Philosophy

A recent publication — Nicholas Ostler’s Empires of the Word (2005) — presents itself in its subtitle as A Language History of the World. Understandably, it deals extensively with what it calls “world languages”, languages which play or have played important roles in world history. An introductory chapter addresses, already in its title, the question “what it takes to be a world language”. The title also provides a provisional answer, viz. “you never can tell”, but the discussion goes beyond mere despair. It opposes the “pernicious belief” which finds expression in a quote from J. R. Firth, a leading British linguist of the mid-twentieth century (p. 20): “World powers make world languages [...] Men who have strong feelings directed towards the world and its affairs have done most. What the humble prophets of linguistic unity would have done without Hebrew, Arabic, Latin, Sanskrit and English, it it difficult to imagine. Statesmen, soldiers, sailors, and missionaries, men of action, men...

Before we can even try to answer the question whether the Buddha believed in karma and rebirth, we have to address a few other ones. One is whether karma and rebirth necessarily form a couple. We will see that not all scholars have looked upon these elements in this way, and that some have suggested that the Buddha may have believed in only one of these two. An equally important question concerns the issue whether philological research can ever hope to find out anything about the historical Buddha.1 Isn't it safer to say that the early Buddhist texts inform us about the views and beliefs of the, or a, Buddhist community during some period? And if philological analysis allows us to reach further back into the past (supposing it can actually do so), does this not merely lead us back to an earlier phase of the views and beliefs of the, or a, Buddhist community? Is it not, therefore, wiser to speak about early - or even: earliest - Buddhism, and leave the Buddha out of the picture? Th...

Early Buddhist literature is acquainted with both Jainas and Ajıvikas. It calls the former nirgrantha, Pali. nigantha,  and the latter ajıvika or ajıvaka.  The former are sometimes presented as followers of Nigan.tha Nataputta or Nathaputta, who has been identified as Vardhamana, better known as Mahavıra, the last tırthankara ˙ of the Jainas; the name Nataputta corresponds to Ardhamagadhı Nayaputta, known from the earliest surviving canonical texts of Jainism.The latter are presented in (Svetambara) Jaina canonical literature as the followers of Gosala Mankhaliputta, identified by modern scholars with the Makkhali Gosala whose views are reported in Buddhist literature. By combining data found in the Jaina and in the Buddhist canon, scholars have tried to reconstitute the ideas which belonged to the early Jainas and Ajıvikas. Scholars rarely seem to have addressed the question what picture arises if one bases oneself exclusively on Buddhist literature. What image did the early ...