Presentation of “Living Being” in Early Indian Buddhism and Its Ethical Implications

Tamara Ditrich

doi:10.4312/as.2023.11.2.201-230

Authors

Tamara DITRICH University of Sydney, Australia; University of Ljubljana, Slovenia

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2023.11.2.201-230

Keywords:

“living being” in ancient India, Theravāda Buddhism, Pāli terms satta, pāṇa, and bhūta, plants in Theravāda Buddhism, early Buddhist ethics

Abstract

This article focuses on the presentation of the notion of “living being” and its link to ethics in the Pāli Buddhist canon and its commentaries. This objective is achieved by examining the key Pāli terms that refer to “living being” (i.e., satta, pāṇa, and bhūta) in different contexts with the aim of identifying their sematic ranges. The article then discusses how the notion of “living being” in the Pāli sources can be situated within the main doctrinal models developed in early Buddhism such as the six sense bases (āyatana), dependent origination (paticcasamuppada), and the Abhidhammic presentation of cognition, which are linked to a larger ethical framework that axiomatically repudiates the existence of a human “self” as the centre of all analysis. Instead, complex systems that link all living beings serve as the foundation for Buddhist praxis, and lead to a new understanding of the lived experience, which is founded on an ethics of behaviour, centred around non-violence or the non-harming of all beings. The article concludes by exploring the important contribution of Buddhist ethics to the current environmental challenges by underscoring the essential role played by the doctrine of non-self (anattā) as the very source and foundation of an ethical stance from which ethical actions can proceed.

Downloads

Download data is not yet available.

References

Primary Sources

Aṅguttaranikāya. 1999–2013 [1885–1900]. Edited by R. Morris, and E. Hardy. 5 vols. Pali Text Society.

Atthasālinī. 2011 [1897]. Edited by E. Müller, rev. L. S. Cousins. Pali Text Society.

Dīghanikāya. 1995–2007 [1890–1911]. Edited by T. W. Rhys Davids, and J. E. Carpenter. 3 vols. Pali Text Society.

Dhammapada. 2014 [1994]. Edited by O. von Hinüber, and K. R. Norman. 2nd ed. (with Indexes by Yamazaki, Ousaka, and Miyao). Pali Text Society.

Dhammasaṅgaṇi. 2001 [1885]. Edited by Edward Müller. Pali Text Society.

Īśādidaśopaniṣadaḥ. 1964. Works of Śaṅkarācarya in original Sanskrit, vol. 1. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.

Majjhimanikāya. 2013 [1888–1902]. Edited by V. Trenckner, and R. Chalmers. 3 vols. Pali Text Society.

Papañcasūdanī, Majjhimanikāyāṭṭhakathā of Buddhaghosa. 1976–1979 [1922–1938]. Edited by J. H. Woods, D. Kośambi, I. B. Horner. 5 vols. Pali Text Society.

Paṭisambhidāmagga. 2003 [1905–1907]. Edited by Arnold C. Taylor. 2 vols. Pali Text Society.

Puggalapaññatti. 1972 [1883]. Edited by R. Morris. Pali Text Society.

Samantapāsādikā. 1966–1982 [1924–1947]. Edited by J. Takakasu, and M. Nagai.7 vols. Pali Text Society

Saṃyuttanikāya. 1975–2006 [1884–1898]. Edited by L. Feer. 5 vols. Pali Text Society.

Suttanipāta. 2017 [1913]. Edited by Dines Andersen and Helmer Smith. Pali Text Society.

Sāratthappakāsinī. 1977 [1929–1937]. Edited by F. L. Woodward. Pali Text Society.

Sumaṅgalavilāsinī. 1968–1971 [1929–1937]. Edited by T. W. Rhys Davids, J.E. Carpenter, and W.Stede. 3 vols. Pali Text Society.

Vibhaṅga. 2003 [1904]. Edited by C. A. F. Rhys Davids. Pali Text Society.

Vinayapiṭaka. 1969–1982 [1879–1883]. Edited by H. Oldenberg. 5 vols. Pali Text Society.

Sammohavinodanī. 1980 [1923]. Edited by A. P. Buddhadatta. Pali Text Society.

Visuddhimagga. 1975 [1920–1921]. Edited by C. A. F. Rhys Davids. Pali Text Society.

*****

Secondary Sources

A Dictionary of Pāli. 2001–2020. 3 vols. Edited by Margaret Cone. Oxford: The Pali Text Society.

Anālayo. 2021. “Dependent Arising and Interdependence.” Mindfulness 12: 1094–102. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01544-x. Accessed November 12, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s12671-020-01544-x

Bloomfield, Maurice. [1908] 1969. The Religion of the Veda: The Ancient Religion of India. New York, London: G. P. Putnam’s Sons. Reprinted, New York: AMS Press.

Bodhi, Bhikkhu, trans. 1993. Abhidhammattha Saṅgaha: A Comprehensive Manual of Abhidhamma: Pali Text, Translation and Explanatory Guide. Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society.

Chapple, Christopher Key, ed. 2002. Jainism and Ecology: Nonviolence in the Web of Life. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press.

Dessein, Bart. 2016. “Progress and Free Will: On the Buddhist Concept of ‘Time’ and Its Possibilities for Modernity.” Asian Studies 4 (1):11–33. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.1.11-33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.1.11-33

Ditrich, Tamara. 2016. “Situating the Concept of Mindfulness in the Theravāda Tradition.” Asian Studies 4 (2): 13–33. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.2.13-33

———. 2022. “The Ethical Foundations of Buddhist Cognitive Models: Presentations of Greed and Fear in the Theravāda Abhidhamma. Asian Studies 10 (26): 371–98. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2022.10.1.371-398

Dundas, Paul. 2002. The Jains. 2nd ed. London and New York: Routledge. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4324/9780203398272

Findly, Ellison Banks. 2002. “Borderline Beings: Plant Possibilities in Early Buddhism.” Journal of the American Oriental Society 122 (2): 252–63. DOI: https://doi.org/10.2307/3087619

Gonda, Jan. 1975. “Vedic Literature: Saṃhitās and Brāhmaṇas.” In A History of Indian Literature, vol. I, fasc.1. Wiesbaden: Otto Harrassowitz.

Harvey, Peter. 2013. An Introduction to Buddhism. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hashi, Hisaki. 2015. “Phenomenon of Life and Death by Dōgen and Heidegger––In View of ‘Embodied Cognition’ in Buddhist Philosophy and Phenomenology.” Asian Studies 3 (1): 105–28. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2015.3.1.105-128. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2015.3.1.105-128

Jaini, Padmanabh S. 1979. The Jaina Path of Purification. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Jurewicz, Joanna. 2010. Fire and Cognition in the Ṛgveda. Warszawa: Dom Wydawniczy Elipsa.

Karunadasa, Y. 1967. Buddhist Analysis of Matter. Colombo: Department of Cultural Affairs.

———. 2010. The Theravāda Abhidhamma: Its Inquiry into the Nature of Conditioned Reality. Center of Buddhist Studies Publication Series. Hong Kong: Center of Buddhist Studies, University of Hong Kong.

Kaza, Stephanie. 2018. “Buddhist Environmental Ethics: An Emergent and Contextual Approach.” In The Oxford Handbook of Buddhist Ethics, edited by Daniel Cozort, and James Mark Shields, 432–52. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780198746140.013.17

Macdonell, Arthur Anthony. 1971 [1897]. The Vedic Mythology. Grundriss der indo-arischen Philologie und Altertumskunde, vol. 3, fasc. 1A. Strassburg: K. J. Trubner. Reprinted, Varanasi: Indological Book House.

Macy, Joanna. 1991. Mutual Causality in Buddhism and General Systems Theory. Albany: State University of New York Press.

Markič, Olga, and Urban Kordeš. 2016. “Parallels Between Mindfulness and First-Person Research into Consciousness.” Asian Studies 4 (2): 153–68. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.2.153-168. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.2.153-168

McMahan, David L. 2008. The Making of Buddhist Modernism. Oxford: Oxford University Press. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780195183276.001.0001

Nhat Hanh, Thich. 2008. The World We Have: A Buddhist Approach to Peace and Ecology. Berkely, CA: Parallax Press.

Oldenberg, Hermann. 1923. Die Religion des Veda. Third ed. Stuttgart-Berlin: J. G. Cotta.

Pāli-English Dictionary. 1921–1925. Edited by T. W. Rhys Davids, and W. Stede. Lomdon: The Pali Text Society.

Schmithausen, Lambert. 1991. The Problem of the Sentience of Plants in Earliest Buddhism. Studia philologica Buddhica, Monograph series, 6. Tokyo: International Institute for Buddhist Studies.

Soni, Jayandra. 2020. “The Concept of Manas in Jaina Philosophy.” Journal of Indian Philosophy. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-020-09421-6. Accessed November 12, 2022. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10781-020-09421-6

Umāsvāti. 2011. Tattvārtha Sūtra: That Which Is. Translated by Nathmal Tatia. New Haven and London: Yale University Press.

Zalta, Anja. 2016. “Contribution of Buddhist Mindfulness to the Transformation of Conflicts—Dependent Origination (paticca-samuppāda) and Deconstruction of Identity.” Asian Studies 4 (2): 139–51. https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.2.139-151. DOI: https://doi.org/10.4312/as.2016.4.2.139-151