What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

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Padmist
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What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Padmist »

I stressed the words "academic" to prevent any mentions of "I believe" or "traditions say" or "me thinks" like what happened in this thread:
https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.p ... 2&start=40

So I'm hoping we could focus only on what the academics say on this topic.
tingdzin
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by tingdzin »

Academics have had a lot of different things to say about Amitabha and Avalokitesvara, and the subject is still a source of major controversy. "Origins" questions are always tricky; one should keep in mind that religious phenomena (any historical phenomena really) never have a single "source", but are the product of the coming together of various causes and conditions.

For example, the figure of Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, has often been thought to owe something to Iranian culture, both because the scriptures in which he plays a major role were probably first compiled in the far Northwest of India, and because of the importance of light in most different Iranian religions, and because Amitabha worship was evidently from the beginning more widespread and popular in Northern and Eastern Asia than South Asia. This way of thinking has been completely rejected by those scholars who believe that every theme in Buddhism necessarily originated in and spread outward from Central India.

The "history" of Avalokitesvara is a can full of worms. One French scholar years ago also saw Iranian connections with him, seeing him as an Iranian deity under another name, but few scholars believe that any more. Nowadays, some scholars are pushing the theory that Avalokitesvara is just a reformulation of Shaivite concepts to fit Buddhism. In his case, one has to keep in mind that he plays many different roles in many cultures and subcultures, and that some of these roles are more valid in certain historical circumstances than others, which indicates that there were a lot of augmentation to the "original" figure of the bodhisattva (assuming there even was one single figure at first) in order to fit historical circumstances. The switch in Avalokitesvara's sex in going to East Asia in some forms of Buddhism is the clearest example of this.
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Heruka85 »

Padmist wrote: Wed Jan 27, 2021 12:06 am I stressed the words "academic" to prevent any mentions of "I believe" or "traditions say" or "me thinks" like what happened in this thread:
https://www.dharmawheel.net/viewtopic.p ... 2&start=40

So I'm hoping we could focus only on what the academics say on this topic.
Go read Gregory Schopen's "Figments and Fragments of Mahayana Buddhism in India". He has a couple papers on Amitabha in there. Whatever papers you want to follow up on plug into Google scholar and see who has cited them and whether those works seem interesting to you.
Brunelleschi
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Brunelleschi »

Don't you know how to use a search engine for research papers if you want opinions from academics.
Padmist
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Padmist »

No. Can you demonstrate?
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Ayu »

Padmist wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:32 am No. Can you demonstrate?
E.g. https://www.researchgate.net/about or https://scholar.google.com
tingdzin
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by tingdzin »

Academia.edu is another source.
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Tata1 »

Why all this emphases on academics? (If you dont mind asking)
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Ayu »

Tata1 wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:56 pm Why all this emphases on academics? (If you dont mind asking)
IDK but I suppose because academics count as reliable. But one should not forget, that Tibetan Geshes and Lopons studied for many years as well. They don't have a Western PhD, but probably they know more about the origins of Avalokiteshvara etc than you can find in Western science.
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Tlalok »

Ayu wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:13 pm
Tata1 wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:56 pm Why all this emphases on academics? (If you dont mind asking)
IDK but I suppose because academics count as reliable. But one should not forget, that Tibetan Geshes and Lopons studied for many years as well. They don't have a Western PhD, but probably they know more about the origins of Avalokiteshvara etc than you can find in Western science.
I'm still waiting for a shedra.google.com
tingdzin
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by tingdzin »

Tata1 wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:56 pm Why all this emphases on academics? (If you dont mind asking)
One reason is that people (including many Buddhists) have always had a tendency to come to believe that their own group's (or their own individual) take on Buddhism is the only correct one. This inevitably leads to such anti-Dharmic attitudes as sectarianism and/or egotism.

On the other hand, without scholarship (not quite the same thing as academics) one might swallow whole such distortions as a collection of 21st-century inspirational poetry being presented as the authentic words of the Buddha's first followers.

In short, scholarship, while not being a substitute for sincere Buddhist practice, can help us to avoid some errors in that practice. This does not mean we have to accept whatever current academic opinion is prevailing at the time, but we should at least examine it with an open mind and recognize valid points scholars are making.
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Brunelleschi »

Padmist wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:32 am No. Can you demonstrate?
If you're a student or are affiliated with a university you can access research - or check out Ayus post. I don't know the specific since I don't work/have access to databases involving humanities research.
Brunelleschi
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Brunelleschi »

Ayu wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:13 pm
Tata1 wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:56 pm Why all this emphases on academics? (If you dont mind asking)
IDK but I suppose because academics count as reliable. But one should not forget, that Tibetan Geshes and Lopons studied for many years as well. They don't have a Western PhD, but probably they know more about the origins of Avalokiteshvara etc than you can find in Western science.
+ hopefully more motivated by actually helping people than the eight worldly concerns.
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Queequeg »

Brunelleschi wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 5:26 pm
Ayu wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 1:13 pm
Tata1 wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:56 pm Why all this emphases on academics? (If you dont mind asking)
IDK but I suppose because academics count as reliable. But one should not forget, that Tibetan Geshes and Lopons studied for many years as well. They don't have a Western PhD, but probably they know more about the origins of Avalokiteshvara etc than you can find in Western science.
+ hopefully more motivated by actually helping people than the eight worldly concerns.
I have an MA in Religion, and through my wife who is a university professor, I know several bold face name academics in Buddhism. Most are not Buddhist, and while they know a lot about Buddhism as an object of inquiry through methods of social science, they're generally not going to be helpful with the actual practice or spiritual development. Their attitude is fundamentally that of a scientist. I guess their good motivations are basically secular humanist. They're generally good liberals.

They can, through the use of the various tools of analysis at their disposal, offer informative answers about things like the origin of Amitabha, but that information is not really useful to buddhasmrti practice and could actually be discouraging and a hindrance... "You mean Amitabha is Ahura Mazda?"

Buddhism is the collection of ideas and practices aimed at unbinding, the teacher as example of the culmination of the path, and the community of practitioners. Academic careerism doesn't quite fit in that path, and as I was actually warned, bringing too much actual Buddhism to an academic career is basically career suicide.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
tingdzin
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by tingdzin »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 6:50 pm hey can, through the use of the various tools of analysis at their disposal, offer informative answers about things like the origin of Amitabha, but that information is not really useful to buddhasmrti practice and could actually be discouraging and a hindrance... "You mean Amitabha is Ahura Mazda?"
Yes, I would say that if you don't have a mind that can see nuances, or is not capable of holding on to two seemingly contradictory views, you might be well advised to concentrate on practice and not dip your toe into scholarship. If you are an experienced practitioner whose primary focus is still practice, then scholarship can be quite useful, for the reasons mentioned above.
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Padmist »

Tata1 wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 12:56 pm Why all this emphases on academics? (If you dont mind asking)
Because the name of the room is "Academic discussion".
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Queequeg »

tingdzin wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 7:59 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 6:50 pm hey can, through the use of the various tools of analysis at their disposal, offer informative answers about things like the origin of Amitabha, but that information is not really useful to buddhasmrti practice and could actually be discouraging and a hindrance... "You mean Amitabha is Ahura Mazda?"
Yes, I would say that if you don't have a mind that can see nuances, or is not capable of holding on to two seemingly contradictory views, you might be well advised to concentrate on practice and not dip your toe into scholarship. If you are an experienced practitioner whose primary focus is still practice, then scholarship can be quite useful, for the reasons mentioned above.
Case by case. There's not a lot of nuance once one starts poking around in the origins of the Mahayana and Vajrayana pantheon. The faithful versions and the academic versions often say very different things that no amount of nuance is going to resolve. Avoiding specifics, when a deity is a central focus in a tradition, with a back story that puts it squarely in the Buddhadharma tradition, and then you look at academic studies that show this was the totem deity of some tribe or caste in the distant past, in a religious system that had nothing to do with Buddhism... how do you then interpret a teacher's claims that they had a spiritual communion with this deity and received sacred instructions? To keep it up is going to require some serious fudging of details or putting up firewalls in the mind.

I'm fully open to accepting I'm one of those people who lack the intellectual finesse to reconcile divergent claims over the same intellectual geography.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Malcolm
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 8:26 pm
tingdzin wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 7:59 pm
Queequeg wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 6:50 pm hey can, through the use of the various tools of analysis at their disposal, offer informative answers about things like the origin of Amitabha, but that information is not really useful to buddhasmrti practice and could actually be discouraging and a hindrance... "You mean Amitabha is Ahura Mazda?"
Yes, I would say that if you don't have a mind that can see nuances, or is not capable of holding on to two seemingly contradictory views, you might be well advised to concentrate on practice and not dip your toe into scholarship. If you are an experienced practitioner whose primary focus is still practice, then scholarship can be quite useful, for the reasons mentioned above.
Case by case. There's not a lot of nuance once one starts poking around in the origins of the Mahayana and Vajrayana pantheon. The faithful versions and the academic versions often say very different things that no amount of nuance is going to resolve. Avoiding specifics, when a deity is a central focus in a tradition, with a back story that puts it squarely in the Buddhadharma tradition, and then you look at academic studies that show this was the totem deity of some tribe or caste in the distant past, in a religious system that had nothing to do with Buddhism... how do you then interpret a teacher's claims that they had a spiritual communion with this deity and received sacred instructions? To keep it up is going to require some serious fudging of details or putting up firewalls in the mind.

I'm fully open to accepting I'm one of those people who lack the intellectual finesse to reconcile divergent claims over the same intellectual geography.
The Indian mind was a lot more flexible about such issues. This is why one sees tropes shared with the Ramayāna that show up recontextualized in a Buddhist context, for example, to explain the origins of the Buddhist protectress, Śṛīdevi Mahākālī. Śṛīdevi is known originally named Sita Śankhapāla. She elopes with Dasagriva aka Ravanna, having been tricked into it by Dasagriva's sister, Remati. Umadevi (the worldly manifestation of the protectress Ekajati), her mother disowns her, and Sita Śankhapāla takes on the form of a rakṣasī as a result, etc., eventually to be tamed by the Brahmin Vararuci. Since as far as I am concerned this is a myth and the myth of Sita's abduction by Ravanna have equal standing as a myth, I don't worry about it too much. In Tibet, different schools have different accounts of the taming of Rudra, all based on Indian sources, they are often in conflict about details, and no one blinks an eyelash. Indeed, in the same school different tantric cycles will have differing explanations of the taming of Rudra, and again, no one bats an eyelash. The validity of the practice has more to do with whether one can manifest siddhis from it, rather than whether or not it fits some neurotic compulsion to reconcile different narratives. For example, in Shingon, it is maintained that the tantras were first revealed by Vajrasattva in an iron towed in South India. In Tibet, in the Sarma schools, it is generally maintained that the tantras were also revealed in South India by a king who travelled to Oddiyāna and received them a siddha yoginī who was descendent from Nāgas. In Nyingma, it is generally held they were first revealed by a king in Zahor named Dza. While there is a bit of bickering back and forth between the Nyingmas and the Sarma schools over the accuracy of the interpretation of the King Dza account, not one really cares that much. Then, of course, the Bonpos claim they are the source of everything, but no one pays them much mind either. When Buddhists resort to the services of Bonpo Lamas it is because the latter have siddhi, not because Buddhists accept Bonpo history. But talk of siddhis will get you shut down pretty fast in the Academy.
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

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I don't know if there is anything monolithic we can actually work with like "the Indian mind." Even if there was, the records of extensive, hair splitting debates suggests "the Indian mind" has a penchant for endless disputation rather than a simple smiling acceptance of divergent details. Buddhist texts are themselves full of disputes about facts that the Buddha is called on to settle with his Buddha eye, some of which he does, and some of which he sidesteps. The obsession with lists and details we see in Indian literature suggests maybe a different kind of neurosis. I just don't buy the image of the breezily double and triple talking Indian shrugging at the contradictions. I can buy a widespread attitude of just shrugging details off implicitly acknowledging "its all just stories anyway" said with an Indian shake of the head.

In a practice context I grok the way fictions are freely utilized for certain salvific or edifying purposes and participated in in a manner that takes the fictions as true. Running out of the burning house to claim deer carts, goat carts and ox carts, and all that. But, I also don't think I have to search very hard for people who have lost interest in Dharma because they found out that the Mahayana sutras were written half a millennia after the parinirvana, if that even happened. There's a whole movement of Buddhists trying to save for themselves what they can by excising what doesn't fit with their scientific truths.

Anyway, my point was, an academic approach to Buddhism is not necessarily going to be helpful for practice, and may well not be compatible. For some people. The academic study of Buddhism is not Buddhism. Its social science.
There is no suffering to be severed. Ignorance and klesas are indivisible from bodhi. There is no cause of suffering to be abandoned. Since extremes and the false are the Middle and genuine, there is no path to be practiced. Samsara is nirvana. No severance achieved. No suffering nor its cause. No path, no end. There is no transcendent realm; there is only the one true aspect. There is nothing separate from the true aspect.
-Guanding, Perfect and Sudden Contemplation,
Malcolm
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Re: What do ACADEMICS say are the origins of Avalokiteshvara and Amitabha?

Post by Malcolm »

Queequeg wrote: Thu Jan 28, 2021 9:22 pm I don't know if there is anything monolithic we can actually work with like "the Indian mind." Even if there was, the records of extensive, hair splitting debates suggests "the Indian mind" has a penchant for endless disputation rather than a simple smiling acceptance of divergent details.
They tended to argue about atoms and first principles, not narrative tropes.


I
can buy a widespread attitude of just shrugging details off implicitly acknowledging "its all just stories anyway" said with an Indian shake of the head.
Yes, this is what I am saying. Why else could someone set down in writing a tale clearly related to the Ramayāna with a straight face in a Buddhist tantra of authentic Indian provenance?

In a practice context I grok the way fictions are freely utilized for certain salvific or edifying purposes and participated in in a manner that takes the fictions as true. Running out of the burning house to claim deer carts, goat carts and ox carts, and all that. But, I also don't think I have to search very hard for people who have lost interest in Dharma because they found out that the Mahayana sutras were written half a millennia after the parinirvana, if that even happened. There's a whole movement of Buddhists trying to save for themselves what they can by excising what doesn't fit with their scientific truths.
These people don't believe in siddhis. They are fairy killers, homicidally bent on lynching Tinker Bell.
Anyway, my point was, an academic approach to Buddhism is not necessarily going to be helpful for practice, and may well not be compatible. For some people. The academic study of Buddhism is not Buddhism. Its social science.
Depends on the person. I find lots of benefit in academic studies, if only because the Academy translates a lot of stuff from Sanskrit, Chinese, Tibetan, etc. I just ignore their conclusions, where I don't agree, or snort in derision at some of their total lack of real knowledge of what they are studying. And some academics, while not personally interested in practice, like Robert Mayer, nevertheless do excellent work.
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