{"id":1341,"date":"2015-08-30T11:07:52","date_gmt":"2015-08-30T11:07:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/?p=1341"},"modified":"2015-08-30T18:14:00","modified_gmt":"2015-08-30T18:14:00","slug":"regarding-david-reigles-new-introduction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/regarding-david-reigles-new-introduction\/","title":{"rendered":"Regarding David Reigle’s \u201cNew Introduction.\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The very well-researched \u201cNew Introduction\u201d to the English translation of Kamaleswar Bhattacharya\u2019s book: The \u0100tman-Brahman in Ancient Buddhism<\/i>, is a valuable and much needed adjunct to the entire Bhattacharya-study. The serious student will want to study the entire book.<\/p>\n

For the student who wants to get their feet wet regarding the subject of understanding Gautama Buddha\u2019s view regarding whether he taught an \u0101tman or Eternal Impersonal Self doctrine by denying an an\u0101tman or no-self (personal self), David\u2019s fairly succinct study, within ten pages, is a most worthwhile addition to the book, adding an historical and doctrinal survey of post-Buddha views from the main great Buddhist commentators as to their refutation of a permanent personal self. This is all most important because the idea of the prevailing Emptiness idea in Mah\u0101y\u0101na Buddhism as originally taught by the great N\u0101g\u0101rjuna, in the minds of many students of Buddhism, is that Emptiness = voidnesss, nothingness, as opposed to the Eternal Womb.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

My survey is there are very few students who equate Emptiness or \u015a\u016bnyat\u0101 with the eternal, impersonal \u0101tman. <\/span>This New Introduction and book can only contribute towards a better contextual perspective for many of the terms found in the Maitreya Ratnagotravibh\u0101ga <\/i>(which begins with an homage to Vajrasattva) and other texts: dh\u0101tu,* tath\u0101gata-garbha, ratna (Tib., dkon mchog<\/i>), puru\u1e63a, tathat\u0101, gotra, vajradh\u0101ra, vajrasattva, tath\u0101gata-dh\u0101tu, etc., etc. I am not saying all of these terms are equivalent.<\/p>\n

*This is, unquestionably, the most common term in the Ratnagotravibh\u0101ga<\/i>. (See: http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/dhatu-atman\/<\/span><\/a>), with J\u00f1\u0101na and sattva being the second-most common terms.<\/p>\n

Although today\u2019s version of the Hindu upani\u1e63ads are the laghu (abridged) or edited versions from the original ancient, larger upani\u1e63ads, Bhattacharya\u2019s book may help one to further appreciate the Hindu Upani\u1e63ad-tradition. As pointed out by Pratap Chandra, in \u201cWas Early Buddhism Influenced by the Upanisads?,\u201d particularly three upani\u1e63ads were pre-buddhistic, though not in the abridged form we have today.<\/p>\n

No doubt, Bhattacharya\u2019s book is unavoidably academic as to its approach to the central issue, but this New Introduction is complete in itself for both a beginning or advanced student of Buddhism. However, I do hope students, scholars and academics from around the world will read the entire book including this New Introduction, and Nancy Reigle\u2019s informative \u201c\u0100tman\/An\u0101tman in Buddhism and Its Implication for the Wisdom Tradition.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

As a whole, the entire book will be a perpetual resource for coming ages. It should serve to alter current Buddhist scholarship in many new directions from its currently overly intellectualized confusion of investigations which have been a total waste of time, all due to an original misinterpretation of what the Buddha taught.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The very well-researched \u201cNew Introduction\u201d to the English translation of Kamaleswar Bhattacharya\u2019s book: The \u0100tman-Brahman in Ancient Buddhism, is a valuable and much needed adjunct to the entire Bhattacharya-study. The serious student will want to study the entire book. For the student who wants to get their feet wet regarding the subject of understanding Gautama […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":751,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_bbp_topic_count":0,"_bbp_reply_count":0,"_bbp_total_topic_count":0,"_bbp_total_reply_count":0,"_bbp_voice_count":0,"_bbp_anonymous_reply_count":0,"_bbp_topic_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_reply_count_hidden":0,"_bbp_forum_subforum_count":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[36,1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-noteworthy-books","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/751"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1341"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1361,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1341\/revisions\/1361"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}