• Anthropology of Theravada Buddhism
• 2014
• Anthropology and/vs Sociology
• Anthropology
• The discipline consists of five major, interrelated areas: physical/biological anthropology, archaeology, cultural/social anthropology, linguistics, and applied anthropology.
• With the human being as its focus, the discipline of anthropology mediates between the natural and social sciences while incorporating the humanities. Its acceptance and use of discoveries in biology, for example, the DNA molecule, and its attention to relevant ideas in the history of philosophy, such as the concepts presented in the writings of Marx and Nietzsche, make anthropology a unique field of study and a rich source for the relevant application of facts, concepts, methods, theories, and perspectives.
• "the study of humans, past and present. To understand the full sweep and complexity of cultures across all of human history, anthropology draws and builds upon knowledge from the social and biological sciences as well as the humanities and physical sciences."
• AAA website
• Sociology
• Sociology is the systematic study of human behavior occurring in a social context
• Two major influences
• are acknowledged to affect human social behavior:
• (1) cultural factors such as values and norms and
• (2) structural factors such as the economic and political structures of society. Sociologists generally study human behavior in complex rather than small-scale societies.
• The term sociology was coined in 1822 by the
• French philosopher Auguste Comte (1798–1857), who was the first to suggest that society itself is an appropriate subject for scientific study
• Theravāda
• (Pāli, way of Elders). The only one of the early Buddhist schools of the Hīnayāna or “Small Vehicle” to have survived down to modern times.
– (Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism, 2003)
• Dual Heritage of Anthropology
• Hermeneutic/postmodern/”textual”
• Interpretation
• Understanding
• Culture specific
• Socio-biological/cognitive
• Explanation
• Trans-cultural
• "Like Durkheim (1954), I believe that the significant experiences in this connection are social, so that the perduring cognitive and perceptual structures which determine the acceptance or rejection of religious doctrines are rooted in and reflect social relations. Like Freud (1956), however, I believe that in most cases the experiences that leave the most persistent psychological residues are those had early in life, so that the social relations that most importantly determine these cognitive and perceptual structures are those a child has in his family. In any event, when religious doctrines are consistent with these psychological structures they become mutually reinforcing: the actors' own personal backgrounds provide experiential confirmation for the truth of the religious doctrines, and the latter provide authoritative sanction for the actors' conviction." (Spiro 1982: 70)
• S.J. Tambiah
• January 16, 1929 – January 19, 2014
• Encyclopedia Britannica (published between
1875 and 1888)
Thomas W. Rhys Davids, author of the entry on Buddhism:
• Lāmāism is partly religious, partly political. Religiously it is the corrupt form of Buddhism prevalent in Tibet and Mongolia. It stands in a relationship to primitive Buddhism similar to that in which Roman Catholicism, so long as the temporal power of the pope was still in existence, stood to primitive Christianity. . . . Lāmāism is hardly calculated to attract much attention for its own sake. Tibetan superstitions and Tibetan politics are alike repugnant to Western minds.
• Debate in Panathura
• 1873 Wesleyan minister David da Silva in Sri Lanka held up a globe
during a debate with a Buddhist monk and asked him to locate Mount
Meru, the cosmic peak that rose from the waters to form the center of
the Buddhist world.
• - published in 1878 as „The Great Debate: Buddhism and Christanity Face to Face“
• The religion of the future will
be a cosmic religion. It should
transcend a personal God and
avoid dogmas and theology.
Covering both the natural and
the spiritual, it should be based
on a religious sense arising from the experience of all things, natural and
spiritual as a meaningful unity. If there is any religion that would cope
with modern scientific needs, it would be Buddhism.
ALBERT EINSTEIN
• Kitčhanukit
• Kitčhanukt was printed in 1867 by his author Čhaophraya Thiphakớrawong เจ้าพระยาทิพากรวงษ์มหา โกษาธิบดี(ขำ บุนนาค) was probably “the first Siamese printed book issued entirely upon Siamese sponsorship.”
• Substitution for Traiphúm Phra Ruang ไตรภูมิพระร่วง:
• “After the religion of Buddha had spread abroad, a certain king, desiring to know the truth as to cosmogony, inquired of the monks, and they, knowing the omniscience of Buddha, and yet fearing that if they say Buddha never taught this, people would say ´your lord is ignorant, and admired without reason´ took the ancient Vedas, and various expressions in Sutras and parables, and fables, and proverbs, and connecting them together into a book, the ´Traiphoom´, produced it as the teaching of Buddha.” (Alabaster 1871: 16)
• „It cannot be asserted that the Lord did not preach in Davadungsa, any more than the real existence of Mount Meru can be asserted. I have explained about this matter of Meru, and the other mountains, as an old tradition. But with respect to the Lord preaching on Davadungsa as an act of grace to his mother, I believe it to be true, and that one of the many stars or planets is the Davadungsa world.“ (Alabaster 1871: 17)
• กิจจานุกิจ
• Separation from the traditional cosmology
• “Those who have studied Páli know that the Lord taught concerning the nature of life, and the characteristics of good and evil, but never discoursed about cosmography. It is probable that he knew the truth, but his knowledge being opposed to the ideas of ´Traiphoom´, which every one then believed in, he said nothing about it. … Besides if he had attacked their old traditions, he would have stirred up enmity and lost the time he had for teaching all living beings.” (Alabaster 1871: 15)
• Separation from the traditional cosmology could only hardly be sharper.
• Rebirth
• Rebirth (T. taay laew feen): The author confesses that he “cannot absolutely decide it” (Alabaster 1871:40)
• a pragmatic argument:
• “The Lord Buddha taught saying, ´All you who are in doubts as to whether or not there is a future life had better believe that there is one; that there is another existence, in which happiness and misery can be felt. It is better to believe this then otherwise, for if the heart believes in future life it will abandon sin and act virtuously; and even if there is no resurrection such a life will bring a good name, and the regard of men. But those who believe in extinction at death will not fail to commit any sin that they may choose because of their disbelief in a future; and if there should happen to be a future after all, they will be at disadvantage – they will be like travelers without provision.” (Alabaster 1871:42)
• “If we were to believe that death is annihilation, we should be at loss to account for the existence of mankind.” (Alabaster 1871:40)
• “This story is an old one, handed down from the days of the Buddha, and people must attach just so much credits to it as they think due.” (Alabaster 1871:43)
• Kamma
• “These Kam (kamma, note M.H.) we have discoursed about have no substance, and we can not see whether they exists; nor when they are about to have an effect do they come crying, ´I am the Kam, named So-and-So, come to give fruits to such-a-one. This I have only adverted to for comparison with the belief of some that there is a creating God who causes existences. … Neither has a visible form. If we believe that Kam is the cause, the creator, the arranger we can get hold of the end of the thread, and understand that the happiness and misery of living beings is all caused by natural sequence. But if we assert that a creating God is the dispenser of happiness and misery, we must believe that He is everywhere, and at all times watching and trying, and deciding what punishments are due to the countless multitude of men. Is this credible?” (Alabaster 1871: 51-52)
• “We know not where they are. (Allah and Brahma, note M.H.) We have never seen them. But we do know, and can prove, that men can purify their own natures, and we know the laws by which that purification can be effected. It is not better to believe in this which we can see and know, than in that which has no reality to our perceptions?
” (Alabaster 1871: 72)
Two strategies of reasoning [cognitions]
• Reflexive [online, Type 1, A-system]
• Fast, automatic, fluent, effortless, implicit, context sensitive, personalised
• The A-system supports “everyday thinking,” which proceeds from the immediate experience of individuals; aims at short-term, practical efficacy, not at creating general theories; seeks evidence [can I believe it] and not counter evidence; makes use of individual cases as evidence; personalizes values and ideals; makes use of abductive inference; and presents arguments in the form of narratives
• Reflective [offline, Type 2, B-system]
• Slower, less fluent, deliberate, effortful, requires making explicit inferences, less susceptible to context, to some extent de-personalised. [independent of one’s experience and knowledge]
• The B-system serves such cognitive functions as deliberation, explanation, formal analysis, and verification. It seeks logical, hierarchical, and causal-mechanical structure in its environment, using information from language, culture, and formal systems. It is a rule-based system capable of encoding any information with a well-specified formal structure and relies