Buddhism

Is Buddhism a religion or a philosophy?

Author: Heinz Duthel
Length: 517 page(s)
Written: Jan 2012
Sales Rank: -
Views: 276

What is Theravada Buddhism?
Setting the Wheel of Dhamma in Motion


Theravada (pronounced — more or less — "terra-VAH-dah"), the "Doctrine of the Elders," is the school of Buddhism that draws its scriptural inspiration from the Tipitaka, or Pali canon, which scholars generally agree contains the earliest surviving record of the Buddha's teachings.1 For many centuries, Theravada has been the predominant religion of continental Southeast Asia (Thailand, Myanmar/Burma, Cambodia, and Laos) and Sri Lanka. Today Theravada Buddhists number well over 100 million worldwide.2 In recent decades Theravada has begun to take root in the West.


Many Buddhisms, One Dhamma-vinaya

The Buddha — the "Awakened One" — called the religion he founded Dhamma-vinaya — "the doctrine and discipline." To provide a social structure supportive of the practice of Dhamma-vinaya (or Dhamma for short [Sanskrit: Dharma]), and to preserve these teachings for posterity, the Buddha established the order of bhikkhus (monks) and bhikkhunis (nuns) — the Sangha — which continues to this day to pass his teachings on to subsequent generations of laypeople and monastics, alike.

As the Dhamma continued its spread across India after the Buddha's passing, differing interpretations of the original teachings arose, which led to schisms within the Sangha and the emergence of as many as eighteen distinct sects of Buddhism.3 One of these schools eventually gave rise to a reform movement that called itself Mahayana (the "Greater Vehicle")4 and that referred to the other schools disparagingly as Hinayana (the "Lesser Vehicle"). What we call Theravada today is the sole survivor of those early non-Mahayana schools.5 To avoid the pejorative tone implied by the terms Hinayana and Mahayana, it is common today to use more neutral language to distinguish between these two main branches of Buddhism. Because Theravada historically dominated southern Asia, it is sometimes called "Southern" Buddhism, while Mahayana, which migrated northwards from India into China, Tibet, Japan, and Korea, is known as "Northern" Buddhism.6
Pali: The Language of Theravada Buddhism

The language of the Theravada canonical texts is Pali (lit., "text"), which is based on a dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan that was probably spoken in central India during the Buddha's time.7 Ven. Ananda, the Buddha's cousin and close personal attendant, committed the Buddha's sermons (suttas) to memory and thus became a living repository of these teachings.8 Shortly after the Buddha's death (ca. 480 BCE), five hundred of the most senior monks — including Ananda — convened to recite and verify all the sermons they had heard during the Buddha's forty-five year teaching career.9 Most of these sermons therefore begin with the disclaimer, "Evam me sutam" — "Thus have I heard."

After the Buddha's death the teachings continued to be passed down orally within the monastic community, in keeping with an Indian oral tradition that long predated the Buddha.10 By 250 BCE the Sangha had systematically arranged and compiled these teachings into three divisions: the Vinaya Pitaka (the "basket of discipline" — the texts concerning the rules and customs of the Sangha), the Sutta Pitaka (the "basket of discourses" — the sermons and utterances by the Buddha and his close disciples), and the Abhidhamma Pitaka (the "basket of special/higher doctrine" — a detailed psycho-philosophical analysis of the Dhamma). Together these three are known as the Tipitaka, the "three baskets." In the third century BCE Sri Lankan monks began compiling a series of exhaustive commentaries to the Tipitaka; these were subsequently collated and translated into Pali beginning in the fifth century CE. The Tipitaka plus the post-canonical texts (commentaries, chronicles, etc.) together constitute the complete body of classical Theravada literature.

Copyright © 2000 - 2011 Heinz Duthel
All rights reserved.
ISBN-13:978-1463780586
ISBN-10:1463780583

About the Author

Heinz Duthel
Member since: Mar 2008
Publications on XinXii:  42

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Heinz Duthel, Master in Philosophy
Born 1950 in Germany
Joint the French Foreign Legion 1966

First book published 1979 (Es ist 5 vor 12) with the assistance of Heinrich Boell, SPK and RH of the German University Bielefeld

Served for several Government Services until 1999
From 2000 till today, Consultant EUISS

Member of:
BDWI.de Deutschland
ATTAC.de Germany - another world is possible!
International Society for Philosophers
Philosophers Today
iccnow.org

I like to thanks and remember my teacher and best friend I ever had, Dr. Joachim Koch who passed away on 17.9.2008

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