I thought this was a very interesting interview and overview about early Buddhism and the status of early Buddhist texts/practices: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xG5u1KZRUdc
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Can you give us a synopsis of what the video is about and what your thoughts are about it?
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Sure! Dr. Donnelly discusses the diversity of early Buddhist texts, the range of Buddhist practices, and stresses how we should think about Buddhisms, rather than Buddhism. He thinks highly of Bhikku Analayo and his critical work. He provides a strong argument for ecumenism, for the centrality of practice over dogma, that we cannot ever know what the Buddha actually said (but can feel certain about general central themes), that fantastical elements of Buddhism (in the early, Mahayana, and Vajrayana scriptures) should not be ignored, and the ultimate importance of being an honest practitioner of whatever form of Buddhism one is practicing. The overarching theme, though, is that we have to be honest and realistic about having to persist with our practices, despite being unable to know, precisely, what early Buddhism was. His take on early Buddhism was already known to me, but I greatly appreciate the use of our ignorance about early Buddhism and the reality of Buddhisms (not Buddhism) as grounds for strong ecumenism.
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Hi BGP. Donnelly relying on Nagarjuna is not the ideal foundation for academic objectivity because Nagarjuna’s theories on dependent origination, emptiness and sabhava are questionable and have been discredited by many. For example,Nagarjuna uses sabhava to mean “self” and created the opposite dualistic term of “parabhāva” however the Sarvāstivāda and other sectarian schools he was opposing probably had no concept of “parabhava” and only used the concept of “sabhava” to refer to “function (kāritra)” and “substance (dravya)”. “Sabhava” is even found earlier in the Pali Milindapanha and does not have the meaning which Nagarjuna asserts. As soon as a person such as Donnelly grounds themself in Nagarjuna it is highly arguable they have become heavily sectarian. In the video, Donnelly is mostly speaking in very broad unspecific often cliched generalisations. The only specific doctrine Donnelly has spoken are by Nagarjuna. 
Donnelly’s statement “Nagarjuna was repackaging the Nikayas” is tenuous because Nagarjuna made statements contrary to the Nikayas such as:
“There is nothing whatsoever separating saṃsāra from nirvāṇa; there is nothing whatsoever separating nirvāṇa from saṃsāra.”
“Since there is no phenomenon whatsoever that is not dependently originated, for that reason, there is no phenomenon whatsoever that is not empty.”
“Whatever that exists in terms of self-nature (svabhavena), that is not non-existent’’ implies eternalism (sasvatam)…
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Whether any of this directly contradicts the Nikayas is highly debatable. I believe it is on the forum I saw Bhante @sujato himself address Nagarjuna’s statements you cite there and show how they’re not really opposed to the teachings of the Buddha, but opposed to the Sarvastivadin’s views, expressed in the Abhidharma. Bhante offers a reading of Nagarjuna’s words himself. I should search for a link, but I have to just post a quick reply now…
PS: Looking for the sais statements by Bhante
and the post I was talking about: Nibbāna === saṃsāra? - #9 by sujato
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Hi Bion. Bhante’s discussion here is beyond my range. I have no beginning point of knowing how “koti” is used broadly in Mahayana. Nagarjuna refers to “koti” instead of “pubbakoti”. Also I would like to know where the Suttas say, when someone becomes enlightened, they neither take away from samsara. If I was not clear in my previous post, if, in the Nikayas, Nibbana is not dependently originated, this would be contrary to Nagarjuna’s viewpoint; unless it is argued Nibbana is not a ‘phenomena’(dharmaḥ). Also, the Nikayas use sabhava to mean real nature rather than self-nature. Since sabhvava in the Nikayas means ‘real nature’, it would not be related to eternalism as Nagarjuna said.
“There is figurative teaching,
“Pariyāyabhāsitaṁ atthi,
there is referential teaching;
atthi sandhāyabhāsitaṁ;
There is literal teaching,
Sabhāvabhāsitaṁ atthi,in the dispensation of the King of Dhamma.
dhammarājassa sāsane.Mil 4.1
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I am sorry; I am not sure we’re talking here about the same thing. Nagarjuna was not criticizing the Nikayas, but the Sarvastivadin interpretation of them, in their Abhidhamma. For them, svabhava meant intrinsic nature or own-nature, or the unique, defining characteristic that makes a fundamental mental or physical dharma - a real, distinct, and ultimate reality. They were literally inserting a self back into Buddhism.
Also, to speak of Nibbana as a phenomenon, one has, in my understanding, to be careful. Nibbana occurs because of practice, and does not occur without it, without a body, a mind, awareness, sati etc.. In that sense, its attainment depends upon certain factors. However Nibbana , extinguishment, is not a thing, but an occurence, an experience. it is the lack of greed, anger, ignorance… It is experienced by the mind. Without a body-mind to experience greed, anger, ignorance, there can be no experience of the cessation of greed, anger and ignorance. In that sense, as Nagarjuna says, what is the difference between Nirvana and Samsara? Are they “made” of a different substance?
I’ve seen folks even here, on this forum, who reify Nibbana, make it into a thing that “exists”, where people’s “souls” float away when they die, or something like that. I think that misses the mark quite a bit.
However, I am not the most learned…
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I listened to about 2/3 of the video before I ran out of time to listen, so I didn’t get all of it. Both of these men seem to be active and devoted practitioners out of love for the Dhamma, so I don’t intend to make any judgements, as I know nothing about them and am not qualified to or have any interest in making these kinds of judgements.
My takeaway was that they were discussing the differentiation between the quest of discovering, separating and verifying the base original, pure, unsullied texts of the Buddha and the quest of tracing the schools back to a time where everyone was pretty much on the same page with the Buddha’s teachings but just had different ways of expressing and practicing “Buddhism”. The ultimate goal being to really find a universal Buddhism that’s true to the original. Personally, I see those two pursuits as being less productive than basing one’s practice on the obvious core teachings that lead to the end of dukkha and putting those into practice.
One of the things that struck me is that one of them described the roots of their Buddhist journey began with the books of the Dalai Lama, buddhanet online and the works of Nagarjuna around momentariness. In my mind, these sources would be less about the 37 Wings/Aids to Awakening and more about rituals, mantras and tantric yogic kinds of practices rather than the teachings I read about in the suttas. I think that some people are attracted to philosophy and so the philosophical pursuit of Buddhisms and those kinds of practices are meaningful to them.
In the video, the host said that it’s vitally important that we concentrate on the Four Seals, the culmination of the main teachings of the Buddha. He goes on to define these main teachings as Impermanence, the nature of dukkha, emptiness and the understanding that nirvana is beyond concepts. Hmmm. That wouldn’t be my list.
What came to mind for me while listening was “Youse are reading too many Dhamma books”
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It sounds like they come to the same basic conclusions that I have over the past five or six years. Anyone who looks at the multiple early sources that still exist deeply comes away with the sense that what we have are remnants and echoes of the earliest Buddhism before it spread to multiple regions and developed into multiple traditions. I think there was an “original” Buddhism, but it quickly grew into multiple Buddhism-s before it could be fully curated. The oral tradition early on must have been more informal than we prefer to think of it, too. There are cases of widely different narratives that still present the same basic teachings and events. At the end of the day, truths to early Buddhists did not rely on precise wording, but were meanings that could be expressed in different ways, and that was normal to them.
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Hi. The assertion sabhava is eternalism is contrary to the Nikayas, regardless of if Nagarjuna was addressing the Nikayas or not. In the Nikayas, eternalism expresses a contextual type of self-view (SN 12.17; SN 44.10); wherea as sabhava does not refer to a view of self (Mil.90, Mil.212, Mil.360).
This appears consistent with the Nikayas (Mil.90, Mil.212, Mil.360). Even in the primary suttas where the term sabhava is not found, the Buddha consistently described unique, defining characteristics of phenomena (examples MN 115; SN 22.79).
Real distinct nature in the Nikayas does not necessarily imply self. It is quite obvious from standard discussions that Nagarjuna asserted both the emptiness of self and emptiness of things, of which the later is contrary to the Nikayas.
In the Nikayas, Nibbana is an element (dhatu) independent of practice (Iti 44) and independent of how many arahants may realise or enter into it (AN 8.19).
For all the world’s streams that reach it, and the showers that fall from the sky, the ocean never empties or fills up. In the same way, though several mendicants become fully extinguished in the element of extinguishment with no residue, the element of extinguishment never empties or fills up. AN 8.19
Nibbana is described the same as the unconditioned (SN 43.12).
The Nikayas say Nibbana “exists” - “Atthi, bhikkhave, tadāyatanaṁ” - Ud 8.1.
It may be an interesting research project to analyse if some common sutta words such as yathābhūta (as used in SN 22.55) have common traits to the Mil.90, Mil.212, Mil.360 usage of sabhava and to compare the common root words bhuta and bhava (which is beyond me ).
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Yes, that was my take after watching this with great interest to hear a perspective I knew was going to be different to mine (as I was aware of some of his views previously, although I havent read anything from him!). I dont think there was anything Earth shattering here, but loved “Buddhisms” instead of “Buddhism” as I have thought there is no such thing as “Buddhism” or “Buddhist” for a while. I was chatting to a monastic re: their thoughts about the Mahayana scrolls being found in the Gandharan baskets, the oldest Theravadan scriptures ever found sitting in the same basket as Mahayana scrolls) and he pointed out that if someone excavated my house in two thousand years and found my handwritten autobiography sitting next to Shakespearean plays that doesnt mean he was my contemporary. The evidence that the Theravadan scriptures predate the Mahayanan (and other) “Buddhist” scriptures comes from other evidence (some refer to others but not vice versa etc). Unfortunately, there wasnt much discussion about that as both in this video said that those matters did not interest them at all. What the Buddha actually said and what was added by others interests me a great deal, but we are not going to be able to tell for sure from the current evidence (likely there is no way to know now unless a Deva brings down one of their copies as a gift to us perhaps 
)
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A quick OT question
I’d be interested if anyone could point me to where in the Nikayas it claims that things aren’t empty.
just going to be boring and restate some things from my research, all of which is here somewhere or other, but it is textually inescapable that the silakhandhavagga predates the vast majority of prose in the nikayas and that when read in parallel in pali, chinese and sanskrit that it predates the 4 noble truths, the eightfold path, the 12 links and the 5 aggregates, none of which it mentions exept in interpolations for which there are no direct parallels..
It predates these concepts not just in technical vocabulary but in the actual language.
It is also without question a “late” set of texts, composed around a common prose base, describing what was already an immemorialised way of life.
The earliest strata of buddhism we have is the early metrical material, and the metrical material most likely to be early is in the central parts of the atthakavagga and parayanavagga, and in the tristubs in the dhammapadas.
Much of this material has nothing particularly “buddhist” about it.
If there was a “buddha” and he taught people, that was the “original” buddhism.
I know of no compelling evidence that such a person existed. and no evidence that “buddhists” existed for at least hundreds of years past the period of composition of the earliest tristubs, many of which are preserved in what we now call “Jain” or even “Hindu” or “Classical” texts.
Metta.
Oh, and in the broader sweep of the tristup the 4 central chapters of the atthakavagga is almost certainly the earliest example of a distinctly “Buddhist” text we have, and it is almost certainly a late expression of the tristup compared to the Rg Veda where the tristup line varied more freely and across several forms of the line.
I am unaware of any more sustained use of the indravajra tristup with indravajra and indravamsa variant, and with the absence of jagati lines, subsequent to this work, and before it only the Vedic.
I think it is perfectly reasonable to take the sillakandha - nirodha and the 4 octects as the literal constitution of “distinctively buddhist in some sense” literature.
and to situate the prose as a secondary commentary on the metrical material, although what exact metrical material and the etent of it is difficult to judge, and to place that metrical materail somewhere at the end of the Mandala 10 Vedic materiel and before the beginning of more or less any classical sanskrit source.
so in the ballpark of circa 500bce give or take a century
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I wonder if this is relevant to the discussion:
“We know, and have known for some time that the Pāli canon as we have it – and it is generally conceded to be our oldest source – cannot be taken back further than the last quarter of the first century B.C.E., the date of the Alu-vihāra redaction, the earliest redaction that we can have some knowledge of, and that – for a critical history – it can serve, at the very most, only as a source for Buddhism of this period. But we also know that even this is problematic since, as Malalasekera has pointed out: “ … how far the Tipiṭaka and its commentary reduced to writing at Alu-vihāra resembled them as they have come down to us now, no one can say.” In fact, it is not until the time of the commentaries of Buddhaghosa, Dhammapāla, and others – that is to say, the fifth to sixth centuries C.E. – that we can know anything definite about the actual contents of this canon. We also know that there is no evidence to indicate that a canon existed prior to the Alu-vihāra redaction.”
Gregory Schopen, “Two Problems in the History of Indian Buddhism The Layman/Monk Distinction and the Doctrines of the Transference of Merit” in Indian Monastic Buddhism Collected Papers on Textual, Inscriptional and Archaelogical Evidence (New Delhi, India: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 2010), 23-24.
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That quote is somewhat outdated now I think.
Gandaharan finds imply a canon with at least the antiquity of the 1st century bce that tracks what is in the Pali and likewise both track what is appearing in Chinese from the 1st-2nd century ce.
This is now just false, there is overwhelming evidence that the collections of long, middle, connected and numbered discourses existed, with contents very close to that shared between the Chinese, Sandkrit, Pali, Gandaharan etc, and that they certainly go back to prior to the 1st century bce.
It is true there is no physical record of anything other than a handful of titles, speculatively attached to various candidate texts, from the reign of Ashoka in mid 3rd century bce, so there is a lengthy period from then to the earliest extant texts in the 1st century bce, however this is not surprising given the historical circumstances.
So what can still be said is that there is very little physical examples of Buddhist religious texts of any sort prior to the 1st century bce, but now we do have physical specimens of many of those texts, and they provide evidence not just of pali-style nikaya/agama works but also of proto-Mahayana, commentarial, and abbhidhammic type texts. (very little evidence of Vinaya style texts as far as I am aware).
This material amply demonstrates that a huge shared body of stories, poems, commentary etc existed in a very well developed state, even including “canonical” divisions, by that time.
To suggest that is could all have just appeared whole in that century or immediately before it is silly.
the earliest metrical material is recognizably more regularized than vedic and recognizably more archaic than classical sanskrit and can be placed on those ground centuries earlier than the 1st c bce.
by about 200ce we have masses of chinese “translations” that abundantly confirm an ancient, continuous tradition of Buddhist “texts”.
Schopen, taken out of context sound as if he is arguing that the texts could have been invented out of whole cloth at any time before the last century before the common era. I am almost certain this is not nor ever was his position, and he merely employed incisive argumentation in favor of taking the archaeological, epigraphic, and other physical evidence more seriously.
Since his quote an enormous amount in this direction has been accomplished, including the immensely significant Gandharan finds, amongst others.
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