How Many Mahayanas Were There? - David Drewes new paper

[Javierfv1212]

https://www.academia.edu/50675803/How_M ... Were_There

New forthcoming paper

Passages in which Mahāyāna sūtras glorify and promote themselves are one of the mostdistinctive and widely studied features of these texts. In recent decades, they have been a primaryfocus in the study of early Mahāyāna and have served as the basis for some of the main theories.Generally overlooked, however, is that Mahāyāna sūtras also often link themselves with, andadvocate the use of, other Mahāyāna sūtras, or Mahāyāna sūtras as a group. Here I would like to survey this material and argue that it shows that the authors of these texts regarded themselves and their followers as participants in a single movement, suggesting that the widespread idea that Mahāyāna emerged separately in distinct communities is misconceived.

The scholarly debates on early Mahayana continue

[Queen Elizabeth II]

Drewes seems to have several interesting looking papers on his page.

https://umanitoba.academia.edu/DavidDrewes

[Zhen Li]

I think Drewes' thesis here is correct. Supposed contradictions between Mahāyāna sūtras are clearly outweighed by that which they have in common and there are no explicit rejections of sūtras or doctrines, only claims to supercede alternative views. His other claim that people who viewed themselves as bodhisattvas viewed themselves as being such for many lives and not as having originated the corpus but as revealing it, is also illustrative.

The point about terminology is also incisive. Vaipulya, vevulla, or vaitulya sūtra instead of Mahāyāna sūtra makes a lot of sense. In the eyes of a Mahāyānist what distinguishes these sūtras? Surely it is their length and profundity. If it took so long for Buddhists to differentiate Mahāyāna from non-Mahāyāna, these may have been seen simply as the long and profound sūtras among the shorter āgamas sūtras.

Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship. Most of the Mahāyāna sūtras advocate writing them and worshipping them in book form, even in the same sentences in which readers are encouraged to memorise and recite them. In most pre-modern cultures with the use of books, they are used not in place of oral cultures but in support of them. The sūtras clearly advocate both the writing and worship of the sūtras in book form, and their memorisation and recitation. This is what still happens today in most Buddhist cultures with anything except the longest vaipulya sūtras. Even then, sections are extracted for memorisation and recitation, like the Universal Gate Chapter of the Lotus Sūtra. There are references to book worship in Indian sources starting as early as Faxian and throughout the śāstra materials, it continues in most Buddhist cultures. I sense he is sticking to his guns and assuming everyone is onboard with him, when it is glaringly obvious that he should admit that he may have gone a bit far at some points.

[FiveSkandhas]

It's good to see the once-taboo question of Mahayana origins (dubbed a "career destroyer" by a certain professor) getting more scholarly attention.

Does anyone know the earliest reliable date for Mahayana to actually be considered a single, seperate phenomenon by doxologists? When did the use of the word itself emerge, and with what source(s)?

[Zhen Li]

Does anyone know the earliest reliable date for Mahayana to actually be considered a single, seperate phenomenon by doxologists? When did the use of the word itself emerge, and with what source(s)?

The question then would be: separate from what?

Based upon the prevalent scholarship, it seems accepted that Mahāyānists and non-Mahāyānists practiced in the same monasteries. I am not sure Mahāyānists ever "threw out" non-Mahāyānists, and this may be the point to keep in mind. In Sri Lanka Theravāda (which is an ordination lineage and not a doctrinal lineage as thought of today) monasteries had Mahāyāna sūtras and monastics, but were officially rejected in the tenth century CE according to Jonathan Walters in his article "Mahāyāna Theravāda and the Origins of the Mahāvihāra." The same seems to be the case in South East Asia, where there were Mahāyāna-Vajrayāna traditions going for quite a while until the cleansed Sri Lankan Mahāvihāra sect was imposed (e.g. by the Mon-Pyu in Burma). We could very well say that Chinese Buddhism is the same kind of mixed Buddhism that existed in India—no purge took ever took place, so the Mahāyāna remained, but the superiority claimed by the Mahāyāna sūtras as well as their overwhelming quantity compared to the size of the āgama canon probably meant that anyone who practiced non-Mahāyāna was just drowned out. The fact that there is now the appearance of "sects" identical to ordination lineages like Theravāda that are either Mahāyāna or Śrāvakayāna is an accident of history which obscures the character of of Buddhism as it existed in India.

I think western scholarship has been working on so many presuppositions about the character of the Mahāyāna in relation to "sects" that we lost sight of how things would have looked on the ground.

The earliest manuscript source for the term Mahāyāna is the Gandhāran Aṣṭasāhasrikā fragments (c. 50 CE), which are also the earliest South Asian manuscripts of any kind. Drewes makes the good point that the term as used to refer to sūtras is later than the usage of the term vaipulya, but this is different from its usage as a doctrinal category as it appears in the text of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā.

[FiveSkandhas]

Does anyone know the earliest reliable date for Mahayana to actually be considered a single, seperate phenomenon by doxologists? When did the use of the word itself emerge, and with what source(s)?

The question then would be: separate from what?...

Thank you for your long and comprehensive answer.

The earliest manuscript source for the term Mahāyāna is the Gandhāran Aṣṭasāhasrikā fragments...

This is basically what I was after with my question, so thanks for this information in particular.

[Malcolm]

I think Drewes' thesis here is correct. Supposed contradictions between Mahāyāna sūtras are clearly outweighed by that which they have in common and there are no explicit rejections of sūtras or doctrines, only claims to supercede alternative views. His other claim that people who viewed themselves as bodhisattvas viewed themselves as being such for many lives and not as having originated the corpus but as revealing it, is also illustrative.

The point about terminology is also incisive. Vaipulya, vevulla, or vaitulya sūtra instead of Mahāyāna sūtra makes a lot of sense. In the eyes of a Mahāyānist what distinguishes these sūtras? Surely it is their length and profundity. If it took so long for Buddhists to differentiate Mahāyāna from non-Mahāyāna, these may have been seen simply as the long and profound sūtras among the shorter āgamas sūtras.

Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship. Most of the Mahāyāna sūtras advocate writing them and worshipping them in book form, even in the same sentences in which readers are encouraged to memorise and recite them. In most pre-modern cultures with the use of books, they are used not in place of oral cultures but in support of them. The sūtras clearly advocate both the writing and worship of the sūtras in book form, and their memorisation and recitation. This is what still happens today in most Buddhist cultures with anything except the longest vaipulya sūtras. Even then, sections are extracted for memorisation and recitation, like the Universal Gate Chapter of the Lotus Sūtra. There are references to book worship in Indian sources starting as early as Faxian and throughout the śāstra materials, it continues in most Buddhist cultures. I sense he is sticking to his guns and assuming everyone is onboard with him, when it is glaringly obvious that he should admit that he may have gone a bit far at some points.

Same guy who rejects the idea the Buddha even existed...

[Malcolm]

Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship.

For example, when Mahāsiddha Virūpa (8th-9th century) was in South India, having been recruited as by a Hindu King for his expertise in Sanskrit, he was busted for prostrating to a copy of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā rather than a Śiva linga. One can well imagine that taking this sūtra as an object of devotion was extremely common, particularly among the educated, Buddhist elites. It's my personal favorite, along with the Saṃcayagathas.

[Zhen Li]

Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship.

For example, when Mahāsiddha Virūpa (8th-9th century) was in South India, having been recruited as by a Hindu King for his expertise in Sanskrit, he was busted for prostrating to a copy of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā rather than a Śiva linga. One can well imagine that taking this sūtra as an object of devotion was extremely common, particularly among the educated, Buddhist elites. It's my personal favorite, along with the Saṃcayagathas.

There are also stele of the Prajñāpāramitā Devī indicating book worship at the base, not to mention the original idea of putting the Prajñāpāramitā pustaka on the lotuses of Prajñāpāramitā Devī as well as Cundā and Mañjuśrī and others is clearly playing on the idea that Buddhists worship these books.

Manuscripts from the time are also covered in vermillion and incense stains, just like images. This hardly makes sense if Buddhists were just producing them en masse just to stuff them away in a library. Besides its constant appearance in Mahāyāna sūtras, the Śikṣāsamuccaya and a number of other śāstras bring this up multiple times as an important part of practice.

I think this also relates to the idea prevelant in a lot of Buddhist practices that you cannot "just read" a sūtra. You have to honour it first. In East Asia it has been reduced to a verse, but in Nepal the ritual that precedes opening a sūtra can take half an hour to perform. One example of this procedure in Tibetan is found in Tōh. no. 4252, Pustakapāṭhopāya. I am not sure if Tibetans have the idea that you must consecrate a sūtra also before using it in rituals, but that is certainly prevelant in Nepal and appears in the Kriyāsaṃgrahapañjikā of Kuladatta.

[Malcolm]

I am not sure if Tibetans have the idea that you must consecrate a sūtra also before using it in rituals, but that is certainly prevelant in Nepal and appears in the Kriyāsaṃgrahapañjikā of Kuladatta.

We just put the text on our heads, as a symbolic prostration.

[Malcolm]

Where Drewes is mistaken, I think, is continuing to simply ignore passages that refer to books when he suggests that writing and books were not important or worshipped in the Mahāyāna. Also, he conflates (purposefully?) Schopen's claim that the sūtras were worshipped in homes or shrines rather than caityas (there are sūtras in caityas in Nepal btw) as a rejection of the idea of book worship.

For example, when Mahāsiddha Virūpa (8th-9th century) was in South India, having been recruited as by a Hindu King for his expertise in Sanskrit, he was busted for prostrating to a copy of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā rather than a Śiva linga. One can well imagine that taking this sūtra as an object of devotion was extremely common, particularly among the educated, Buddhist elites. It's my personal favorite, along with the Saṃcayagathas.

There are also stele of the Prajñāpāramitā Devī indicating book worship at the base, not to mention the original idea of putting the Prajñāpāramitā pustaka on the lotuses of Prajñāpāramitā Devī as well as Cundā and Mañjuśrī and others is clearly playing on the idea that Buddhists worship these books.

Manuscripts from the time are also covered in vermillion and incense stains, just like images. This hardly makes sense if Buddhists were just producing them en masse just to stuff them away in a library. Besides its constant appearance in Mahāyāna sūtras, the Śikṣāsamuccaya and a number of other śāstras bring this up multiple times as an important part of practice.

I think this also relates to the idea prevelant in a lot of Buddhist practices that you cannot "just read" a sūtra. You have to honour it first. In East Asia it has been reduced to a verse, but in Nepal the ritual that precedes opening a sūtra can take half an hour to perform. One example of this procedure in Tibetan is found in Tōh. no. 4252, Pustakapāṭhopāya. I am not sure if Tibetans have the idea that you must consecrate a sūtra also before using it in rituals, but that is certainly prevelant in Nepal and appears in the Kriyāsaṃgrahapañjikā of Kuladatta.

To add to this however, most refuge visualizations include visualizing a cliff composed of all the Sutras and Tantras, on the rear petal of the refuge tree, and this is performed daily, more than once.

[Zhen Li]

For example, when Mahāsiddha Virūpa (8th-9th century) was in South India, having been recruited as by a Hindu King for his expertise in Sanskrit, he was busted for prostrating to a copy of the Aṣṭasāhasrikā rather than a Śiva linga. One can well imagine that taking this sūtra as an object of devotion was extremely common, particularly among the educated, Buddhist elites. It's my personal favorite, along with the Saṃcayagathas.

There are also stele of the Prajñāpāramitā Devī indicating book worship at the base, not to mention the original idea of putting the Prajñāpāramitā pustaka on the lotuses of Prajñāpāramitā Devī as well as Cundā and Mañjuśrī and others is clearly playing on the idea that Buddhists worship these books.

Manuscripts from the time are also covered in vermillion and incense stains, just like images. This hardly makes sense if Buddhists were just producing them en masse just to stuff them away in a library. Besides its constant appearance in Mahāyāna sūtras, the Śikṣāsamuccaya and a number of other śāstras bring this up multiple times as an important part of practice.

I think this also relates to the idea prevelant in a lot of Buddhist practices that you cannot "just read" a sūtra. You have to honour it first. In East Asia it has been reduced to a verse, but in Nepal the ritual that precedes opening a sūtra can take half an hour to perform. One example of this procedure in Tibetan is found in Tōh. no. 4252, Pustakapāṭhopāya. I am not sure if Tibetans have the idea that you must consecrate a sūtra also before using it in rituals, but that is certainly prevelant in Nepal and appears in the Kriyāsaṃgrahapañjikā of Kuladatta.

To add to this however, most refuge visualizations include visualizing a cliff composed of all the Sutras and Tantras, on the rear petal of the refuge tree, and this is performed daily, more than once.

Right, I think I recall that when I was briefly engaged with Tibetan Buddhism.