Clik here to view.
Yāmagaṇḍika: Telling the Time in Ancient India
My Pāḷi reading group has been working through the commentary to the Kāraṇiya Metta Sutta which I translated for this blog some years ago (11 Jun 2010). In this text we come across an unusual term that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What can the Turing Test Tell Us?
Alan Turing's contribution to mathematics, cryptography and computer science. was inestimable. Not only did he shorten World War Two, saving thousands of lives, he advanced us onto the path of digital...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Heart Sutra in Middle Chinese
Mantra of the Heart Sutra in seal scriptThe Art of CalligraphyMost people will know by now that the Heart Sūtra,《心經》 Xīnjīng, or Prajñāpāramitā-hṛdaya was composed in China using chunks of text from...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Critiquing Buddhist Karma
In researching karma and rebirth I came across an interesting article by well known scholar of religion, Paul J. Griffiths. It dates from 1982 and while there was some immediate response from one...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Sutta on Freewill
your move...This is a text I recently stumbled upon. It is quite interesting because it directly addresses the issue of freewill, something I have not come across in a Buddhist text before. The Buddha...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Individuals, Philosophy, and Interconnectedness
Mycorrhizal fungus on rootsIn Dan Everett's entertaining and thought-provoking book on his meeting with the Pirahã people of the Amazon (Don't Sleep There Are Snakes), one of the quirks of the culture...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Nirvāṇa Sūtra, Madhyāgama 55.
This blog post is an old one I've held in reserve for a week when I can't make the Friday morning deadline The Pali counterpart to this text, the Upanisā Sutta (SN 12.23), is a very important text for...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Alternate Karma Theory?
Many modern Buddhists find themselves struggling with the doctrines of Buddhism that rely on metaphysical speculation even though Buddhists regularly warn each other against speculating about...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Buddhist Shibboleths
I've already done some work on comparing translation styles between 4th century Chinese translators of the Āgamas and 20th/21st century English translators of the Pali texts (Attwood 2012). Where terms...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Kātyāyana in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra
One of my long time fascinations is with the Pali Kaccānagotta Sutta or Sanskrit Kātyāyana Sūtra. It survives in three versions: Pāḷi, Chinese, and Sanskrit. It is fairly well known that Nāgārjuna...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Early Mahāyāna: Everything You Know is Wrong
The origin of the Mahāyāna has been a subject of some fascination over the years. In its mature form Mahāyāna Buddhism could hardly be more different from Mainstream Buddhism and still be thought of as...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Who Were the Artharvans?
Zaraθuštra the first aθauruuan In this essay I look for possible connections between the Sanskrit Atharvans (Pāḷi ātabbaṇa) and the Iranian aθauruuan or āθravan. The few references to ātabbaṇa in Pāḷi,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Form is Emptiness. Part I: Establishing the Text
I was trying to have a discussion with someone about the Heart Sutra and it became apparent that as far as they were concerned the Sutra consisted only of the phrase "form is emptiness". I realised...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Form is Emptiness. Part II: Commentary
~~Continued from Form is Emptiness. Part I: Establishing the Text (17 Jul 2015)~~Traditional CommentariesWe have available in translation, two very early Chinese commentaries by Xuánzàng's top students...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Form is Emptiness. Part III: Commentary continued.
~~Continued from Part I& Part II~~I've combined the three parts of this essay into a single pdf:Form is (Not) Emptiness.Previously: In Part I, we explored the language of the passage associated...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Sanskrit, Dravidian, and Munda
Modern distribution ofIndian languagesIn this essay I will reiterate some important points made by Michael Witzel about the linguistic history of India. When the first anatomically modern humans...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Why Are Karma and Rebirth (Still) Plausible (for Many People)? Part I
Plausible?This essay summarises and explores some idea from Justin L. Barrett's short but important and influential book Why Would Anyone Believe in God? (2004). Barrett's book is not simply an account...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Seeing Blue.
Where does blue begin and end?There's a meme that seems to come around again and again on the internet. It is that if a language has no word for a concept then that concept must be absent in that...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Yama and Hell
Japanese Yama (Enma)as a Confucian administrator.Yama is a fascinating figure. He rules over the afterlife, but is not one of the devas. Vedic myth names him as the first man to find his way to the...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Convert Buddhism
Sharon Stone being "blessed"by a priest.In a forthcoming article posted in draft form on academic.edu, 'The Forest Hypothesis', David Drewes considers the question of the origins of Mahāyāna, in the...
View Article