[INDOLOGY] Misunderstood origins

Tue Apr 12 13:50:22 UTC 2016

This hypothesis about the BĀrUp is criticized by Wynne in his review (http://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=31537 ) p. 2 , with a further reference to the pages of an article in the JRAS 2010. About this unprovable textual stratification, I join my answer to Maas :

Thank you for this note dear Philipp, you are right on the too hasty conclusion of J on the underlined point. I remain on my side skeptical about the validity of any higher criticism, here which would be applied to the early Upanishads (cf. the Ur-BhG of Garbe which is not the one of Jezic etc.).
As you showed with Halbfass, and as it could be shown by relying on La Vallée Poussin (ex. "Le dogme et la philosophie du bouddhisme" 1930, p. 2 sv.*, "L'Inde jusque vers 300" 1936, pp. 277 sq.**) and others, the "common view" challenged by Bronkhorst is obviously not the one of the majority of scholars, who, generally, remain cautious and nuanced [?French "nuancé"] on these complex issues°°.

* "Ne furent jamais brâhmanique ou « orthodoxes », le culte des reliques, certaines formes d'ascétisme ; n'est pas brâhmanique d'origine la croyance à la transmigration (...) Vers la fin du sixième siècle avant notre ère, au cœur de l'Inde gangétique, entre Bénarès et Patna, dans le Magadha, — province ethniquement très mêlée, mais qui parlait un dialecte âryen et qui, depuis longtemps, était soumise à l'influence brâhmanique, — une vie spirituelle intense s'était développée en dehors des cadres brâhmaniques" (...) C'est à cette époque, et dans ce Magadha, que furent créés parmi beaucoup d'autres, à côté des Jatilas dont les attaches brâhmaniques paraissent étroites, et des Âjivikas, deux ordres qui survivent, le Jaïnisme et le Bouddhisme".
** Challenging the "Yâjnavalkya [BÂUp]" Brahmanical/Upanishadic theory of the origin of karma, rebirth and samsâra (cf. Oldenberg etc.), LVP says : "théorie peu vraisemblable (…) On peut, ce me semble, présenter des considérations assez fortes et montrer que la doctrine de la transmigration... n'est pas brâhmanique. Les Upanishads ont-elles emprunté, en l'accomodant tant bien que mal à leur vues propres, la croyance à la transmigration très répandue autour d'eux? C'est assez vraisemblable. Mais il est, pour nous, presque évident que la croyance populaire à la transmigration n'est pas sortie des cénacles où s'élaboraient les vues confuses et contradictoires des Upanishads" (...)° "La même question se pose pour l'histoire de l'ascétisme. (...) Nous pensons que, avant les Upanishads, l'ascétisme indien florissait en de nombreuses sectes non brâhmaniques et avait élaboré diverses règles de vie « religieuse » dont le brâhmanisme tira parti. (...) De ce même courant [ascétique et renonçant, pratiquant des formes du yoga] est sorti le Bouddhisme : dispensés, par leur profession même, du sacrifice; étrangers aux écoles sacerdotales et à leurs traditions archaïsantes ; constituant des écoles et nouant des traditions rivales, les ascètes (çramanas) ne sont à aucun titre des hérétiques ou des schismatiques du Brâhmanisme."

° In the same time,  "Nulle part, même dans les livres bouddhiques où elle fut savamment stylisée, la loi de la rétribution des actes ne se présente avec une absolue rigueur" (cf. recently J.-M. Verpoorten, Acte rétributif, Renaissance et Transmigration dans le bouddhisme des origines, Louvain-la-Neuve : Peeters, Publications de l'Institut orientaliste de Louvain 60, 2012).

°° Cf. the last page of the review of B by Wynne.

Le 12 avr. 2016 à 15:27, Ferrante, Marco <Marco.Ferrante at oeaw.ac.at> a écrit :

> Dear everyone, 
> 
> just to corroborate the last remark by Philipp Maas, Bronkhorst not only holds that just the sections of the Upaniṣads concerned with the immutable nature of the self and with  karmic retributions show influence of the śramaṇa milieu (and not the Upaniṣads tout court!), but he dedicates a section of GM to analyze a specific textual case, the Yājñavalkyakāṇḍa of the BĀr.Up. (adhyāya 3 and 4). That’s  the section in which Yājñavalkya imparts to the king Janaka a secret teaching about karma and rebirth that  is 'unknown to Brahmins' and that is much superior to their own ones. Bronkhorst claims that this entire section of the BĀr Up. was composed independently and later joined to the first two adhyāyas.  The remaining two chapters (5 and 6) were the last to be appended to form the text we know today.
> An investigation of the textual stratification of the older Upaniṣads, similar to the one Bronkhorst himself embarked upon, would certainly be a good test of the theory of the two cultures. A theory which is nonetheless supported by the research of other authors: Geoffrey Samuel – as P. Maas already suggested – who cites also Thomas Hopkins as a source of inspiration.
> 
> With best regards,
> 
> 
> Marco
> 
> 
> 
> Dr. Marco Ferrante 
> Institute for the Cultural and Intellectual History of Asia.
> Austrian Academy of Sciences
> Apostelgasse 23, 1030 Vienna
> Austria
> 
> https://oeaw.academia.edu/MarcoFerrante
> http://www.ikga.oeaw.ac.at/Mitarbeiter/Ferrante
> 
> 
> 
> 
>> Il giorno 12 apr 2016, alle ore 13:27, Philipp Maas <philipp.a.maas at gmail.com> ha scritto:
>> 
>> Thank you, Cristophe, for drawing our attention to Jayaratha’s review in his blog entry, which is definitely worth reading. The entry does, however, not entirely do justice to Bronkhorst’s position, when it says that “… one has to accept this new chronology, which places the Upaniṣads after Buddhism rather than before it, …” (J’s emphasis). Bronkhorst’s position is in fact a weaker one. He concludes that “the notion of karmic retribution in the earliest relevant Upaniṣadic (i.e. Vedic) passages has been added to material that is devoid of it“ (GM p. 122). If I understand this correctly, Bronkhorst takes the older Upaniṣads in their present form as the result of an redactorial process, in which the (sporadic) references to karma-and-rebirth theories were added to textual passages exclusively dealing with rebirth (but not with karmic retribution as its cause).
>> 
>>  
>> I wonder whether critical editions of the older and middle Upaniṣads could not provide a more solid basis for research in the early religious history of South Asia than the presently available editions do.
>> 
>>  
>> Best wishes,
>> 
>>  
>> Philipp
>> 
>> 
>> 2016-04-12 12:02 GMT+02:00 Christophe Vielle <christophe.vielle at uclouvain.be>:
>> To be complete, there is also this on-line review (by whom?) of Bronkhorst 2007, which refers also to Samuel's work:
>> http://jayarava.blogspot.be/2012/07/revisiting-greater-magadha.html
>> 
>> Le 12 avr. 2016 à 10:33, Philipp Maas <philipp.a.maas at gmail.com> a écrit :
>> 
>>> Dear Artur,
>>> 
>>> Geoffrey Samuel (The Origins of Yoga and Tantra. Indic Religions to the Thirteenth Century. Cambridge etc: Cambridge University Press, 2008) independently from Bronkhorst arrived at a historical narrative that is similar to the one told in “Greater Magadha”. Moreover, the chapter on the early history of Karma and rebirth in South Asia by Wilhelm Halbfass (Karma und Wiedergeburt im indischen Denken. Kreuzlingen, München: Hugendubel, 2000, pp. 37-63), which draws upon a considerable amount of earlier primary sources and secondary literature, can be read as supporting important aspects of Bronkhorst’s “Greater Magadha Hypothesis”.
>>> 
>>>  
>>> Best, Philipp
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 2016-04-11 20:42 GMT+02:00 Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl>:
>>> Dear Tim, 
>>> 
>>> Could you, please, upload your review to Academia.edu? A poorly-educated guy like me (no irony here!) needs further reading and learning. And appreciates any occasion for it. 
>>> 
>>> Thanks in advance, 
>>> 
>>> Artur
>>> 
>>> PS. I try to organize my thoughts re the relics of the Buddha and amrita. Some simple parallels - and a sticky ground, contradictory concepts and interpretations. In need of new - lodestar-like - ideas. 
>>> 
>>> A. 
>>> 
>>> 2016-04-11 18:33 GMT+02:00 Lubin, Tim <LubinT at wlu.edu>:
>>> And now also:
>>> 
>>> Timothy Lubin, “Greater Magadha and the New Brahmanism: Recent Publications by Johannes Bronkhorst,” Religious Studies Review 41.3 (2015): 93–100. 
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> 
>>> TL
>>> 
>>> 
>>> From: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> on behalf of "Michaels, Axel" <michaels at asia-europe.uni-heidelberg.de>
>>> Date: Monday, April 11, 2016 at 12:26 PM
>>> To: indology <indology at list.indology.info>
>>> Subject: Re: [INDOLOGY] Misunderstood origins
>>> 
>>> More reviews on Johannes Bronkhorst’s thesis: Konrad Klaus in Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft  161 (2011): 216-221, Jason Neelis in Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society 18.3 (2008): 381-3; John Cort, Religious Studies Review 33.2 (2007): 171-172; K.T.S. Sarao in Orientalische Literatur-Zeitung 103.2 (2008): 250-254; Rüdiger Schmitt in Acta Orientalia 69 2008: 319-32, and Alexander Wynne in the H-Buddhism List (July 2011).
>>> 
>>> Best, xel Michaels
>>> 
>>> Von: INDOLOGY <indology-bounces at list.indology.info> im Auftrag von Artur Karp <karp at uw.edu.pl>
>>> Datum: Monday 11 April 2016 at 12:30
>>> An: Roland Steiner <steiner at staff.uni-marburg.de>
>>> Cc: "indology at list.indology.info" <indology at list.indology.info>
>>> Betreff: Re: [INDOLOGY] Misunderstood origins
>>> 
>>> > a bit to start a discussion? ;)
>>> 
>>> Frankly?
>>> 
>>> Quite frankly - I'd rather prefer following the discussion on the contents of Prof. Bronkhorst's paper. 
>>> 
>>> Or - is there somewhere a trace of the Buddhologists' (Historians of India, Historians of Indian Literature) reaction to its theses?
>>> 
>>> Best, 
>>> 
>>> Artur Karp
>>> 
>>> 2016-04-11 9:42 GMT+02:00 Roland Steiner <steiner at staff.uni-marburg.de>:
>>> In support of Prof. Silk's remarks I would like to point to the following short paper by Claudius Naumann:
>>> 
>>> "Versiegende Quellen. Einige Anmerkungen über den Sinn und Unsinn von Internet-Verweisen in wissenschaftlichen Arbeiten". In: Zeitschrift der deutschen morgenländischen Gesellschaft 162.2 (2012), pp. 460-464.
>>> 
>>> Best,
>>> Roland Steiner
>>> 
>>> 
>>> 
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>>> 
>>> -- 
>>> Dr. Philipp A. Maas
>>> Universitätsassistent
>>> Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde
>>> Universität Wien
>>> Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 2, Eingang 2.1
>>> A-1090 Wien
>>> Österreich
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>> 
>> –––––––––––––––––––
>> Christophe Vielle
>> Louvain-la-Neuve
>> 
>> 
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>> 
>> 
>> -- 
>> Dr. Philipp A. Maas
>> Universitätsassistent
>> Institut für Südasien-, Tibet- und Buddhismuskunde
>> Universität Wien
>> Spitalgasse 2-4, Hof 2, Eingang 2.1
>> A-1090 Wien
>> Österreich
>> univie.academia.edu/PhilippMaas
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> 

–––––––––––––––––––
Christophe Vielle
Louvain-la-Neuve

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