The Mahākaccāna theory of Theravadin origins

I had a similar impulse and was surprised to discover that he was a Nazi! I was familiar with Julius Evola’s fascist sympathies, but did not realise that a scholar of the calibre of Frauwallner was tainted to such a great extent.

Not really relevant to his scholarship or the discussion at hand, but there you are.

Metta

Hmm yes you’re right!

Uggh, why though? Wikipedia has a pretty good summary:

The question for the history of scholarship is, to what extent did his Nazi beliefs impact on his indological scholarship and his views about the history of Indian philosophy? This question has been taken up by Professors Karin Preisendanz and Eli Franco and others.[6] The general conclusion is that there are aspects of Frauwallner’s history of philosophy that are untrustworthy because of his racist presuppositions, and especially his tendency to consider that thinkers may never change their minds,[7] and to see philosophical viewpoints as arising out of “soil and blood” in an essentialist manner. Frauwallner also tended to construct historical narratives using the nineteenth-century concept of degeneration to argue that simple, original, pure forms of philosophy gradually changed into more complex, degenerate forms, identifying complexity with decadence.[8] Such a-priori interpretative schemes are no longer acceptable in the contemporary academy.

There’s definitely a harshness and dismissiveness in Frauwallner’s interpretations. He is not reading empathetically. But in terms of the facts of the matter, he’s still an excellent scholar. It is only a shame that, all these years later, there is still no other equally useful general survey.

I think the difference is that Evola was a fascist philosopher who used Buddhism to bolster his fascism. Frauwallner was an Indological scholar whose Nazism tainted his Indological scholarship.

It’s such a burden, but I deal with it.

4 Likes