History of non-Christian Religions — Topic 7

7.1 Siddhartha Gautama

Siddhartha Gautama is the birth name of the founder of Buddhism. Following his legendary awakening, he acquired a number of epithets: Buddha Shakyamuni — “the Awakened Sage of the Shakya clan” — or simply Buddha (literally, “the Awakened One”), Tathāgata (“thus-come” or “thus-gone”), Bhagavan (“the Blessed One”), Sugata (“the Well-Gone”), Jina (“the Conqueror”), Lokajyeshtha (“the Most Venerated in the World”), and others.

The dates of his birth, awakening, and death (parinirvana) vary across the different Buddhist traditions. According to the Sinhalese, or so-called “long,” chronicles, Buddha Shakyamuni was born in 624 BCE and attained parinirvana in 543 (544) BCE. The Japanese Buddhist version, which draws on the “short” chronicles, places his life between 448 and 368 BCE. Most contemporary scholars, however, adopt a dating based on the Greek evidence concerning the coronation of Ashoka. The key reference point for dating the Buddha’s life is the beginning of the reign of this Buddhist emperor. On the basis of Ashoka’s edicts and the regnal dates of the Hellenistic kings to whom he sent envoys, the beginning of Ashoka’s reign is set at 268 BCE. The Pali sources record that the Buddha died 218 years before this event. Since all agree that Gautama was eighty at the time of his death, the resulting dates are 566–486 BCE.

Early biographies of the Buddha describing his life have not survived. The traditional account of the Buddha’s life is reconstructed from a number of Buddhist sutras composed in Pali, which preserve fragments of his biography, as well as from Sanskrit writings, probably of a later date. It should be borne in mind that the first texts concerning the Buddha appeared only four hundred years after his death. Complete narratives of the Buddha’s life appear in the later literature. The best known of these — the Lalitavistara, the Buddhacharita, the Mahavastu, and the Nidanakatha — are hagiographies marked by the characteristic features of the genre: exaggeration, an emphasis on predestination and vocation, and reliance on tales and legends from the oral tradition (the Jatakas, stories of the Buddha’s previous lives before his final birth).

According to these legends, before being born as the son of the ruler of the Shakyas, the future Buddha was reborn 550 times in all (83 times as a saint, 58 as a king, 24 as a monk, 18 as a monkey, 13 as a merchant, 12 as a hen, 8 as a goose, 6 as an elephant, and also as a fish, a rat, a carpenter, a smith, a frog, a hare, and so on). At last the gods determined that the time had come for him to be incarnated as the human being who would save the world, and that this birth would be his last before passing into nirvana.

Let us briefly review the main moments of his biography.

Shuddhodana was the ruler of the small principality of Kapilavastu, situated in what is now Nepal near the Indian border. A more precise birthplace is also given for the Buddha: the grove of Lumbini. His mother was Mahamaya (or simply Maya), who died shortly after giving birth. A legend relates that Mahamaya saw in a dream a white elephant entering her side, which was a sign of the conception of a great being who, according to the legend, was born in a miraculous way — from his mother’s side.

The thirty-two marks of “the great man” found upon the infant (golden skin, the sign of a wheel on his foot, broad heels, joined eyebrows, long fingers, long earlobes, and others) were interpreted by the court sages as a portent that the newborn would become either a mighty ruler who would establish a righteous order on earth or a great hermit. Among the seers named is Asita Devala. Maya passed away on the seventh day after her son’s birth, and her sister, Mahaprajapati Gotami, took her place as the boy’s mother. His father, Shuddhodana, the wise and just ruler of the Shakya clan, saw in his son his heir and wished him to follow the former path.

The prince was given the name Siddhartha (“He who has achieved his aim”). To prevent the ascetic’s prediction from coming true, the king created within the palace an atmosphere of perpetual festivity, removing any hint of the sorrows and sufferings of the world. When the prince turned sixteen, he married his cousin Yashodhara. He spent the next thirteen years in luxury and idleness in his father’s palace, after which a son was born to them, named Rahula (“Fetters”).

The Buddha’s famous “three encounters” occurred during an excursion outside the palace. More precisely, there were four, beginning with the prince’s sight of crows on a plowed field pecking worms from the clods of earth, which brought him to the realization that the life of some beings is bought at the price of the life of others. Next the Buddha saw a sick man covered with sores; then his eye fell upon an emaciated old man; then a funeral procession; and finally an ascetic absorbed in contemplation. These scenes awakened in him an understanding of the futility of worldly pleasures and affected him so deeply that he left his home. An important psychological element of the narrative is that the Buddha was in fact unaware, until the age of twenty- nine, of the existence of illness and death. His father had excluded from his upbringing and his life everything that touched on suffering, as well as religious instruction — that is, anything that might lead the boy toward religious reflection and ultimately to the ascetic life. The father thus sought to forestall the prediction, so that the boy would become a king rather than a monk. Life, however, decreed otherwise, and the Buddha, having left his father’s home, went to the ascetics and holy men, the masters of the Vedas and of philosophy, to learn from them what he had been denied.

He first studied for a year under various sages but came no closer to the truth. Then, for five years, he devoted himself to severe asceticism with five hermits in search of the path to liberation. When this too failed, he came to a place called Bodh Gaya, sat down beneath a bodhi tree, or sacred fig, and entered into deep meditation. Several legends are associated with the Buddha’s “enlightenment.” Having sat down beneath the tree, he vowed that he would not leave that spot, whatever might befall him, until he had discovered deliverance from suffering. The Buddha spent forty-nine days beneath the tree, overcoming the various temptations to which the demon Mara subjected him. Mara and his demons unleashed upon the Buddha thunderstorms and hurricanes, floods and earthquakes, in an effort to provoke an animal fear in him. In the end, he summoned his daughters, the very embodiments of seduction, to break the Buddha’s meditation, but all the demon’s efforts were in vain, and he was forced to withdraw. The sequence of the temptations varies among the sources. By the end of the forty-ninth day, the Buddha knew the truth. He had uncovered the secret of suffering and understood why the world is full of suffering and what one must do to be freed from it. For another seven weeks the Buddha remained beneath the “tree of enlightenment.” Throughout this time he deliberated whether he should proclaim to the world what had been revealed to him. Then Brahma himself descended from the heavens and persuaded the Buddha to go forth and preach.

Having resolved to preach the Dharma, the Buddha first sought out those who would understand him. Since his meditation teachers had already died, he went in search of the ascetics with whom he had practiced, and declared to them that he had become an arhat, fully awakened. They did not believe him at first, holding that only extreme asceticism could lead to awakening. Having exhausted all logical arguments, the Buddha exclaimed, “Admit that I never said anything of the sort before!” Knowing his honesty and sincerity, the hermits agreed to hear him out. To them he delivered his first sermon, on the Four Noble Truths, which came to be known as “the Turning of the Wheel of Dharma.” Five monks and two deer listened to the sermon. This took place at Isipattana (modern Sarnath, India), which became one of the chief pilgrimage sites in Buddhism. The five ascetics became the Buddha’s first disciples, marking the beginning of the community — the sangha.

The circumstances of Gautama’s death are described in detail in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta (Skt. Mahaparinirvana Sutra). The text states that the Buddha had prepared in advance for his death, but the immediate cause of his demise was a meal offered by the smith Cunda at Kushinagara. In the texts this dish is called sukara-maddava (literally, “the soft parts of a pig”). Under the rules of the sangha in the time of Buddha Shakyamuni, monks were required to eat whatever was offered them, including meat (although they were forbidden to ask for it). The Buddha’s death from eating pork did not fit comfortably with the “exalted” image of the Teacher. Hence the final meal is either explained as a sacrifice on the Buddha’s part (he ate it in place of his disciples) or given a “vegetarian” reading: the “soft food of pigs” is interpreted as truffles.

7.2 The Four Noble Truths.

“There are, monks, two extremes that the ascetic should not follow. What two?

One is the inclination to various lusts — vulgar like a threshing floor, base, peasant-like, plebeian, non-Aryan, senseless. The other is the inclination to self-mortification — oppressive, non-Aryan, senseless.

To neither of these extremes does the right middle path incline, fully understood by the Tathāgata: it grants vision, grants knowledge, leads to pacification, to comprehension, to awakening, to repose” — with these words, in Andrei Paribok’s translation, the Buddha’s first sermon begins.

“The Four Noble Truths” are the foundations of Buddhist teaching, which the Buddha set forth in his first sermon:

The truth of suffering.

The truth of the cause of suffering.

The truth of the cessation of suffering.

The truth of the path leading to the cessation of suffering.

The first truth concerns suffering, unsatisfactoriness or burden. Dukkha (Sanskr. duḥkha) is a word usually rendered into English as “suffering,” which is unfortunate, “first, stylistically, since the Pali word is altogether plain, everyday, and frequently used, whereas in the English ’ suffering ’ one hears reflection rather than a direct expression of being; and second, in substance as well: Buddhism does not teach that ‘all is suffering,’ but rather that ‘all is not as it should be,’ ‘all is hard,’ and even ‘there is no worldly perfection.’ In the use of this everyday word one may see the senses of ‘bad,’ ‘amiss,’ ‘painful,’ and so on,” notes the translator of the sutra, A. Paribok [The Questions of Milinda. Trans. A. Paribok. Moscow, 1989, p. 450].

In Buddhism, suffering is a fundamental characteristic of being as such. This suffering is not the consequence of a fall or the loss of a primordial paradise. Like being itself, suffering is without beginning and invariably accompanies every manifestation of being. Buddhists do not, of course, deny that life has its pleasant moments, but these are, as it were, contained within suffering, being an aspect of it. None of the possible “worldly” states is fully satisfactory. “We exist in constant dissatisfaction, in constant frustration. We may experience intense physical or even spiritual (for example, aesthetic) enjoyment and are ready even to exclaim, ‘Stay, moment!’ But the moment does not stay; the enjoyment ends, and we suffer because it has gone; we strive to experience it again, but in vain — and this makes us suffer all the more keenly. Or, on the contrary: we strive for something, perhaps devoting our whole life to it. We attain the goal, but bitter disillusionment overtakes us — the fruit turns out not to be as sweet as we had imagined, and life loses its meaning, because the goal has been reached and there is nothing left to strive for. And, finally, death awaits us all, rendering all our pleasures and enjoyments finite and transitory. Yet this is still not all. We not only suffer (in the sense of being tormented); we are also continually in a condition of passivity, of passive endurance,” — thus E. Torchinov explains the concept [Torchinov, E. Introduction to Buddhism. Moscow, 2005].

This element of passive endurance, of passivity, is noted by many Buddhologists. Dukkha is not the kind of suffering “by which the soul is perfected”; from the Buddha’s point of view there is nothing exalted in suffering — it is simply a quality of existence. Dukkha expresses the idea that the human being is always in the passive voice. Buddhism does not deny human freedom, but freedom is always constrained by the choice between one thing and another, and as such is not absolute.

” Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the origin of suffering: it is this craving [taṇhā, “thirst”] which leads to re-becoming, accompanied by delight and lust, seeking delight here and there; that is, craving for sensual pleasures, craving for becoming, craving for disbecoming.”

— so runs the formulation of the second truth in the Buddha’s first sermon. Three thirsts — to possess, to be, and to destroy — determine the passivity of the world. These thirsts lie at the depths of human existence (Buddhism denies the existence of an essence, so it would be incorrect to speak of “the depths of an essence”) and manifest themselves in myriad concrete desires. In fairness it should be added that, like Hinduism, Buddhism identifies the original cause of what occurs as avidya — ignorance. Not knowing the true state of things, the person perceives actuality as reality, desires it or turns away from it, destroys it or creates it — and all this is bound up in equal measure with the three thirsts and gives rise to suffering. Torchinov comments on this truth as follows: “At the foundation of life lies attraction to the pleasant and aversion to the unpleasant, expressed in the corresponding reactions and motivations, and grounded in a fundamental error, or ignorance (avidya), which consists in the failure to recognize that the essence of being is suffering. Attraction begets suffering; were there no attractions and no thirst for life, there would be no sufferings either. And this thirst pervades all of nature. It is, as it were, the very core of the life activity of every living being. And this life is governed by the law of karma” [Torchinov, E. Introduction to Buddhism. Moscow, 2005].

The Third Noble Truth is the truth of the cessation of suffering — that is, of nirvana (a synonym being nirodha, cessation). The word “nirvana” (Pali: nibbana) derives from the Sanskrit root nir, meaning “to extinguish,” “to die down” (as, for example, the subsiding of a stormy sea). On this basis, nineteenth-century Buddhologists often constructed a theory of nirvana as annihilation, a kind of total extinction, and on that ground charged Buddhism with pessimism. The Buddhist texts, however, make clear that what is extinguished or dies down is by no means being itself.

” Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the cessation of suffering: it is the remainderless fading away and cessation of that same craving, the giving up and relinquishing of it, freedom from it, non-reliance on it.”

Thus nirvana — the highest goal of all living beings in Buddhism — consists in liberation from dukkha and from the operation of the law of karma. The Buddha never gave a direct answer to the question of what nirvana is, and tried to remain silent when the question was nevertheless put to him. Nirvana is not a substance (Buddhism in general acknowledges no substances) but a state of freedom and of supra-personal, or trans-personal, fullness of being. At the same time, this state is wholly transcendent of all samsaric experience, in which nothing resembles nirvana. The Buddha emphasizes that all characteristics of nirvana are conventional, for nirvana is inexpressible in the terms of empirical, samsaric experience. When he is asked, “Does the one who has attained the goal exist eternally and without defect, or does he not exist?” the Buddha answers: “The one who has attained the goal has no measure — that by which they would speak of him as existing is unreal for him: when all dharmas are cut off, all means of discussing them are likewise cut off” (Sutta-nipata 1075). This allows one to speak of an apophatic mode of discourse. Consistently declining to answer, the Buddha says that exact knowledge of nirvana cannot be acquired through words, and that the attempt to do so is of no benefit. For any conception of nirvana will always remain within the limits of this life, and consequently will always be false. The existence of nirvana, for the Buddha, is a self-evident fact, since he had experienced it for himself. At the same time, it is important to understand that the inexpressibility of nirvana in words is not because the Buddha regards it as unknowable (in which case he would simply be an agnostic), but because for him nirvana is an object of practice, not of reasoning. The Buddha therefore confined himself to the most general characterizations of nirvana as a state free from suffering, or as a state of supreme bliss.

“Now this, monks, is the noble truth of the way leading to the cessation of suffering: it is this noble eightfold path; that is, right view, right intention, right speech, right action, right livelihood, right effort, right mindfulness, right concentration.”

The Fourth Truth concerns the Noble Eightfold Path leading to liberation. This truth is devoted to Buddhist praxis, and we shall therefore characterize it only briefly:

Right Views

Knowledge of the Four Noble Truths and the other basic tenets of Buddhism.

Right intention

The resolve, once and for all, to set out upon the path leading to liberation, guided by the principles of the Buddhist teaching.

Right Speech

A Buddhist must in every way avoid falsehood, slander, false witness, abuse, and the spreading of rumor and gossip that nourishes enmity.

Right action

The rules of conduct for monks and laypeople.

Right Livelihood

A Buddhist (whether monk or layperson) must refrain from any form of activity incompatible with right conduct. Wrongful means of livelihood include not only the various criminal ways of obtaining money — robbery, brigandage, fraud, theft — but also professions that involve the infliction of suffering on living beings, in particular those of butcher, or of trader in weapons, poisons, alcohol, and narcotics.

Right Effort

Buddhist practice and yoga.

Right Mindfulness

Right mindfulness is the state of mind that allows one to remain maximally aware in order to overcome obstacles that arise in practice.

Right Concentration

Right concentration is Buddhist meditation, encompassing the techniques of concentration and attentiveness. The necessary precondition for developing this factor is the carrying out of all the preceding components of the path, without exception. At this stage, samadhi proper is attained — the ultimate form of contemplation, in which the distinctions between the contemplating subject, the contemplated object, and the process of contemplation dissolve.

7.3 Anicca (Anitya).

In Buddhism, being is characterized by three basic marks: dukkha, anicca (anitya), and anatta (anatman). Dukkha (suffering, burden) was treated in the previous section; we must now consider the other two. Anicca (anitya) is the original mark of the Buddha’s teaching, the most fundamental, and the one on which the others rest. Anicca is the doctrine of impermanence. According to it, everything in the world is in constant motion, and nothing is unchanging. There exists no single entity bearing the marks of unchangeability or permanence. According to the Buddha, all things are composed of parts, and what is composed of parts cannot constitute a stable whole (including the wholeness of the individual) and must inevitably disintegrate and be destroyed. Impermanence characterizes all phenomena of being, both physical and mental: “all composite things are impermanent.” Nothing possesses permanence — neither things, nor people, nor gods, nor demons. The basic cause of anitya is the composite character of all that exists: the Buddhists show that things and phenomena which appear to be unified, integral substances, permanent in time, are in reality reducible to configurations of many separate parts and events (dharmas) that arise and pass away in every moment.

7.4 Anatta (Anatman).

Anatta is, in the narrow sense, the doctrine of the absence in living beings of any permanent and unchanging self — an atman, whether understood as a soul or as the center and locus of personal identity; in the broad sense, it is the denial of any permanent substantial ground of existence (dravya). It is a foundational teaching of Buddhism, defining the distinctiveness of its doctrine and giving rise to the most varied interpretations and evaluations. Buddhism did not arise in a vacuum. Its distinctiveness is to a great extent defined in relation to the competing teachings of Indian philosophy. For orthodox India, and for the Upanishads, the central teaching was that of Atman — the true self, the divine essence present in beings (in Sanskrit, atman is the reflexive pronoun “self”). Moreover, Atman is true being. It is what is reborn, and it is what is liberated. The Buddha, however, in principle denies the presence of Atman — that is, of a divine, unchanging essence, and more broadly, of essence at all.

Anatta follows logically from the principles of universal changeability (anicca) and the burdensomeness (dukkha) of existence: neither in the world nor in the human being is there, or can there be, anything unchanging; and what is changeable produces dissatisfaction and suffering. Therefore the experience of living beings, which Buddhists understand as a stream of transient states, is — like their existence itself — devoid of any self- identical, unchanging self enduring through time. The Buddha often treats the word “atman” as a nominalist would, seeing in it only a term of verbal convention; it is used in practice, but in reality nothing corresponds to it.

This most important Buddhist doctrine leads us to consider how Buddhism conceives of God and the soul. The soul, in which Indian religious philosophy saw the very axis of human existence, of spiritual self-perfection, and of liberation from samsara (samsara — literally, “wandering, journeying”), is for the Buddha an extreme. He labels as extremes two views about the existence of the soul: the conception of an eternal and unchanging soul that passes from body to body, and the conception of the soul’s ceasing to exist with the death of the body.

His own teaching the Buddha calls “the middle” with respect both to the affirmation and to the denial of the existence of an unchanging soul. In contrast to “the first extreme,” which opposes the eternal soul to the disintegrating body, and to the second, which reduces the soul to bodily functions, the Buddha regards the mental and the physical, the subject and the object, as interdependent and mutually defining elements of existence, in a constant process of change. That is, the reincarnating individual is neither “eternal” nor “cut off by death” from his other incarnations. The Buddha emphasizes that he teaches not “the destruction, annihilation, or cessation of something that truly exists,” but “the destruction of thirst, anger, and delusion.” On the whole, Gautama assigns the question of the existence or non- existence of the awakened soul after death to the category of indeterminate questions that admit of no categorical “yes” or “no” answer, since the question itself rests on a mistaken view of existence and non-existence.

The same may be said of the concept of God in Buddhism. The existence of gods is not denied in Buddhism; among the many gods, Buddhism acknowledges the existence of higher ones, but the gods, like all other beings, are without essence — impermanent, changeable, not eternal. They represent more enduring forms of existence, but only forms, which likewise contain no “selfhood of Atman” and do not possess being of their own. God in the highest sense, however — as a single Creator — Buddhism does not recognize.

To sum up the topic, let us cite the words of E. Torchinov: “Why does Buddhism deny the existence of an eternal ‘I’? Here we at once encounter the difference between Indian and European thought. As is well known, Kant regarded faith in the immortality of the soul as one of the postulates of morality. Buddhism, on the contrary, holds that it is precisely the sense of an ‘I’ and the attachment to that ‘I’ that is the source of all other attachments, passions, and inclinations — of everything that constitutes the kleshas, the darkened affectivity that drags the living being into the morass of samsaric existence” [Torchinov, E. Introduction to Buddhism. Moscow, 2005].

7.5 The Five Skandhas.

If, then, from the Buddhist standpoint the human being is not an eternal personality and soul, what is he? In the Buddhist tradition, this teaching may be translated literally as the doctrine of the five heaps, or aggregates (the five skandhas), the five components of which the human being is made up as of parts:

1. the group of the sensory (rupa) — everything that may be assigned to the domain of the sensorily perceptible and material;

2. the group of feelings (sensations of the pleasant, the unpleasant, or the neutral) — vedana;

3. the group of the awareness of distinctions (round / square, white / black, etc.), as well as the formation of representations and concepts — samjna;

4. the group of motivating factors — volitions and impelling impulses (samskara); it is precisely this group of elements that is responsible for the formation of karma; and finally,

5. consciousness as such (vijnana).

In an early sutra describing the temptation of the Buddhist nun Vajira (Vajira Sutta, SN 5.10), it is said of the skandhas:

“Why now do you assume ‘a being’?

Mara, is that your speculative view?

This is a heap of sheer formations:

Here no being is found.

“Just as, with an assemblage of parts,

The word ‘chariot’ is used,

So, when the aggregates exist,

There is the convention ‘a being.’

“It’s only suffering that comes to be,

Suffering that stands and falls away.

Nothing but suffering comes to be,

Nothing but suffering ceases.”

7.6 The Dharmas.

Dharmas, in Buddhism, are the individualized, atomic events that make up the experience of living beings and constitute the process of existence. They may be called particles of reality, but not atoms, since in Indian philosophy atoms possess permanence as elemental essences. Dharmas, however, are not essences; they are changeable and impermanent, and indeed momentary. “The dharmas do not exist even for one moment of thought; they arise and disappear, and at the same time arise, exist, and disappear,” says the Lotus Sutra; consequently, their existence is wholly dissolved between arising and disappearing, and is bounded by these. The existence of dharmas is precisely arising followed by disappearance, and nothing more. The doctrine of momentariness follows directly from the thesis of the universality of impermanence. It holds that each dharma exists for only one infinitesimal moment, and in the next moment is replaced by a new dharma causally conditioned by the previous one.

The concept of dharma evolved from the idea that every thing or phenomenon has a beginning and an end (in the early portions of the Pali Canon — the Tipitaka) to the idea of an instantaneous event that flashes up and goes out like a spark. The word itself is formed from the Sanskrit root dhṛ, meaning “to hold.” In many Buddhist schools, dharmas are regarded on the one hand as endowed with ontological status, as real elements, and on the other hand as merely conceptual, or conventional, units of the language used to describe experience.

Various lists and classifications of dharmas are preserved in Buddhist philosophy. Thus the Sarvastivada school speaks of seventy-five dharmas, while the Yogacara list comprises one hundred. As for the classifications of dharmas, the list may be reduced to a binary one: (1) the dharmas of the rupa skandha, and (2) the dharmas of all the remaining skandhas (in accordance with the division of the composition of the person into the mental and the physical).

To illustrate this concept, let us cite an example drawn from the contemporary world that Torchinov offered: “It is best compared to a film: a film consists of separate frames, which, however, we do not see when watching, perceiving it as a pure continuum. At the same time, the differences between two adjacent frames are altogether negligible, and they appear to the naked eye practically identical, while the differences accumulate and become manifest gradually. In this comparison, each new life is a new episode in a beginningless serial; nirvana is the end of the film” [Torchinov, E. Introduction to Buddhism. Moscow, 2005].

The image of the film is indeed apt. A frame is analogous to a dharma; the frames replace one another at enormous speed, imperceptibly to the eye, and for the viewer they merge into a single film. In the same way, the dharmas replace and condition one another, merging for the human being into the life of a being, even though no being as such exists. So may be summed up the anatmavada — the teaching of “no-self,” or the absence of soul.

The question naturally arises: if there is no soul, what is reborn and passes from life to life? The answer is paradoxical: nothing is reborn or transmitted, since the human being in Buddhism is not, as in Hinduism, an embodied soul (atman). The human being is a stream of states — of dharmas, like a series of frames. A new life arises as a consequence of this one, but it is precisely new; no essence is reborn in the new body; rather, one life passes into another.

7.7 Interdependent Origination.

To complete our survey of the foundations of Buddhist philosophy, we must consider the concept of “interdependent origination” (pratitya-samutpada). In this doctrine the teaching of karma as causal connection finds its fullest development. For ease of exposition and for didactic purposes, pratitya- samutpada is usually illustrated by the example of a human life, although it can equally be demonstrated on any element of existence, or on the cosmic cycle as a whole.

Pratitya-samutpada asserts that in the world of rebirths everything is conditioned. Every phenomenon is the condition for the arising of some other phenomenon, while being itself conditioned by another. These conditions mutually interact. There are no first causes in Buddhism, just as there are no absolute consequences. Any cause is also a consequence in relation to another phenomenon, and any consequence is also a cause. The arising of any element of the system is the result of the interaction of all the elements of the system. Strictly speaking, there are here neither causes nor consequences, but only conditions: something is conditioned, and at the same time conditions something else.

Pratitya-samutpada is usually demonstrated using twelve links arranged in three groups: those preceding life, those pertaining to life, and those determining the next life.

Preceding life:

1. Avidya (ignorance) — error concerning one’s own nature and the nature of existence as such — conditions the presence of —

2. Samskaras (formative factors, motivations, basic subconscious inclinations and impulses), which draw the deceased toward a new experience of being, a new birth. The intermediate existence ends, and the conception of a new life takes place.

Pertaining to life:

3. The presence of samskaras conditions the appearance of consciousness (vijnana), as yet unformed and amorphous. The presence of consciousness conditions the formation of —

4. Name and form (nama-rupa), that is, the psycho-physical characteristics of the human being. On the basis of these psycho-physical structures are formed —

5. The six bases (shad-ayatana), that is, the six organs, or faculties (indriya), of sensory perception. The sixth indriya is manas (“mind”), likewise regarded as an organ for the perception of “what is intelligible.” At the moment of birth, the six organs of perception enter into —

6. Contact (sparsha) with the objects of sensory perception, as a result of which there arises —

7. Feeling (vedana) — of the pleasant, the unpleasant, or the neutral. The feeling of the pleasant and the desire to experience it again give rise to —

8. Attraction, passion (trishna), while the feeling of the unpleasant produces aversion. Attraction and aversion, as two sides of a single state, form —

9. Upadana (grasping, attachment). Attractions and attachments make up the essence of —

10. Life, samsaric being (bhava). But this life must necessarily lead to —

Determining the next life:

11. A new birth (jati), which in turn must necessarily end with —

12. Old age and death (jara-marana).

7.8 Buddhist Cosmology. The Three Realms (tridhatu).

Buddhist cosmology may be treated as conditionally spatial and temporal. “Conditionally,” because Buddhism presupposes the unity of being and thought, and consequently the worlds and kalpas (temporal intervals) exist as phenomena relative to consciousness and do not possess independent being. In plain terms, they are like a dream. They may, nevertheless, be considered.

Among the conditionally spatial categories — that is, those that define the place of dwelling — belong the three spheres, realms, or worlds (tridhatu) and the worlds situated within them. The worlds into which one is born after death as a result of rebirth, during meditation, or worlds that characterize states of consciousness, are:

The realm of desire, or the realm of the sensory, kamadhatu, in which dwell beings that experience feelings, desires, strivings, and passions;

The realm of forms (the material sphere), rupadhatu, corresponding to yogic concentrations of full objectivity, in which the sensory is absent but form — material elements — is contemplated; consciousness in the sphere of forms is objective and dispassionate; the beings of this sphere are material;

The realm of formlessness (the immaterial sphere), arupadhatu, in which the elements of the material world are absent.

These three realms specify the places of dwelling through which consciousness wanders in samsara, passing from one rebirth to another or moving through various stages of meditation. To the higher spheres of form and formlessness correspond the highest realms of the world of the gods; the lower realms and other worlds belong to the sensory sphere. In iconography they are represented by circles, and sometimes by three severed heads — one fresh, another decayed, and the third a skull.

Important: all three realms and their inhabitants are part of samsaric being, and in Buddhist iconography they are not infrequently depicted in the hands of a demon personifying error. From the Buddhist standpoint, birth and dwelling in any of these spheres is the opposite of nirvana, although Buddhas, arhats, and bodhisattvas are born in some of them.

7.9 The Realm of Desire. Kamadhatu.

The sensory sphere includes the worlds of the hell beings, of the pretas (hungry spirits), of animals, of human beings, and also the world of the asuras and the world of the gods, the devas. The sensory sphere does not include the higher worlds of the gods, beginning with the worlds of Brahma. The entire realm of desire, together with the worlds of Brahma, is destroyed at the end of the Great Kalpa (kalpa being the period of existence), and the beings ascend to the higher worlds. Thus, if we recall that in Hinduism Brahma is regarded as the Creator, what is meant here is the whole created world along with the heavens and hells, including the world of Brahma himself.

Before turning to the details, it is necessary to note that Buddhism defines the inhabitants of the realm of desire in terms of the degree of enjoyment- suffering. That is, the gods are happy, and the higher they are, the happier; the demons suffer, and the lower they are, the more dreadful their suffering. Both, however, are blinded by their sufferings and enjoyments, and in the highest sense both suffer, since all is suffering. Human birth is the best, because it is balanced. Human suffering on earth is less severe than that of the hells, while human enjoyments are less than the heavenly ones, and therefore the human being is more sober.

The heavenly worlds of the gods, the devas (the Indian gods), are four in number:

Paranimmita-vasavatti (Pali) — the heaven of the gods who wield power over other beings. Here dwell the happiest of the gods, whom others serve. The ruler of this world is named Vasavatti (Skt. Vashavartin). He has existed since the beginning of the universe and is the most powerful of all. Many texts, however, name a different ruler of the highest heaven — the demon Mara. Vasavatti is sometimes identified with him. Mara leads all into error and strives to keep all beings within the realm of desire, binding them to sensual pleasures, since he himself takes enjoyment in this world. The beings of this heaven live for billions of years.

Nirmanarati — the world of the gods who delight in their own creations. These gods create for their own enjoyment. The ruler of this world is Sunimmita.

Tushita — the next level, the world of bliss. Gods dwell here as well. It is in this world that bodhisattvas are born before they descend into the world of human beings. The bodhisattva of this world was once Shvetaketu, who was reborn as Siddhartha and became Buddha Shakyamuni.

Yama — the first level physically separated from the earthly world. The world of Yama is ruled by the deva Suyama; his wife is the rebirth of Sirima, the well-known courtesan, who in the time of the Buddha was generous to the monks and for this reason was reborn as a goddess.

These four worlds are located above Mount Sumeru, which stands at the center of the world and is itself divided into worlds. Three worlds are situated directly upon it or around it: “the World of the Thirty-Three Gods” on its summit; “the World of the Four Heavenly Kings” on its slopes; and “the World of the Asuras” at its foot.

The Realm of the Thirty-Three Devas comprises the palaces and gardens on Mount Sumeru. The ruler of this world is Shakra, the lord of the gods. Besides the thirty-three gods themselves, who possess the corresponding sectors of the heavens, many other beings live in this world, the apsaras for example.

The Realm of the Four Kings is located on the slopes of Mount Sumeru, but its inhabitants live in the air around it. This Realm is governed by the Four Kings: Virudhaka, Dhritarashtra, Virupaksha, and their leader Vaishravana. Gandharvas, nagas, and yakshas also live in this world.

The Realm of the Asuras. The asuras, already known from the Vedas, are in Buddhism lesser gods, demons, or titans. Envying the gods, they display wrath, pride, and belligerence. Their character is evident from the fact that they had once dwelt higher up the mountain but were driven out for drunkenness and rudeness. They are constantly at war in order to recover their former position.

Next come the earthly worlds:

The Human Realm, divided into four continents surrounded by mountains and the ocean. The ocean, in its turn, is bounded by the wall of the Chakravada mountains.

The Animal Realm: Characterized by instinct, fear, and servitude.

The Realm of Pretas (Hungry Ghosts). Pretas are hungry spirits unable to satisfy their desires. They are therefore always hungry. They are depicted as misshapen beings with large bellies, thin necks, and very small mouths. The large belly is the symbol of desire, and the small mouth the symbol of the impossibility of satisfying it. They constantly wish to eat and drink, but cannot take in food. People who lived their lives in the corresponding manner — in stinginess, greed, and acquisitiveness — are reborn as pretas.

The Hells (Narakas): Unlike the eternal hells of Abrahamic religions, Buddhist hells are temporary. Beings are reborn here due to heavy negative karma and remain until that karma is exhausted. There are eight hot hells (culminating in Avici, the Unceasing Hell) and eight cold hells.

There are eight hot hells and eight cold hells, as well as additional hells, and it is affirmed that in countless worlds there is also a countless number of hells. Each successive hell is more dreadful and larger than the one before. We shall list only the principal ones.

The eight cold hells:

Arbuda-naraka — the hell of blisters.

Nirarbuda-naraka — the hell of bursting blisters.

Atata-naraka — the hell of shivering with cold.

Hahava-naraka — the hell of weeping and groaning.

Huhuva-naraka — the hell of chattering teeth.

Utpala-naraka — the hell of the blue lotus.

Padma-naraka — the lotus hell.

Mahapadma-naraka — the great lotus hell.

The eight hot hells:

Sanjiva-naraka — the hell of revival.

Kalasutra-naraka — the hell of black threads.

Sanghata-naraka — the crushing hell.

Raurava-naraka — the hell of wails.

Maharaurava-naraka — the hell of great wails.

Tapana-naraka — the hot hell.

Pratapana-naraka — the hell of great heat.

Avici-naraka — the unceasing hell.

7.10 The Realm of Forms. Rupadhatu.

The Realm of forms borders on physical reality; its inhabitants have bodies, but these bodies are more subtle, invisible to the world of desire. That is, they are non-sensory, akin to Platonic forms, but contemplable in meditation.

The beings of the Realm of forms neither enjoy nor suffer pain; they are not tormented by the sensual strivings after enjoyment that characterize the beings of the sensory world. The bodies in the world of forms have no sexual characteristics.

The inhabitants of the realm of forms abide in meditation and concentration (dhyana). In fact, rupadhatu is structured precisely according to the levels of meditation; the worlds of forms are the levels of meditative ascent. To the sphere of forms correspond the four lower dhyanas and one higher one. Each is subdivided into several dwelling-places, corresponding to levels — three for each of the four lower dhyanas, and five dwelling-places for the higher dhyana, Shuddhavasa — in all, seventeen dwelling-places in the world of forms.

Shuddhavasa, the “Pure Abodes,” are the highest dwelling-places of the realm of forms. They differ from the other worlds in that their inhabitants are not those who have simply accumulated karmic merit, but those who have set out upon the path of the arhat — the non-returners (anagamins). The only way to be born in the worlds of Shuddhavasa is to follow the teaching of the Buddha. It is a curious fact that each of these worlds in the Buddhist tradition has its own height, measured in millions of yojanas. The highest world in Shuddhavasa is Akanishta. The gods born here are the highest of the gods.

Next come four realms corresponding to four meditations (dhyanas) of a lower order: The Realms of Bṛhatphala (Great Rewards), The Realms of Śubhakṛtsna (Clean/Pure Glory), The Realms of Ābhāsvara (Radiant Light), and The Realms of Brahma (listed from higher to lower). Thus the world of Brahma — the one venerated in India as the creator — does not belong to the higher worlds; on the contrary, within the realm of forms it is the lowest. Each of these meditative worlds is further divided into three. The result is a kind of seventeen-tiered heavenly hierarchy, with the crucial qualification that these seventeen locations correspond to states of consciousness attained in yogic practice.

7.11 The Formless Realm (arupadhatu).

The formless realm does not exist within the physical world, and none of its beings has any concrete location. From the standpoint of space, extension, and matter, the world of formlessness does not exist. One therefore speaks of the levels of the sphere of formlessness, emphasizing that they have no location.

There are four such higher states. They are the highest of all, attained in the very highest meditations, often by gods; however, they are deemed unnecessary for awakening, since they too are not nirvana. Yet since the world of formlessness is not destroyed along with any concrete universe, birth in it lasts through many universes, for an incalculable length of time. But from these worlds too, rebirth will follow. The Mahayana attitude toward these four states of consciousness is therefore ambivalent and even negative, since dwelling in these states is prolonged, pointless, and does not lead beyond samsara. In Buddhist literature one may even occasionally find the view that these states are no better than births in hell. Bodhisattvas are never born in this sphere.

This last point is especially significant, since it testifies that Buddhism does not regard meditation as an end in itself, and that the lower levels of meditation may turn out to be more useful than the higher.

The beings of the immaterial sphere have no support in any body. They are self-sufficient and derive enjoyment from their states as such, striving to prolong them as long as possible. And, by and large, for the Buddhist they are temptations. To some extent this teaching may be compared with the Orthodox conception of prelest’ (spiritual delusion), since prelest’ in a certain sense is a self-sufficient state of taking enjoyment in one’s own asceticism.

As noted above, there are four types of gods of the world of formlessness, corresponding to four dhyanas (from higher to lower):

The realm where there is neither perception nor non-perception — Naivasamjnanasamjnayatana. This state was, according to tradition, attained by Udraka Ramaputra, the second of Gautama Buddha’s teachers, who took it to be enlightenment.

The realm of complete absence — Akinchanyayatana. This state was, according to tradition, attained by Arada Kalama, the first of Gautama Buddha’s two teachers, who took it to be enlightenment.

The realm of infinite consciousness — Vijnananantyayatana, in which consciousness pervades everywhere without bound.

The realm of infinite space — Akashanantyayatana, in which one experiences space extending in every direction without limit.

A curious feature is that, in passing, in essentially this section of cosmology, Buddhism gives an apologetic description of the mystical experience of certain ascetics who experienced the dissolution of themselves in the world, and the qualities of God as their own.

Bibliography :

Ajahn Sucitto. Turning the Wheel of Truth: Commentary on the Buddha’s First Teaching, Shambhala 2010

Anderson, Carol. Pain and Its Ending: The Four Noble Truths in the Theravada Buddhist Canon, Routledge 2013

Buswell, Robert E. Jr.; Gimello, Robert M., eds. Paths to Liberation. The Marga and its Transformations in Buddhist Thought, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers 1992

Buswell, Robert E. Jr.; Lopez, Donald Jr. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism, Princeton University Press 2003

Fowler, Merv. Buddhism: Beliefs and Practices, Sussex Academic Press, 1999

Gethin, Rupert. The foundations of Buddhism. Oxford University Press 1998

Gethin, Rupert. Sayings of the Buddha, Oxford University Press 2008

Keown, Damien. Dictionary of Buddhism, Oxford University Press 2003

Keown, Damien; Prebish, Charles S. Encyclopedia of Buddhism, London: Routledge, 2010

Lopez, Donald S. Jr. The Story of Buddhism, HarperCollins 2001

Mitchell, Donald W. Buddhism: introducing the Buddhist experience, Oxford University Press 2002

Robinson, Richard H.; Johnson, Willard L. Buddhist Religions: A Historical Introduction (4th ed.). Wadsworth Publishing. 1997

Williams, Paul, ed., Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, 8 volumes, London: Routledge 2005

• 7.1-7.2
• 7.3-7.5
• 7.6-7.8
• 7.9-7.11

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