A continuous historical survey of Buddhist thought in India, focusing on the factors that led to the emergence of a wide variety of schools and interpretative traditions within the fold of Buddhism. The course will concentrate on the schools of Abhidharma, the rise of the Sautrāntika as a critical response to the Abhidharma, the Mahāyāna sūtra literature, Madhyamaka, Yogācāra and Tantrayān.
The course focuses on the following aspects: origin and development of the Pāli Buddhist canon through analytical and historical study of the Tipitaka texts; introducing the distinction between the canon and scripture; the evolution of the Pāli canonical literature based on the Dhamma and Vinaya; criteria for identification of the early and late strata of the Pāli canon; the division of the canon into three Pitakas and five Nikāyas and different traditions about the Khuddakanikāya.
The course is designed as a critical study of the religious and intellectual background against which Buddhism emerged in the 6th century B.C. in India. Attention will be focused on the evolution of Vedic thought, the philosophy of the Upanisads, and the religio-philosophical systems that arose within the Samana movement. The purpose of the course is to understand doctrines of Early Buddhism from a broad historical perspective.
The purpose of the course is to identify and interpret the original doctrines of what is generally known as Early Buddhism. Therefore the course will be mainly based on the Buddhist discourses of the Pāli Canon. Topics of study will include Four Noble Truths, Three Signs of Existence, Dependent Origination, Analysis of the empiric individuality, theory and practice of moral life, and Nibbāna as the final goal of religious life.
The aim of this course is to examine the formal features as well as the content of early Buddhist ethics. An attempt will be made to understand the different perspective from which an inquiry into ethics may be made and to clarify the standpoint from which it is most fruitful to study Buddhist ethics. The course will attempt to understand the Buddhist ethical system in terms of familiar concepts, categories, and methods of analysis in modern moral philosophy.
A re-examination of the fundamental doctrines of Early Buddhism in the light of the problems posed by subsequent doctrinal interpretations particularly of the Abhidhamma tradition and of the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra schools of Buddhist thought. The course will also take into consideration the problems of interpretation highlighted in modern academic studies on Buddhism.
The course will focus on the importance of the psychological content of the Early Buddhist teachings and on the distinctive contribution made by Buddhism to Indian psychology. Buddhist teachings that have a psychological significance will be examined in terms of the concepts and categories known to modern psychology.
The course will review the historical relation between Early Buddhism and the pre-Buddhist Upanisads and examine the philosophical positions of the Madhyamaka and Yogācāra schools of Mahāyāna Buddhism in relation to śamkara's interpretation of the Upaniùads as a non-dualist metaphysic. The course is specially meant to review the views expressed by modern scholars on this subject.
The course examines the social and religious culture in India before the Buddha focusing its especial attention on the following aspects: the Indus civilization and Aryans; Vedic culture; Brahmana and Śramana movements; social and religious institutions, practices and beliefs; the birth of Buddhist civilization as a response to its religious and social background.
The nature, scope and the purpose of the Dharma which Emperor Asoka propagated through his inscriptions have given rise to many interpretations on the part of modern historians. The present course, while making a critical assessment of them, seeks to take/explain its correspondence to the teachings of the Buddha. The course will attempt to identify the Buddhist canonical texts which served as sources of inspiration for the Asokan Dharma.