Talk:Buddhism/Archive 5

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Contents

Pictures

I have no scanner to hand, but SURELY we can find a better image than that one? It looks like an early-90s PCX! - prat 01:00, 2004 Apr 15 (UTC)

It would be nice to have a picture of Buddhists (e.g. monks or nuns), especially as this article is Buddhism.. (20040302 05:12, 15 Apr 2004 (UTC))

Image:Konchog-wangdu.jpeg This one? What do you have?

Yeah, I think that's better. Personally, I've got no idea to look for images that are usable under the Wikipedia license. After I get around to buying a camera, I'll try to take some pictures of stuff over here. Could probably also get permission to use some images from my temple back stateside, but I don't know if any of them are of general enough interest to be useful. - Nat Krause 16:32, 13 May 2004 (UTC)
Yes - I just replaced the gilded picture, forgetting the context! thanks Nat for moving the photo to a more appropriate position. (20040302 05:05, 14 May 2004 (UTC))

Ok, I'm not really sure how to do this but here it goes. I have several pictures of Buddhist sculpture and one of three monks that I got as a comp download with some imaging software. I assume they're public domain. How would I know for sure? I'd be happy to upload them. Don't know how to add signatures and such yet. My Winki SN is AtticusFinch

Please see your talk page, AtticusFinch. -- PFHLai 05:37, 2004 Sep 5 (UTC)

Damn you, 1.3!!!

Huh. Well. This kind of blows chunks. Specifically: (1) The new style, monobook, while aesthetically pleasing in the extreme, specifies Verdana, such that if you use it, the majority of Sanskrit diacritics will be not so much of the available. Also, Verdana's a pretty lame font as such.

Okay, update on this. It's pretty easy to customzie the css; just create yourself a subpage called monobook.css and include something like 
 * {font-family:"Arial Unicode MS"}
I'm sure there's a less brutal way of doing it, but I wasn't in a patient mood. Also, does anyone know of (a) a good serif face with a full suite of unicode glyphs, and/or (b) a good free font of any kind with a full suite of unicode glyphs? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽
I used to use this one, a long time ago. I can't for the life of me tell you how well it supports Devanagari -- or even whether it's serif or not -- but I do remember its CJK support was decent (at least for the time). --Aponar Kestrel (talk) 03:13, 2004 Sep 7 (UTC)
Using a font to change characters only works on those CPUs that have that font.. and Arial Unicode MS is generally found only on Windows.
With respect to UTF-8, the reason that mediawiki doesn't encode it by default is probably that the DB Engine of choice (mysql) did not properly support UTF-8, so I guess the bods at mediawiki decided not to implement UTF-8 encoding until it was supported properly by mysql. (20040302)

(2) My beloved msg: system of transliteration seems to break somewhat in 1.3. Which is unfortunate. It also doesn't seem to break in a coherent or predictable manner. As I don't thin anyone else was using this extensively, this probably isn't a huge concern, but I will say that changing from msg: to template: helps exactly some of the time, and that part of the problem comes from having two msg: tags in the same word. The simplest thing would be to change over to subst: and have these things go back to their numbered entities, but unfortunately this doesn't always work. I'm pondering solutions currently.

Okay, some of the time it helps to use a | at the end of the template name, like {{Nirvana|}}, but only some of the time. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 00:02, 30 May 2004 (UTC)

Also, why the hell didn't they switch to UTF, while they were messing everything else up? -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 22:38, 29 May 2004 (UTC)

Brutannica's edits

1: I started a section called "Buddhism After the Buddha" and wanted to know if I should keep it that way or if I shouldn't. I'm not sure if there's an article about the history of Buddhism, specifically; I think there should be one, but even if there is one, there should at least be a brief summary on this page, like the one I started, only a bit longer.

2: Shouldn't we move the "Origins" material to the page on Gautama Buddha, especially since it seems to be pretty detailed and the Buddhism page is considered too long? Brutannica 00:40, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)

I don't have any objection to the post-Buddha division. There are articles on history (Timeline of Buddhism, for example, and I think there's one on history of Buddhist polemics, or history of the schools, or somesuch. As for the "Origins" material, it's useful to have to put the religion in context for readers. It maybe could use some trimming, though. My concern is with "This was partially due to Muslim invasions, and partially due to Hinduism absorbing Buddhist principles." On what are we basing the claim that Buddhism's decline in India was owing to Hindu appropriation? That sounds like a difficult thing to state as a fact (though certainly it also sounds like a defensible hypothesis), and could potentially draw some flack. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 06:30, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
"One reason that Buddhism died out in India is that Hinduism absorbed many of its ideas and principles." - p. 25, "The 100," Michael H. Hart. Not terribly specific, I know, but I don't have any evidence of my own. Personally I think it sounds more realistic than Muslim invasions. Brutannica 07:13, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
That's not really a strong enough source for my taste. And it's arguable, for example, whether various Hindu branches absorbed Buddhist principles, the opposite happened, or they simply emerge from the same cultual movement critiquing older forms of the orthodox religion. Perhaps we should remove it until we can find a better source. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 07:19, 5 Jul 2004 (UTC)
  • Sigh*... all right... But what should I put then? Just "Muslim invasions," or leave out reasons? Brutannica 00:00, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I don't know. Does anyone actually dispute Brut's version of events? At the very least, we could say that Hinduism absorbed most of Buddhism's base of support. I would reference this from Skilton's book, if my copy were not in another country, but I have read the same basic story in different places. The main differences I've seen are just in how much one or the other (Muslim invasion or Hindu absorption) is emphasized (Udit Raj believes that it was entirely the work of Brahmins and the Muslims had nothing to do with it, but I don't take him as a very credible source for history). We might could also consult with our friend Lord Surya. - Nat Krause 09:30, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
A statement like, "scholars/thinkers/writers/whatever such as X have proposed", particularly with a reference to the book (title will do for now, we can fill in more details later) should suffice. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 04:02, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Actually, the version I first learned was that around that time Hinduism started emphasizing sex, which simultaneously attracted former Buddhists and the wrath of invading Afghan Muslims, who wiped out many temples (possibly not distinguishing between Hindu and Buddhist?). I didn't include that for space and controversy reasons. Opinions?Brutannica 21:04, 7 Jul 2004 (UTC)
Well, I've never heard that before, but I don't suppose that makes it wrong. I know that people love to flap their gums about tantric sex (in Hinduism and Buddhism), but did Hinduism in general ever emphasize sex? That sounds far-fetched. Plus, I don't know about you, but, to me, "invading Afghans" doesn't sound like something that would need a lot of provocation in order to draw their wrath. Clearly, in the long run, north Indian Buddhism got the worst of it (a history of India I read -- don't remember the name -- suggested that this was because the Muslim and Hindu establishments reached a compromise where the latter would be treated as dhimmis while the Buddhists would not, although I would want to include that unless we can find something more authoritative). - Nat Krause 06:54, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC)
I would agree with NatKrause. Hinduism did in fact compete with Buddhism, so it seems logical that yoga with its esoteric concepts attracted many some late indian Buddhists (or prevented some who would otherwise choose Buddhism to join), but sex had nothing to do with that (sex goes under niyama, it's not permitted for serious practitioners). Esoteric practices are somewhat different from classic Patanjali's yoga, but anyway they didn't have sex all the time they would want to. If we stick to Buddha's own sermons, the deterioration of Buddhism began even before Shakyamuni's parinibbana. When Buddha permitted women to join the female sangha, he said that as a result of this, the 'golden era' will be reduced from 1000 years to 500.
Sex? Not relevant or accurate. The answer is probably a good deal more complex than one or two reasons. I would err on the side of caution on this one, and say that there are various theories about why - then quote the sources if you wish. Here is my theory: latter-day Indian Buddhism was pretty much centred around Nalanda university - and it may be that the muslim invaders saw that institution as too much of a political threat. Secondly, the Udyana buddhists had already been wiped out early on in the muslim invasion, and this probably influenced them away from negotiating settlements. (20040302 15:01, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC))
Good, but I have no books and very little knowledge about Buddhism at all, so these theories and things ought to be included with someone well-read, not me (and someone who knows English). Brutannica 04:41, 11 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Is Atman a Buddhist philosophical concept?

Hey, "Buddhism" contributors: over at Atman, Surya is holding the categorization of "Atman" into "Buddhist philosophical concepts" hostage to a debate he and I were having, and I was wondering if others might jump in. Maybe I'm crazy, or he is, but in either case I wonder that others haven't expressed an interest. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 15:08, 6 Jul 2004 (UTC)

Sorry for the delay. Also, I will be away for a month from the 18 (going to India) - so keep the wiki-fires burning! (20040302 15:04, 8 Jul 2004 (UTC))
Whether Atman belongs to Buddhism depends on how dogmatic you are. I am sure there will be a diagreement on this subject among followers of various schools. But then Atman is not a philosophical concept, it's something you need to experience by way of practice, to attain by way of meditation. Many Buddhist esoteric practitioners (you can find some in caves of Indian Himalayas, they are not interested much in sophistics) do not differetiate that much between the Hindu yogic terminology and Buddhist terms. If we follow their logic, the following words mean the same thing: Atman, Nirvana, Emptiness, the True Self. Various schools lead to this goal, but use different roadmap. As to the scientific community and followers not so advanced in meditation, there is disagreement whether (for example) 'the true self' and 'emptiness' are the same, Atman and Nirvana is the same etc. I remember H.H. Dalai Lama 14th lectured on this topic when he compared various Tibetan schools. So, I am of the opinion that Atman fits perfectly well into Buddhist concepts. But there always will be some dogmatic Theravadin that would remove it as 'un-Buddhist' :-)
Amongst the core principles of Buddhism, besides The Four Noble Truths and Noble Eight-Fold Path, is the Three Characteristics (Marks) of all Phenomena -- Anicca, Dukkha & Anatta (Impermanence, Suffering, Non-Self). Depending on the definition of Atman used, if it refers to an eternal, everlasting, permanent self, then it would be in somewhat contradiction with the Buddha's own words! In some later texts, the True Self or Nature is used to describe Emptiness, and although it seem to imply the same word, its meaning is still "having no inherent self or characteristics", which points back to the basic Three Characteristics. In its common usage, Atman refers to a "fixed, permanent entity", a soul, hence would detract from Buddha's words, and hence would in this sense *not* be considered a Buddhist philosophical concept. -- ZhiXing-Bhikkhu 20:08, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The fact that Buddhists have written about it as a phenomenological concept negates what you're saying, regardless of whether or not the Buddha would have approved. see Shantideva and Chandrakirti's writings. --LordSuryaofShropshire 20:19, Sep 18, 2004 (UTC)

Re: edits by Usedbook

A couple days ago, Usedbook re-added a couple changes that he had put in place originally towards the beginning of the month. I think they should be removed again, but I wanted to give my reasons before doing so. With regard to nirvana="unbinding", Kukkurovaca, whose Sanskrit, I think, is better than any other regular editors here, has said on Talk:Nirvana "Nirvana does not literally mean 'unbinding'". Usedbook says in his edit summary, "extinguishing definition rejected by Siddhartha". What's the source for this? And what does this even mean? How do you reject the meaning of a word? I could say something like, "The Great Extinguishment is not the putting out of a fire," but that wouldn't change the definition of the word extinguishment, especially not if you're giving a literal translation of it into another language. I also take issue with "all beings have non-self", which is grammatically questionable and adds nothing over "all beings have no self." - Nat Krause 10:17, 19 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Well, I'm no expert, and Nirvana is a rather widely interpreted word. But I'm pretty certain it originally meant extinguishing, and certainly that's the literal meaning. I think I suggested previously that if the "unbinding" definition has roots in a tradition, we should talk about that as part of that tradition, but certainly it shouldn't be given as the base definition. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 19:26, 20 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Captions

I'd like to make all the captions full sentences (following the guidance at Wikipedia:Captions), but I'm afraid my background would mislead me into writing an incorrect caption. Perhaps someone who understands Buddhism better can take a shot at it.

For the first picture of Tian Tan Buddha, I thought the caption might discuss the purpose of Buddha statues something about the Buddha (are all statues of the first Buddha?), or some other background that would help bring the picture together with the article.
For the later picture of three Buddha statues, I'm not sure how it ties together with the text. Perhaps the caption could make a particular tie.
Thanks! -- ke4roh 02:02, Aug 23, 2004 (UTC)
Well, let me think about this some more. I'm not sure I agree with the policy described on Wikipedia:Captions. If use the image caption on the main image, which is one of the first things you see when you look at the article, to expound on a subject like the role of Buddhist statuary, that could be distracting to the reader from article's more central points. - Nat Krause 05:36, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Wikipedia_talk:Captions is a great place to discuss that policy :-). I mention the role of statuary only because the statue shows up several times in the article and frequently in the Buddhist world - leaving me to wonder what its role is (in short sentence form). That's only one tack to writing a full-sentence caption for the first picture. There may well be a better way to tie the picture to the article and lead the reader into the article. -- ke4roh 02:35, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Here are some thoughts on the captions as starting points (in order of the pictures in the article) in case they help reveal the approach of this Christian to understanding:

  1. Already discussed above.
  2. Already pretty good, though I wonder about the work of art - who else is there? Is it a special moment in Buddhist history (like The Last Supper is in Christian history)? When was it made? etc. If you recognize more about it, perhaps that could go on the image description page.
  3. Buddhists are praying at the temple - do Buddhists usually/always/occasionally pray at the temple? Are they praying to the statue or near it? What's with all the gold? It looks like the people are holding scepters. There's much more in this picture than I understand.
  4. Sutras? I figured out those were Buddhist reference materials by reading context within the article, but I would mention that in the caption.
  5. These three Buddha images are each different. Are the differences significant? Is there anything else special about these statues? Are they characteristic of a particular branch of Buddhism? Do you suppose they're for sale?

Don't put too much stock in my thoughts about the captions - they're just places to start if you're wondering what someone might want to know about the pictures. -- ke4roh 02:35, Aug 29, 2004 (UTC)

Okay, good effort on getting started. You ask interesting questions, although I wish I knew the answers to more of them. I'll try to add a little here and there. Re: 2, yes, it's a special moment, the Buddha's first public sermon, more comparable perhaps to Jesus' baptism than to the last supper. Re: 3, I don't think those are sceptres, I figure it's some weird kind of incense, but I'm not sure. - Nat Krause 14:13, 29 Aug 2004 (UTC)

Pali canon translation

By the way, the Aum Shinrikyo page says that Aum is the only group that has ever translated the complete Pali Canon into a modern language. Does anybody know if this is true? I have no trouble believing they made the only Japanese translation, but it seems like somebody would have done one in Thai or Sinhala or English or something. - Nat Krause

The Pali cannons started to be translated into Japanese in late 19th century. Japanese Imperial Universities always had Indian Philosophy department and that created sizable population of Sanskrit scholars in Japan. And when I say Sanskrit, I mean all Sanskrit dialect including Pali. The complete translation of Pali cannons was first published somewhere in late 50s. Aum attracted lot of young university science graduates but they didn't attract any people who were engaged in serious academic study of buddhism. English Translation of Pali Cannon published by Pali Text is about 20 volumes and it involved decades of hard work. Aum's claim is total BS. FWBOarticle 06:26, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
I read Wiki article of Aum Shinrikyo. It appeared to be written by a member. FWBOarticle 06:47, 27 Aug 2004 (UTC)
Yes. - Nat Krause
It seems you're discussing the changes I made (those that appear to be written by a member, although I am not a member). I still can't check whether the full Aum translation is full and whether it is unique, but hope to finish with that someday. One correction: Sanskrit and Pali shouldn't be mixed. Sankrit was the language the educated elite spoke, but simple folks didn't speak it. Shakyamuni taught in Pali, that's important. So the most ancient (and thus reliable) sutras are in Pali. That's why I believe Aum was so interested in Pali sutras (they are harder to obtain and besides, much less scholars know Pali than Sanskrit). As to actual ability to translate, that's another topic. To my knowledge, the group that translated the sutras learned Pali during their Aum period (but I may be wrong, can't check right now). Anyway, Aum had close relations with Ven. Ananga Maitreya and this monk was even called 'translator monk' in Sri Lanka. So, to obtain sutras, learn Pali and translate the Canon to Japanese is still possible, however unbelievable it seems. I know nothing about how hard is to translate from Pali, but if we were talking about translating 20 books from say, German to English, it is entirely possible for a group of five people to do it in 4 years at most. Depends on how well you know the language and how hard-working you are.


Translations of Pali Canon: was it ever translated in full?

To my knowledge, the full Pali Canon has never been translated directly from Pali into any of the modern languages, including English. Can anybody shed light on this fact - is that true? The thing is that I recently learned than Aum Shinrikyo, a Japanese new religion (it is known for its subway gas attack in 1995) has translated the Pali Canon into Japanese (and in full). But NatKrause says that the Pali Canon was translated to Japanese even before, but I can't check it. How could it be? Anybody can confirm?

Didn't the PTS do a full translation to English? And I believe the major Asian languages have had their versions of the canon since ancient times. I don't know if these were all "full" translations--though I think the Mahayana tended to add to the Tripitaka, not take away. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 00:20, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I wanted to restate something I wrote on Talk:Aum Shinrikyo, to the effect that www.accesstoinsight.com claims that "almost all" of the Pali Canon had been published in English, with exception of "a few obscure books". This is tangential to Kukku's point, though, because the PTS may have translated the whole thing but declined to publish certain parts (also, it was FWBOarticle, and not me, that commented on the Japanese translation). - Nat Krause 04:16, 17 Sep 2004 (UTC)
The Pali Canon is also available in Sinhalese, Burmese and Thai. In the Mahayana (Chinese) Canon, is one of the sections on the Agamas, though that is from the Sanskrit translation and *may* differ from the Pali sources. PTS has more or less the full translation, though I believe some of the "smaller texts" (Khuddka Nikaya) is yet to be translated. Furthermore, the Sinhalese, Burmese and Thai translations each had minor differences in terms of their Abhidhamma.--ZhiXing-Bhikkhu 20:09, 18 Sep 2004 (UTC)
I want to clarify what appears to be a minor confusion on the part of Kukku and ZX-B. "Pali Canon" is a subcategory of "the agamas", i.e. it is specifically the Theravada version. Therefore, the fact that the traditional Mahayana canons have their own versions of the same texts, while very interesting in general, is not relevant to the specific claims that Aum Shinrikyo makes about the Pali Canon. Well, it is not relevant to the literal truth of those claims, although it might put their claims in a different light if there were pre-existing versions that were nearly identical. (And, of course, the Sinhalese, Burmese, and Thai versions that ZhiXing mentions are almost certainly translations of the Pali version, anyway). - Nat Krause 09:27, 19 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Upaya

By the way, I noticed the upaya and upaya-kaushalya pages recently. Looked like none of our usual Buddhism contributors had edited them before. I merged the pages and did some editing, but if anybody else can give the once over, that would be cool. Also, I put the combined page at upaya-kaushalya, because that's where most of the edit history was, but I think it should ideally be at upaya, so, the next admin who sees this, can you please delete upaya for me? That page has never been anything more than a dicdef. - Nat Krause 10:34, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Good stuff. The traditional story is right out of the Lotus Sutra - it may be good to attribute it? (20040302 11:08, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC))
I have moved the article to Upaya. older≠wiser 12:37, 21 Sep 2004 (UTC)
Thanks! - Nat Krause

human realm?

I just stumbled on human realm (linked to from Human). What's the status of this? If it is valid, it should probably be polished and linked, if not, it should, hm, also be dealt with ;) dab 15:22, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Sure it's valid (not sure about the "graphical representation part, though; it would be nice if someone could take a look at that), and it does need polishing and wikifying. I've been meaning to suggest to User:beta m that it might be a good idea to merge human realm, animal realm, asura realm, hell realm, hungry ghost realm, and Gods realm into one more comprehensive six realms article. - Nat Krause 16:04, 29 Sep 2004 (UTC)

Suggestion regarding lists of terms, persons, etc.

Chuck Muller here. I'm a pretty extensive contributor to the Buddhism area. Suggestion: regarding the Buddhism box, I think the entry at the top "terms and concepts," is a redundant piece of human labor that does not well utilize Wikipedia's built-in tools, like ((Category:Buddhist terms)). In other words, rather than building a separate word list, we can just add Category links at the bottom of all these terms. I've begun to do it. Eventually, I would suggest the same kind of strategy for Buddhist persons, temples, texts, etc. Acmuller

I've been thinking about this for awhile. Eventually, categories will probably replace all sorts of lists. In the meantime, some people still avoid using categories, so duplicating efforts might not be a bad thing. I think one should feel free to work on one or the other or both. Currently, lists do provide some advantages, primarily that it is easier to edit entries in one action. Suppose we have a list of people, and I want to add the years when each one lived. I can do that in a category by the format [[Category:Ancient Buddhist rock stars|Attila T. Presley (566-593)]] or whatever, but it's a hassle to go through and do that for a bunch of people. In the future, there may be tools to make this easier. - Nat Krause 09:26, 14 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Sanskrit name

Is it really necessary to have the Sanskrit for Siddhartha Gautama in the intro here? I'm inclined to move it to Gautama Buddha. - Nat Krause 06:42, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)

Well, there's an essential error in the way it's phrased, actually. "Siddharta Gautama" is Sanskrit, no matter what script it's written in. Now, the computer I'm using now can't read the unicode in question, but I'm assuming it's Devanagari, in which case it's inappropriate simply because Devanagari has no special relation (I don't think) to whatever language Gautama would have spoken, in the first place--it later acquired an intimate relationship to Sanskrit, true, but it's not as though the Buddha spoke Sanskrit either. It's useful to use Sanskrit forms because they're the forms from which multiple prakrit terms derive, but that shouldn't give the language pride of place in discussing Buddhism. So, if that is Devanagari (if it's not, I look pretty silly) it shouldn't be included in any Buddhism articles. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 18:42, 7 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Good point. Unless I'm way off, it is Devanagari. Still, if we can include Chinese, then I don't see why we couldn't include Devanagari script, too (some of the Buddhism-related pages have Chinese or Japanese translations, although most don't)? - Nat Krause 05:40, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Well, as I'd imagine my signature proves, I'm no opponent to Devanagari. On the other hand, I don't think there are any historical Buddhist communities that have used Devanagari (I may be wrong about this--paleography isn't really my department), which can't be said of Chinese or Japanese. I mean, if someone can put together the unicode for Kharoṣṭhī, or some other such script used in Buddhist texts, I'd be all about throwing that in here. I mean, I'm not stridently opposed to it, because one can make the argument that Devanagari is a tolerably close relative of whatever scripts Indian Buddhists actually used, though there's little visible resemblance between, say, Devanagari and Kharoṣṭhī, which uses rather different shapes and is written in the other direction. (I mean, they're definitely related, but you don't get a sense of the one just by looking at the other.) -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 16:57, 8 Oct 2004 (UTC)
Apparently I'm wrong about Kharoṣṭhī. Huh. Cool. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

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