{"id":205,"date":"2012-03-03T14:39:16","date_gmt":"2012-03-03T13:39:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/?p=205"},"modified":"2012-03-21T17:24:39","modified_gmt":"2012-03-21T16:24:39","slug":"a-svabhavika-school-of-buddhism","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/a-svabhavika-school-of-buddhism\/","title":{"rendered":"A Sv\u0101bh\u0101vika School of Buddhism?"},"content":{"rendered":"

As already discussed here, the alleged Sv\u0101bh\u0101vika school of Buddhism in Nepal that is spoken of in many books on Buddhism, and also in Theosophical writings, turned out not to exist. Brian H. Hodgson had described this and three other alleged schools of Buddhism in Nepal in an article published in Asiatic Researches<\/em> in 1828, later reprinted with other articles in his book, Essays on the Languages, Literature and Religion of Nepal and Tibet<\/em> (London, 1874). The excerpts translated from Buddhist texts that he gave in support of this school (1874 ed., pp. 73-76) are also elusive, only a few of them yet having been traced from his early and expectedly faulty translations. The facts of the situation did not fully emerge until 161 years later, through David N. Gellner\u2019s 1989 article, \u201cHodgson’s Blind Alley<\/span><\/a><\/span>? On the So-Called Schools of Nepalese Buddhism\u201d (Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies<\/em>, vol. 12). I was able to verify for myself what Gellner found, when in 1995 Nancy and I could study with Gautam Vajracharya, who comes from a prominent Buddhist teacher family in Nepal. But as we have often seen, even though references in Theosophical writings may be quite wrong, the ideas that these references are used to support may accurately represent the ideas intended by the Theosophical teachers.<\/p>\n

The Mahatma letters were often written by chelas such as H. P. Blavatsky at the behest of the Theosophical Mahatma teachers, much like when an executive today may tell a secretary to write such and such in a letter to someone. The secretary may have to draw upon currently available reference books when doing this. This explains many of the erroneous references that we find in these writings. But the ideas given are in a different category. These must be separated out. One of the most important Theosophical statements on the Sv\u0101bh\u0101vikas was given in Mahatma letter #22, by or on behalf of Mahatma K.H., writing to A. O. Hume in 1882: \u201cStudy the laws and doctrines of the Nepaulese Swabhavikas, the principal Buddhist philosophical school in India, and you will find them the most learned as the most scientifically logical wranglers in the world. Their plastic, invisible, eternal, omnipresent and unconscious Swabhavat is Force or Motion<\/em> ever generating its electricity which is life.\u201d<\/p>\n

The reference to \u201cthe principal Buddhist philosophical school in India\u201d is a bit incongruous in reference to Sv\u0101bh\u0101vikas in Nepal. As I have suggested earlier (Book of Dzyan Research Report #3, 1997, p. 6), this may actually refer to the Sarv\u0101stiv\u0101da school in old India (see also Book of Dzyan Research Report #4, 1997, pp. 2-3, 24). Today we have an important source on these early Buddhists, titled Sarv\u0101stiv\u0101da Abhidharma<\/em>, by Bhikkhu K. L. Dhammajoti (Colombo, 2002; 2nd rev. ed. 2004; 3rd rev. and enl. ed., Hong Kong, 2007; 4th rev. ed. 2009). Although there has not been any Buddhist school in India for about a thousand years, the Sarv\u0101stiv\u0101da school was once \u201cthe principal Buddhist philosophical school in India.\u201d In the book, Sarv\u0101stiv\u0101da Abhidharma<\/em>, we read (4th ed., p. 56): \u201cThe Sarv\u0101stiv\u0101da remained the most powerful and influential school in north-western India from around the beginning of the Common Era to about the 7th century C.E.\u201d Moreover (p. 60), \u201cAccording to the *Samayabhedoparacanacakra<\/em>, most of the early Buddhist sects had accepted the doctrine of sarv\u0101stitva, even though they seem to have disputed endlessly on what it really meant for them in each case.\u201d The distinctive Sarv\u0101stiv\u0101da doctrine is that \u201call exists\u201d (sarva asti, sarv\u0101sti, sarv\u0101stitva). This means that all dharmas, all the factors of existence, exist in the past, the present, and the future. They do this by way of their svabh\u0101va, their inherent nature, which remains the same throughout the three time periods. In this sense, the Sarv\u0101stiv\u0101dins may be considered Sv\u0101bh\u0101vikas, and their doctrine has been described as a svabh\u0101vav\u0101da (Ryotai Fukuhara, \u201cOn Svabh\u0101vav\u0101da<\/span><\/a><\/span>\u201d), <\/strong>although neither they nor other Buddhist schools called them Sv\u0101bh\u0101vikas.<\/p>\n

(to be continued)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As already discussed here, the alleged Sv\u0101bh\u0101vika school of Buddhism in Nepal that is spoken of in many books on Buddhism, and also in Theosophical writings, turned out not to exist. Brian H. Hodgson had described this and three other alleged schools of Buddhism in Nepal in an article published in Asiatic Researches in 1828, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","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":[21],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-205","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-svabhavat"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205","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\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=205"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":208,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/205\/revisions\/208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=205"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=205"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/prajnaquest.fr\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=205"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}