WHAT, IF ANYTHING, IS MAHĀYĀNA BUDDHISM? PROBLEMS OF DEFINITIONS AND CLASSIFICATIONS
Open accessAbstract
This study investigates some problems regarding the definition of Mahāyāna Buddhism. Tracing the history of the notion in modern scholarship, it pays particular attention to the question of the relation between Mahāyāna and so-called Hīnayāna or Sectarian Buddhism. Finding the commonly used methods of classification which rely on necessary and sufficient conditions to be inadequate to the task, it suggests the alternative employment of polythetic classification, a method which permits a constantly variable set of questions and data to be taken into account in the most flexible and accommodating manner.
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Douglas's theory predicts that such views would emerge from social environments whose boundaries must be safeguarded from female penetration, not a terrible description for the sorts of elite male monastic or forest hermitage environments that many scholars think produced Indian scholastic treatises and Mahāyāna sūtras.
“Douglas ' s theory predicts that such views would emerge from social environments whose boundaries must be safeguarded from female penetration, not a terrible description for the sorts of elite male monastic or forest hermitage environments that many scholars think produced Indian scholastic treatises and Mah ā y ā na s ū tras (Harrison 1987; Ray 1994; Silk 2002; Schopen 2004; Boucher 2008).”
From Buddhist Blood Taboo: Mary Douglas, Female Impurity, and Classical Indian Buddhism (2015) · cites this paper as Silk 2002
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Experimental — accuracy not yet measuredJonathan Silk argued that in Indian Buddhism there is no evidence that there was any kind of Buddhist monk other than one associated with a Sectarian ordination lineage.
“there is no evidence that there was any kind of Buddhist monk other than one associated with a Sectarian [i.e., nik aya ] ordination lineage.”
From Early Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism I: Recent Scholarship (2010) · cites this paper as Silk 2002
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Early Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism I: Recent Scholarship
Drewes, D. (2010) · Religion Compass · doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00195.x · Cited by 11 · see citing works
Early Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism II: New Perspectives
Drewes, D. (2010) · Religion Compass · doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00193.x · Cited by 10 · see citing works
Mapping the Mahāyāna: Some Historical and Doctrinal Issues
D’Amato, M. (2008) · Religion Compass · doi:10.1111/j.1749-8171.2008.00083.x · Cited by 7 · see citing works
Buddhist Blood Taboo: Mary Douglas, Female Impurity, and Classical Indian Buddhism
Paris Langenberg, A. (2015) · Journal of the American Academy of Religion · doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfv059 · Cited by 6 · see citing works
Demandingness, Well-Being and the Bodhisattva Path
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Bingenheimer, M. (2020) · Journal of the Japanese Association for Digital Humanities · doi:10.17928/jjadh.5.2_84 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
About Ugra and his Friends: a Recent Contribution on Early Mahāyāna Buddhism. A review article.
Pagel, U. (2006) · Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain & Ireland · doi:10.1017/s1356186305005882 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Salguero, C. P. (2018) · Working paper series of the HCAS 'Multiple Secularities - Beyond the West, Beyond Modernities · doi:10.36730/2020.1.msbwbm.4 · Cited by 4 · see citing works
Untitled work
Jensen, C. J. (2018)
- Authors
- Silk, J.
- Corresponding author
- Silk, Jonathan
- ORCID
- Silk, Jonathan
- Venue
- Numen
- Publisher
- Walter de Gruyter GmbH
- Published
- 2002
- Volume
- 49
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 355-405
- ISSN
- 0029-5973 (ISSN-L)
- 1568-5276
- OpenAlex
- W2093706605
- Cited by
- 46
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2025: 1 · 2024: 10 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 1 · 2020: 3 · 2019: 2 · 2018: 3 · 2017: 2 · 2015: 3 · 2014: 2 · 2013: 2
- FWCI
- 0.00
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- hdl.handle.net
- Licence
- other-oa
- Locations
- Numen (publishedVersion)
- Leiden Repository (Leiden University) (submittedVersion)
- Data Archiving and Networked Services (DANS) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Topics
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Indian and Buddhist Studies
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Philosophy › Study and Philosophy of Religion
- Social Sciences › Arts and Humanities › Religious studies › Biblical Studies and Interpretation
- Keywords
- Mahayana Buddhism, Hinayana Buddhism, polythetic classification, necessary and sufficient conditions
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