Early Buddhism

Ø  Siddhartha or Gautama Buddha was the founder of Buddhism.

Ø  Buddhism is divided into many philosophical schools and has a vast literature.

Ø  ‘Philosophy purifies none, peace alone does’.

Ø  First Buddhist council was held at Raja-grha to establish the canon of the Vinaya, the discipline or the order. It was divided into Sthavirvāda and Mahāsānghika.

Ø  Second Buddhist council was held at Vaishali to do away with the ten controversial points of the Vinaya.

Ø  The third Buddhist council was summoned by Ashoka, the great, at Pataliputra in which about one thousand monks participated. Its object was to compile a canon of the Doctrine of the Elders (Sthaviravāda).  The present Pali canon was probably compiled by this council. Gradually Sthaviravada was divided into eleven and the other into nine schools, thus making the twenty schools of Hinayana mentioned by Vasumitra. The most important school of Hinayāna was Sarvāstivāda.

Ø  The fourth Buddhist council was held in the first or second century A.D. under king Kaniska to reconsider and compile the tenents of Sarvāstivāda school.

Ø  The Pāli canon is called Tipitaka or the three baskets:

a.       Vinaypitaka: it deals with the discipline of the order.

b.      Suttapitaka: it is the compilations of the utterances of the Master himself and consists of five collections called Nikayas.

c.       Abhidhammapitaka: deals with the philosophical discussions.

Ø  These are the literature of the Hinayanas. Mahayanas considered these as misinterpreted and wrote their own in Sanskrit language.

Ø  Four Nobel Truth:

a.      There is suffering (dukha)

b.      There is cause of suffering (dukh-samudaya)

c.       There is cessation of suffering (dukha-nirodh)

d.      There is a path that leads to cessation of suffering (dukha-nirodh-marga or dukh-nirodh-gamini-pratipada)

Ø  Pratityasamutpaāda is related to the second Nobel truth known as the law of dependent origination and law of natural causality.

Ø  It is also known as samsara-cāra or bhāva-chakra

Ø  Nobel eight fold path is related to fourth Nobel truth.

Ø  Religiously Buddhism is divided into two sects- Hināyaāna and Mahayāna

·         Hināyāna like Jainism is religious without God.

·         Karma takes place of the God.

·         Liberation for and by the individual himself.

·         Personal salvation- nibbāna

·         Self-help

·         Personal salvation is extinction of all misery.

·         Idea of Nirvana is negative and egoistic

·         Oldest school of Hināyāna is Sthavirvāda or Theravāda in Pali or the doctrines of the elders.

·         Hināyāna refers not to the original teachings of the Buddha but what they have heard while Buddha taught and they misinterpreted them.

·         The idea of liberation in this school is said to be negative and egoistic.

·         Sarvastivada is the Sanskrit counterpart of Sthavirvāda or Theravāda. Sarvastivada maintains the existence of all things, physical as well as mental. Sarvastivada is also known as Vaibhasika and from it branched off the Sautantrika School.

·         Main tenets of Sarvastivada or the Vaibhasika school (also accepted by the Sutantrikas):

v  The most important doctrine of this school is ksanabhangavada, i.e., the theory of momentariness. Sometimes it is also called Santanvada or the theory of Flux or Ceaseless Flow.

v  Sometimes it is also referred to as Sanghātavāda or the theory of Aggregates which means that the so called ‘soul’ is only an aggregate of the five fleeting skandhas, and the so-called ‘matter’ is only an aggregate of the momentary atoms.

v  The denial of an eternal substance, spiritual as well as material, is called Pudgala-nairatmya.

v  Everything is momentary including body, sensation, perception, disposition, consciousness all these are impermanent and sorrowful.

                                                                                          

Ø  The Vaibhasika attaches supreme importance to the commentaries called Mahavibhasa and Vibhasa on an Abhidharma treatise called Abhidharma-jnana-prasthana, while Sautantrika attaches supreme importance to the Sautrantas or Sutras of the Sutrapitaka.

Ø  The Vaibhasika believes in direct realism and may be called a presentationalist, while the Sautrantika believes in ‘copy theory of ideas’ and may be called a representionalist.

Ø  The Vaibhasika believes in Bhaya-pratayaksa-vada, it means external obejcts are directly known in perception.

Ø  The Sautrantika believe is contrary to this view and is called Bahyanumeyavada which means that the external objects are not directly perceived but only indirectly inferred.

Ø  The Vaibhasika accepts seventy-five Dhramas while the Sautrantika accepts only forty-three.

Ø  The Sautrantika is more critical and like Kant emphasizes the a priori element of thought-construction (kalpana or vikalpa) in knowledge and paves the way for Vijñāvada.

Nirvān̩a

Ø  The word Nirvana means ‘blowing out’. It is the dissolution of the five skandhas. It is cessation of all activities (chittavrttinirodh) and of all becoming (bhavanirodha).

Ø  The ideal saint of both the schools of Hinayana is the Arhat. Arhat is the ideal and it is said to be negative, individual and selfish.

Ø  Hinayana’s conception of the Nirvana is said to be negative. It is liberation and is called Nibbana- cessation of all earthly miseries. It is connected to the third Nobel truth.