For. So welcome everybody to I think this is our fourth talk of the third series of the Treasures seminar,
and I'm really delighted today to have David Krewes, who's a very well-known scholar of Mahayana.
He joined the Department of Religion at the University of Manitoba in 2006. He's a scholar of ancient Indian Buddhism.
His research focuses primarily on early Mahayana early Buddhism and the history of scholarship on Buddhism.
He teaches a range of classes in Buddhism, Sanskrit and Tibetan. These publications include three particularly well-known articles, all of them,
the Iranian Journal is revisiting the phrase a pretty audacious title, a above it and the movie on the cult of the book in 2007.
Move Bonica is an early Mahayana 2011 oral text and indeed, Mahayana in 2015.
Oh, I could add before coming to the University of Manitoba, he taught at the University of Virginia and Bloomington.
So David, welcome and thank you very much for coming. It's great. Oh, to you.
Great, thanks. Thanks very much, Robert, and thank you for inviting me to speak in this seminar.
My papers title is early explanations for the appearance of Mahayana sutras.
Rob corresponded with me a little bit about this and said that a talk on the topic would.
Be potentially illuminating for people interested in terms traditions, so that's the basic background.
So I'll just jump into it. Since early Mahayana since Mahayana sutras were purportedly spoken by the
Buddha but did not start to appear until centuries after early Buddhist texts,
modernists had the challenge of explaining where they came from. Over the centuries, they did this in a number of different ways,
perhaps best known are fairly late stories of Nagarjuna retrieving them from
the realm of the analogous preserved in both Chinese and Tibetan tradition.
And apparently first attested and hagiography of the origin of translated into Chinese by Kumara Jeeva in the early fourth century.
According to other stories highlighted in a few publications by Lamont McCain,
researchers were compiled after the Buddhist death by various Buddhist notables. Samantha Bajra, Manager, Sri Trapani.
My to you know there's. Versions of the story are found in the desert alone above the Bacos, Typekit, Jwala, Harry, Budrus, ABC, Family Island,
coral loca pudding and sodium them over the last two of which depict this is happening
at a distinct council that happened at the same time as the supposed first council,
the Roger. Huh? What I would like to do today is go back further and discuss.
But early, Mahayana structures themselves have to say about where they came from.
A lot of this material has been discussed before, but a good deal has not.
And I think there may have been some misunderstandings, so I hope a short study may be of some use.
Interrupt specifically asked me to talk about what I referred to in an email to him as the standard claim.
I'll start with that and then go on to discuss two other possible sources for the revelation of these texts.
Meditation or dreams and the pretty bhana of Shramik.
The Lucas Classic is for the standard claim is the approach of Panopto formula of a city to Somalia etc,
which has been studied mainly by Paul Harrison along with the extras on horseback it was not for.
It was one of the first to my honesty which was translated into Chinese by look at in the second century
CE and manuscript fragments apparently dating to the first or second century have also come to light.
Putting it in a handful of the oldest datable mahogany structures we possess in one passage, the lemon butter Paula, the Buddha's main interlocutor,
asks the Buddha if the project partner will circulate in January after the Buddha's party nirvana and the Buddha replies under Pol.
For 40 years after my party nirvana this somebody will circulate and spread and jump with rebar.
Thereafter, it will go into a cave in the ground further. When the last 500 years, the last time the left edge, the last five centuries occur.
When the rejection of the true dharma occurs, a few beings will appear who, for the sake of obtaining a future such as this,
will have purified their wholesome potentialities,
done their duty under former us and for the benefit of being such as seised by the might of the Buddha.
This somebody will circulate and spread and jump between Fox and they.
On hearing this, somebody will feel great joy, gladness and faith having heard it.
They will memorise a in memory, recite, learn, copy, expound spread.
In the endeavour to cultivate it, they will also copy it in book form and keep it.
But her, Paula and seven other supporters than weep over the future destruction of the true diamond and vowed to memorise,
learn, copy, retain in memory, recite, teach widely and cultivate quote peace futures of this kind.
During the last time, 500 other voters saw them also weep over the future demise of the Dharma promise
to memorise and preach these sutures of this kind during the last time.
And additionally promise that they will serve under Paula and the seven other bodies of those.
The Buddha then predicts that after his death,
the 500 Buddhist offers will place the future in a stupor in the Earth, under rocks and in the mountains.
And into the hands of Davis, and likewise, in August, upon their death, they will be born as gods.
And then in the last time they will return to the human realm, reacquire the suture and spread it along with other Pouliot.
That would also states that apart from the five hundred and eight body survivors who were there when the suture was initially delivered,
no one will memorise the suture to retain it in memory or recite it.
In the introduction to his translation of the Tibetan version of the text,
Paul Harrison makes the important observation that this scenario quote constitutes an authenticating device,
which both explains the sudden appearance of the suture in the world and vindicates those who champion identifying them with butter,
Paula and his five hundred followers. The composers of the Project Panda are therefore likely to have regarded themselves as living in the last age,
possibly the second of two 500 year periods, which would have begun sometime around the first century of our era.
Well, it is possible that the author of the tax for the last age of the second 500 year period of the Dharma, the text doesn't say this,
and it is also possible that they envision themselves living simply in the period of the disappearance of the Dharma,
which we'll see was clearly the case for the Ostrov authors of the exodus of Hazarika.
Either way, Harrison's basic insight is surely right,
and we can imagine that the Dharma barnacles who initially revealed the sutra presented themselves as reincarnations of
Butter Paula and his seven primary companions and claim that their audience members were amongst their 500 followers.
By doing so, they were simultaneously able to present their text as authentic a, you know.
And themselves and their audience members as supporters who had been present when the tax was originally done.
And who were fulfilling the Buddhist Buddhist prophecy in the present. Did this, we can add two extra points that will be important as we move on.
First, Buddha Paula and his followers do not vow to reveal and spread just the project partner,
but suitors of this kind, even Rupa suitors or the Bi-Polar.
Both of which are standard terms for Mahayana sutras used by these texts.
The actual term mother in the Sutra did not emerge until the 4th century.
So when these to talk about other Mahayana sutras, they'll usually call them either by police or trust searches of this kind or to citrus.
So second, the people involved are depicted as already being body Typekit from the time of the Buddha.
Indeed, in the text, the Buddha says that they have all already heard teachings from forty eight
thousand Buddhists in the past and predicts all of their future attainment,
the Buddha had ipso facto making them irreversible bodies almost certain to one day attain.
But. Well, the project upon his version of the scenario was fairly well known thanks to Harrison's work.
Less well-known is that it is repeated throughout early Mahayana surgery.
Indeed, it appears already in the Aftersun, likely the oldest suture.
We possess a fact that may have been missed because it is not very clear and Edward Collins's translation.
In the third chapter of the text, the Buddha states, when Kocherga Cachaca is epithet for Chakra or Indra,
the targets do not arise in the world, then kosoko. Those bodies thought the Masters were endowed with skilful means as a result of
having previously heard the Pugno palmy top having given rise to compassion.
Having come into this world teach various teachings associated with the not for me to kosoko with the passing away of the fully enlightened Buddha.
When there is the disappearance of the true Dharma because of the non arising a fully enlightened Buddhist, whatever righteous conduct, just conduct.
Excellent conduct, good conduct is known or spread in the world.
If born for Modi, thought first arisen from Modi's office set forth by Bodhisattva skill and means.
It's government, like the budget part of this passage refers to the disappearance of the Dharma predicted
in the Nicoya argument talks that take place 500 years after the Buddhist death.
Unlike other later traditions with either which either extend or the length
of the is duration or posit a second week and phase of the Dharma for both.
It claims that the Buddhist dharma does indeed disappear.
And at this point, though, authors who have heard the runner, Hermie talking past lives take rebirth in this world in order to spread its future.
This idea makes some sense, but logically because it fits in with the fact that Jodka stories stories of the past lives of.
Go to her your as the body offer, are generally set in the interval between the disappearance of one Buddhist dharma and the appearance of the next.
Somewhat later, the tax takes up the topic again, the Buddha states that suture is associated with the six perfections.
Mahayana sutras well, first appear in the south, then then spread to the east and north and at the time.
A period of the disappearance of the true dharma beings who memorised the Bruckner parameter,
retain it in memory, etc. will be seen and sustained by the targeted.
Sherry Putra then asked the Buddha if the person from Utah will be widespread in the north in quote,
the last time, the last period and if anybody thought was at that time, we'll listen to it.
Write it, memorise it and so forth. The Buddha then replies.
This is a bit lengthy passage, but I want to read it out because I think it's pretty important.
Sorry, coach, there will be only a few body staffers who will listen to the programme, apparently to copy it and so forth.
Those body staffers are to be known as long established in the vehicle.
That's to say, in the Mahayana, many previous to target our house, fully enlightened Buddhas have been followed,
queried in question in many previous to target as our hearts foiling Buddhas have
been venerated by those sons and daughters of good family belonging to the body,
thought the vehicle. I myself have given this very discourse linked to a mission for those sons or daughters of good family,
even having departed from this life, they will have tendencies linked to our missions linked to the pregnant for me time.
And they will deliver this very discourse.
They will rejoice at this very discourse, namely this discourse having to do with unsurpassed complete enlightenment.
This fills out the picture considerably, like the first passage and the project partner,
the text locates the events being discussed in the time of the disappearance of the true Dharma.
Like the budget upon a path,
it also depicts the beings involved as already having been body surface for many lifetimes as having worship and learn from many former Buddhas
of having heard the not permitted from Dr. Money himself and as having been predicted to reveal it at the time of the Dahmer's disappearance.
In the video, audacious, audacious search near the end of the tax, my trio says that, but I will place these features of this kind,
even group searchers into the hands of those future sons and daughters of good family who are worthy vessels for them.
I will provide memory for them, by which they will announce the researchers of this kind.
Memorise them, learn them and so forth. And I will give them encouragement.
Moreover, blog about it should be understood at that time those who will enjoy these sutures
of this kind and set them forth of the sustaining power of the soft power.
My true. The Buddha then prayed as Maitreya and a group of what he thought was state stage we to Bhagavan, having come from various Buddha fields,
will spread the Enlightenment of the target as the Buddha's term for that is to target a Buddha body widely and announce it to sons of good family.
So anyway, that's the quote again, we say the same sort of thing. My of vows to reveal Mahayana sutras,
plural deserving people in the future and to support their efforts and other bodies office in the assembly then vow
to return from whichever Buddha fields they have been reborn in in order to teach the quote to Target to put a body.
Apparently a term for the future itself in this world.
And the Tibetan version of the Buddha coping, a search for the body sought to promote Pr0mode Raja Raja and 30000 other Buddhist offers
resolve Bhargava in the last time when we are confronted with beatings and abuse.
When dharma barnacles are despised. When there is the destruction of the Dharma.
And Faulkner is rarely seen. Having copied this and sutures of this kind,
we will retain them the memory and teach us like given with this precious commodity of light, even beings who are no.
Again, the same basically the last time beings were already Brody's office who have heard
this and other citrus from the Buddha himself will reveal them to the world.
The largest activity view has the Buddha says to my trail.
Moreover, agita jitters, a kind of nickname for my trio in the future time, up until the time of the destruction of the true Dharma.
Those beings for whom these excellent armed discourses of this kind, which quickly bring the great knowledge of the mission one will come within
hearing range will be beings with profit very easily gain with good routes.
Crucial mula already planted with services already rendered to previous journeys.
Sustained by the sustaining power of the Buddha, having heard these dormant discourses, they will receive excellent pleasure and delight.
Memorise them, retain them in their memory. Recite them, learn them, illuminate them an expanded form to others.
They will at least worship them having copied them, and they will produce much more. The extent of which is not easy to calculate.
Here we see much the same idea that we saw in the Ashtar and Project Panopto.
Rather than focussing on the initial revelation of the Sutra or the claim that the future of rulers of the Suchas heard the text from document itself.
Which I would kind of guess are in are implied because these passages are so common.
It focuses on the whole community involved in using the text. Again,
we see the idea that this would be the community of long established body surfers and the idea that they will be devoted not only to a single text,
but to my other structures in general. Along with these passages,
each of which involves a resolution or prediction of the resolution of the revelation or use of Mahayana sutures in the plural.
Many other sutures use the same basic scenario to account specifically for
their own origin and or use in the Latin American to recap the body suffers.
Bashar Geroge Maha Pro Boehner promised to retain the suture in memory, teach it and copy it in the period after the Buddhist death,
at a time when beings will be deceitful without good roots attached to gain and honour and so forth.
Later in the text, the Buddha transmits specifically the texts 22nd chapter to the body thought.
Not sure to Raja.
Some consuming to be a beginner so that in the last time this is a quote in the last 500 years, it will circulate and jumbled rebar and not disappear.
Several other similar passages can be found in the text as well. At the end of the year, Multi-nation Sutra the Buddha entrusts the text to A.A.
But Unknown says that although he has memorised the sutra, he is not able to spread it as well as Buddhist authors.
Can 100 million bodhisattva then rise and promise to spread the suture state that Mahayana will all.
I'm sorry that Maitreya will also spread it, and the people who memorised the Sutra retain it in memory.
And recited in the last time in the last 500 years are sustained by my true.
In the super guarantee, the crummy appropriate job pregnant parameter as an approach upon a Paula and other bodies
offers promised to be born in the last time the last five hundred years to spread the future.
A similar passage occurs in the shop exotica, the periodic Pugno parameter as well.
And where passengers can also be found in versions of the look on your partner Drew McIntyre, Roger Perry,
Tricia Suranga, Dragoman, somebody somebody Roger put an appropriate shot of just setting up your coroner and others.
Overall, these passages are so pervasive in the early text that I would suggest they can be taken to
represent the standard early Mahayana presentation of where early Mohammed researchers came from.
If we look at them closely, they tell us a few things about early Mahayana that are quite significant.
First. Though it has thus far been neglected, the fact that many of these passages predict the future revelation,
not just of the text in which they appear, but of Mahayana sutras in general, tells us.
I would say three main things.
First, it shows that the authors of various mining attacks not only made use of the same strategy to plot to explain the origin of their structures,
but accepted each other's claims that their researchers were revealed in the same way.
And it also shows that they had. A shared general understanding of where my ancestors came from.
This understanding is a tested so widely that we can consider a belief in a new revelation of bipolar or cambiar Su Trust later called Mahayana
sutras pre-ordained to occur 500 years after the Buddhist death to be a central aspect of what we could call basic early Mahayana doctrine.
Second, as I argue more fully in another paper that should be coming out this summer,
I believe it gives the lie to the old now standard idea that Mahayana emerge separately in
multiple distinct communities and only later came to be identified as a single tradition.
My honest future author's going back to the earliest texts for which we have
evidence we're not only fully aware of the existence of other Mahayana surgeries,
but repeatedly and consistently depict them as belonging to a broad common revelation that they attempt to justify collectively.
Third, as I also argue more fully in the same paper so far as I've been able to find or notice, these passages are the only passages in these types.
That's showing awareness of the Mahayana movement, calling a lot coalescing around more than individual targets.
They make no reference to any sort of psychosomatic institution, any sort of Mahayana community, any movement of lay or forest aesthetic.
Any sort of layer for us to a revival or anything similar?
Combined with the fact that Chinese pilgrims to India from the 4th through 7th centuries know nothing of of any such institution,
and that you're doing specifically actually deny the existence of any specific Mahajan institution and the fact that Mahayana
monks are known to have continued in moments as well are known to have continued to take ordination in various nicoya lineages.
That suggests, and this has long been my basic argument that Mahayana was, at root,
a tax to a movement or trend that emerged from Buddhist preaching circles.
And spread widely through Buddhist communities associated with various indicators without necessarily being firmly
rooted in any specific community or communities and without ever developing a distinct institutional identity.
Finally, it finally, along with a very large amount of material that I discussed in another paper that recently came out in the history of religion.
These passengers.
Seemed to make it clear that the rebels and user the peace talks did not see themselves as undertaking the bodies off a path beginning.
They did not see it as an ethical choice, as was long the general view going back to the time of restatement.
Nor did they see it as a vocational option.
Yes, Jan Nazia has more recently argued rather, they saw themselves as a sort of cosmic alike who had already been body sort of us for many lifetimes.
Even if we're special appointees of the Buddha or messengers of the Buddha,
you might say, and we're already getting close to the attainment of Buddhism.
The second main possible explanation for the appearance of Mahadi in The Searchers, which several scholars have been especially drawn to,
is the Mahayana searchers were revealed through meditative contact with burrows and other universes.
The locust classic for this. As for the standard model is the product planner, which states that if one focuses one,
mind one's mind on a specific Buddha, the text gives the example of Amitava without distraction for seven days and nights.
When will either have a vision of the Buddha or see him in a dream? Hear him preach the Dhamma.
Memorise the text and be able to preach it to others.
Here are some comments that quote What we have here is, in all probability, a justification in advance,
if not ultra retrospectively, for the sudden appearance of Mahayana sutras.
In another publication, he suggests that this scenario is quote conceivably based on historical fact.
And he argues that Mahayana strictures quote may well have been the work of meditators.
Who are also involved in the business of textual textual transmission.
Who in their visions encountered new revelations, which they later committed to writing.
In the same article, he also suggests that the largest activities, a large, larger security view,
has lengthy descriptions of golden trees with golden or withdraw leaves, which quote at first sight are hardly riveting material.
Are actually quote a template for meditation, or I'm sorry, are actually quote a template for visualisation,
the effect of which would presumably be brilliant and kaleidoscopic unquote.
Generally, he makes a similar claim that a belief in Buddhist living in other worlds and in the so-called
pure land of Iraqi antiquity in particular quote was not a result of scholastic speculation,
but of intensive meditation experience. And that quote certain body saw first emerged from deep meditation with tales of visions they had experienced.
Visions of a universe far more vast than had previously been supposed.
Well, certainly interesting, I personally do not find these suggestions to be especially helpful.
First, as Harrison himself points out, not even the project itself claims to have actually been revealed through this meditation scenario.
It explains its origin using the standard claim, as we saw a few minutes ago.
We can add to this that there are actually no known sutures that use this or any other sort of meditation scenario to explain their origin.
They all claim to have been spoken by BioShock Communion, except I think there might be a few later suitors.
I want to go over this and check if I can actually find any. But I can't think of any offhand.
We can add further that while the standard claim is mentioned again and again throughout the early literature,
the meditation scenario is very rare for far as I've been able to find, although I do want to look a little further into this.
Apart from the project Panopto presentation, only one other mention has come to life to life.
A brief mention in the list of three possible sources of the revelation of the Dharma
that Harrison cites from a structure called the author of a poignant summary a Somali.
So it is probably, needless to say, the main Indian so-called pure land was the larger and smaller the committee view hers and the actual view of you,
her make no claim to have been revealed in this way.
Nor do they say anything to suggest that any of their descriptions should be used for any sort of meditation.
Here and Harrison, suggestions about the tax connexion connexion to meditation do not seem to have any basis.
Moving on to sutures in general, hardly advocate or say anything about the practise of meditation.
In my view,
there is no reason to imagine that any form of meditation practise played any important role in early modern and early Indian Mahayana at all.
Beginning in the 1920s, Suzuki began to advocate the idea that Enlightenment was a special actual experience,
resulting in a psychological rather than supernatural transformation.
Although this vision was a complete odds with everything Indian Buddhist texts say about enlightenment,
scholars accepted it readily and pretty quickly.
Buddhism ceased to be envisioned as a rational moral philosophy, focussed on self-control and the attenuation of desire.
As the previous three generations of scholars of thought and came to be envisioned as a religion or a way of life focussed primarily on meditation.
Once this happened, scholars started to see evidence for the practise of meditation.
Behind every corner. The idea that Mahayana was about meditation was easy for scholars to claim, easy for them to believe.
Indeed, Mahayana had to be about meditation for the gears of the overall picture to mesh, if it were not,
the Mahayana would not be truly Buddhist and Tibetan Buddhist and Zen could not be envisioned as preserving traditions of meditation,
going back to early Buddhism. Rather than preserving the traditions essence, they would just be odd for fruit growing from peripheral branches.
Scholars before Suzuki generally thought.
My own suggestion would be that, yeah, as Harrison suggests, there is little in my young Turks to hold our interest.
If we cannot link them to meditation in some way, then so be it.
It's something that we need to accept. We must resist the temptation to project things into these texts that simply are not there.
Another point to notice here is that Harrison and not his interpretation of the meditation scenario is that cross-purposes to that of the
authors of the of the text of the standard claim in the meditation scenario function by linking these attacks to the authority of a Buddha.
Either shocking Moonies or put it in another world in the meditation scenario.
Meditation serves just as the means of making this connexion.
They're said, not noted, do not have any interest in this per se,
but they depict this tax as being interesting and relevant on the grounds that they are supposedly not based on imaginings or speculation,
but meditation based hallucinations or dreams. Somewhat nebulous in visioned as having special authenticity or meaning.
First, we can say that this idea would have been wholly objectionable to the authors and
early users of these texts exactly what they would not want anybody to conclude.
Again, what they want people to conclude, as if these talks were if the scenario actually was used,
which I'm not sure that it ever was, what they would want it, they would want people to take away from.
It is a beef to have a direct connexion to Amitava or another put a.
Second, when we bring it out into the light of day, it is really a bit strange and obscure,
what does it matter to us as scholars, whether a story was made up or hallucinated?
We all have strange experiences and dreams,
and I think we need to think twice about how much meaning and important we want to attribute to them in our ostensibly empirical scholarship.
Whether or not it is even possible to have a tax occur to one in meditation or dreams.
Composing it in an ordinary, conscious state would surely be far easier for almost anyone.
If we begin with the text we have and think about what would actually be necessary for the composition.
First and foremost would be strong familiarity with standard terminology,
formula phrasing and lift found in earlier Buddhist sutures and other donors.
Once someone possessed this familiarity, composing a Mahayana sutra would be a fairly easy task.
That's not to say that I think that these are fraudsters. I think, you know, ideas pop into your head.
Who knows where they may have come from? It could have karmic background. They could have any number of things.
So this is a topic actually or something that that that David Grey mentioned in his talk.
And I would say I'm I find myself in agreement with that.
I don't I'm not imagining these people as cynical, you know, fraudsters are or, you know, liars or charlatans.
The third basic explanation for the revelation of Mahayana sutras,
or perhaps pre Mahayana Mahayana ish text is revelation through the prophet born of Holocaust.
At the beginning of the first chapter of the oysters, the heartbreak, a pregnant Permettono,
portions of which in fragments from the so-called split collection now represent our very oldest datable evidence for the Mahayana,
the Buddha tells the AHA stability booty traditionally identified as the Buddha's foremost monk provocar,
who dwells in peace, to quote, Let it occur and the Sanskrit for that is roti battuta.
Let it occur to you to him how Bodi staffers go forth into our apartment atop joy.
Pooja then wonders to himself whether Sabeti will reveal the Dharma with his own power or the Buddha's.
So Bushy reads his mind and informed them that whatever Arabic is teach is to be known as the Buddha's personal work,
and the term for that is the Tiger Tosya. Patricia Carr, in an important two part article published in 1981 1982.
Graham McQueen clarified this passage significantly by pointing out that already in Nicoya,
an organiser such was pro bono was depicted as a means by which both by which
but a virtue that could be presented by the Buddhist disciples or by others.
Like sometimes guards in the standard presentations,
someone will either repeat something that they had heard to the Buddha, and he would say that he thought it was good.
Or the Buddha would ask somebody to Pratibha on a particular subject, and then he would approve what the person said after they were done.
In both cases, the voters approval transforms what the person said into what McQueen, I think, convincingly calls quote extended but election.
And he also cites an interesting passage from the Masonic video that says Buddha Virginia
includes things spoken by the Buddha himself and things and approved by the by by the Buddha.
McQueen also cites as a direct precedent, the future of Hippity Souter of the unglued from the corner where the Monk Ultra teaches the Dharma,
and Chakra asked him if he taught the dharma by his own party banner or by the Buddhist.
Might, which I think is under Obama, but it could be published on or whatever the poly versions of those are actually applies,
that whatever is well spoken is but a bachelor.
It's a very interesting idea we find that even in the inscriptions by specifying that Djibouti is preaching by the power of the Buddha, the ushers,
the Hazarika thus just depicts his speech as quote Extended Buddha Virginia in the same way with what McQueen calls certification before the event.
What McLean suggests, thus, is that early Mahayana authors were claiming that Maayan could be made up and be authentic,
but about another at the same time. He goes so far as to suggest that quote all the follows in the text in the offshore of South Africa is to be
read in light of this passage and that quote when the early Mahayana defend their suitcases but about China,
they do not mean by this that these texts are the speech of the quote Historical Buddha.
This, I think, is going a bit too far, as we have seen further on in the ultra serious itself,
it introduces the standard claim which identifies these texts as the Buddha's actual speech,
and this is the claim that is taken up by other early modern researchers in general.
Even so, McQueen's basic analysis of this passage, I think, is very strong.
One key aspect of this passage that McQueen doesn't address is that the revealer of the text is presented as a shraga rather than as a body sorcerer.
What can it mean for the authors of the text or the first part of the text to depict the text revealer?
Not as the Buddha's? And that is the Buddha himself, nor as a Buddhist, but as a Ceramica,
when an even slightly later Mahayana sutras Shramik does appear as the butt of jokes and were routinely disparaged and humiliated.
At the beginning of the text, second chapters,
Subutex claim explained the traffickers should instruct police officers because or as a way of repaying the debt that they owe to the Buddha
for the long training he undertook as a body suffer for their benefit to be able to become a Buddha and then teach the Dharma to them.
And stability also cites as a precedent the fact that traffickers instructed the
Buddha in the palm tossed during his life as a body for many lives as a body officer.
This is really strange, and I suspect that we may perhaps see a case of embarrassment here in which the authors of the text are trying to provide
justification for something that was actually happening and that may have been seen as requiring some explanation.
In any case, the author of what could very well be the oldest surviving of textual material and what is
certainly the very oldest currently datable piece of evidence for the Mahayana of any sort.
Is either trying to justify a situation in which teachings intended primarily for body forces were
being given by monks who identified as traffickers or at least trying to encourage this practise.
What are we to make? Like so much of what we find in ancient Buddhist texts, there's probably no way that we will ever be able to know for sure the.
I think Tilman Fetter is really the only scholar who has addressed this issue,
and he uses these passages to suggest that the programme to permit Tor and Mahayana originated separately.
People who identified as body saw it first existed at the time the passage was composed,
but did not yet know about the product of Utah, the idea of which originally developed in some separate a group.
Making it necessary for traffickers to teach it to them.
Fetcher writes, it is possible that the specific narrative piece was originally composed by Sroubek and later taken over and used by boat resources.
Or it may, on the other hand,
have been an original composition by certain bodies authors who aim to express by way of their choice of certain characters their dead.
To the traffickers, for the pregnant pardon to.
There's very little that can be identified as a continuation of this line of thought in the Asia, South Africa or any other future.
To be sure, traffic is feature as interlocutors in several early texts, which may represent some memory of this tradition and proxy,
Barna is often advocated and promised to Mahajan a preacher's Dharma Monica's.
This seems to represent the only case this passage in the after South Africa.
However, in which pro bono is presented as the justification for a suchas appearance or
in which traffickers are depicted as body thought first proper instructors.
Well, I think that her suggestion is interesting and intelligent, it is, of course, necessarily conjecture.
An observation we can add is that though the text uses the term Dharma Bonica 37 times.
It never uses it to refer to somebody who it identifies with the older term Dermot Kotecha.
Might we perhaps see in the progression of the text a shift from an early stage in which Mahayana ideas were
taught by Shriver to democratic us in tech that may not even necessarily have been presented as suitors?
Through to the emergence of the Dharma Bonica as a specifically muhanna creature who presented
Mahayana surgeries in the form of sutures depicted as having been spoken by the Buddha himself.
If this is so, it would suggest that the tax we have, the office,
the House in particular may go back rather closer to the dawn of Mahayana than has often been thought.
Well, it is fun to wonder. It is unfortunately not possible to do any more than speculate.
Thank you very much.