come into being, be born, and die because it burns the fuel. This is how the Buddha interpreted it.
To support this rather bold claim, she refers to a Polish translation of a 1924 German article by Oldenberg (!) It’s an odd way to argue, and not really true as it stands. Sure, there’s a metaphorical connection, but DO isn’t talking about fire, and never explains these terms in this way.
On bhava, she refers to a passage where the causative form is used in the sense to “nourish” or “make grow” the child. Okay, but again, bhava has deep roots in the idea “to grow”, so this is hardly a meaningful connection.
She also points a couple of times to usages in later Buddhism as possible correlations, but this is extremely unlikely, as later Buddhists apparently almost entirely worked internally by developing the ideas of the suttas, not responding to Vedism.
More specifically, she says it is “surely significant that the locus classicus for DO is called the mahanidanasutta”. I mean, no? It’s just a long sutta on causality? This is really just cherry-picking off the surface. Anyway, DN 15 is no locus classicus: it’s a late expanded sutta.
I mean, there are just as many parallels with the Genesis story of creation. Creation stories tend to follow a pattern. And that pattern reflects multiple layers of reality in a complex way:
- metaphysical postulation
- evolution of earth and life
- growth of the individual
You can find these layers in pretty much any creation myth. And it also seems to me that, in its own way, DO serves some of the purposes of a creation myth, and echoes these different layers.
Ultimately, I’d have to say I agree with you. I think the correlations she proposes are nowhere near as convincing as she thinks. In many cases it seems to me that we could actually make a stronger and simpler case. Nonetheless, it is still an interesting argument and raises a range of important issues in challenging ways.
