Cette recherche porte sur l’investigation philologique d’un texte bouddhique en pali, le Vajirasaratthasangaha composé dans le Nord de la Thaïlande (XVe-XVIe siècles), qui n’a jamais fait l’objet d’une étude intégrale. Le but est d’établir une édition critique de ce texte et de son commentaire, traduire intégralement ce corpus, et saisir sa place dans le bouddhisme du sud-est asiatique. Ce compendium est unique dans le champ de la littérature pali, tant dans la nature de ses contenus que dans son mode de présentation. Il embrasse un grand volume d’enseignements qui traitent de thématiques diverses, telles que des points de doctrines religieuses, de l’étymologie, des mathématiques, de la poétique, la cosmologie, des devinettes, etc. Le mode de composition singulier de ce texte s’appuie sur le codage de chacun de ses chapitres, faisant appel à des mécanismes et jeux qui concernent essentiellement le langage et sa construction : devinettes savantes, notions grammaticales, polysémies, acrostiches, etc. Cette œuvre est ainsi une synthèse originale d’éléments érudits (hua chai, ekakkhara, etc.) qui témoigne d’une part de l’importance qu’a pu revêtir l’étude avancée de la langue dans le contexte du Lanna du XVIe siècle. D’autre part, certains de ses enseignements éclairent d’un jour nouveau certaines spécificités régionales dans leurs dimensions pratiques et ésotériques. Il ouvre ainsi de nouvelles voies de compréhension du statut du pali en tant que langue sacrée. / This research is a philological investigation of a Buddhist text in Pali, the Vajirasaratthasangaha written in Northern Thailand (15th-16th), which has never been the object of a full-fledged study. It aims to establish a critical edition of this text and its commentary, to translate this corpus, and to understand its place within the Buddhism of South-East Asia. This compendium is unique in the Pali literary landscape, in its mode of presentation as well as in its contents. It contains an important amount of Buddhist teachings that deal with a variety of topics, such as moral principles for lay Buddhists, etymology, mathematics, poetics, cosmology, riddles, etc. The singular mode of composition of this text is based on the encoding of each chapters, mainly relying on mechanisms and games that concern essentially the language and its construction: riddles, grammatical notions, polysemies, acrostichs, etc. Thus, this text is an original synthesis of scholarly elements (hua chai, ekakkhara, etc.) that testifies, first, to the importance of advanced linguistic studies in the Lanna context during the 16th century. Secondly, some of the elements presented throw some new light on regional specificities in their practical and esoterical dimensions, opening new ways for understanding the status of Pali as a sacred language.

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This thesis is based on a study of classical Pali texts and of materials gathered during a year spent in a village in central Ceylon. The material consists in particular of interviews with monks living in nearby village monasteries. My notes of these interviews, which cover more topics than could be discussed in the thesis, are reproduced in Appendix One, and some of my printed materials are summarily presented in Appendix Two. The circumstances of my field work are detailed in the last part of the Introduction. Factually, the thesis aims to give an account of the religious beliefs and ethos of Sinhalese (Kandyan) Buddhist villagers, expressed as far as possible in their own terms. As explained in chapter 1, Buddhism is a system of belief almost exclusively concerned with liberation from this world. It is therefore necessarily secretive, requiring supplementation by beliefs concerning other matters. Beliefs about Gods and demons and how they can help or hinder human beings which to a Western observer fall within the domain of religion are not seen in these terms by Buddhists. These are therefore only examined in so far as they are relevant to the understanding of Buddhism. Issue is taken, on the other hand, with the Western interpretation of Buddhism as an essentially nonreligious philosophy. Chapter 2 introduces the terms used by my informants in talking about their beliefs and institutions. The arrangement of chapters 3 to 8 is in some measure due to the formulation of the Buddhists themselves: they consider Buddhism in terms of the Three Jewels, which are the Buddha, the Doctrine, and the Order of monks, while their doctrinal emphasis is on the operation of karma and on ethical questions. Chapter 3 deals with the Buddha, chapter 4 with karma and the arrangement of the universe, chapter 5 with some problem in the doctrine of karma, chapter 6 with ethics, and chapters 7 and 8 with problems primarily concerning the Order. On the theoretical level the thesis is largely concerned with the interaction of belief and behaviour as an agent of religious change. My problem and concepts are presented in the first part of the Introduction. Although the general tenor of the thesis is to show that Sinhalese Buddhism has been remarkably conservative, if it is compared with the Pali Canon and its commentaries, there have been changes, and I suggest that some at least have arisen because of discrepancies between what people say and what they do: behaviour has affected doctrine, which in turn has affected behaviour. There are still in the religion as observable to-day discrepancies between what people eay and what they do; the thesis attempts to record both statement and performance, and suggests further that statements may vary with the context. Finally the thesis proposes that an acquaintance with Ceylonese Buddhism as a living system may provide insight into the workings of early Buddhism as described in the classical texts. In particular the last chapter suggests that scholars relying on texts and preconceptions have over-drawn the distinction between monks and laity as moral agents, and between Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism as ethical systems.

Indian accounts of anatomy from the early centuries of the Common Era display a shared desire to enumerate the parts of the human body. Two such accounts occur in the foundational texts of āyurveda --- the Caraka-saṃhitā and Suśruta-saṃhitā --- and another in the Buddhist commentarial text, the Visuddhimagga. Scholars have mined these medical sources in particular to determine the extent and accuracy of anatomical knowledge in ancient India. But little has been done to understand the logics that these sources apply in dismembering, enumerating, and rearranging the body. A close reading reveals three distinct ways by which the materiality of the body could be interpreted in ancient India to conform to broader ideologies and epistemologies. Moreover, through examining both āyurvedic and Buddhist sources, it soon becomes clear that generalizations like "religion" and "medicine" mask the constellation of complex and often-overlapping concerns present in these various studies of anatomy. / text

This thesis aims to explore the doctrine of sukkhavipassaka (“dry-insight practitioner”) in Pāli Buddhism. The focus of the thesis is to utilize the canonical and commentarial sources of the various Buddhist schools to evaluate the position of this doctrine in the history of early Buddhism. Since the early 20th century the sukkhavipassaka doctrine and its practice have been reemphasized by eminent meditation monks in Burma, and later they spread to other Buddhist countries in Asia and beyond. Some scholars, nevertheless, have cast doubts on the authenticity of the sukkhavipassaka doctrine. They argue that it is a later development, not recorded in the Pāli Nikāyas since the form-sphere jhāna (Skt. dhyāna) is always necessary for the realization of arahantship, or even for stream-entry, the first stage of enlightenment. The first part of this thesis investigates the concept of the sukkhavipassaka in the four Nikāyas. Many suttas in the Pāli Nikāyas imply an acknowledgement of noble beings who lack form-sphere jhānas; also many meditative techniques described in the suttas can be practised in the so-called dry-insight way. However, it is in the Pāli commentarial literature, which is discussed in the second part of this thesis that the sukkhavipassaka doctrine appears in a full-fledged form. The Pāli commentaries not only specify the concentration that dry-insight practitioners use to develop insight knowledge, but also reveal the advantages and disadvantages of the dry-insight meditative approach. In the third part of this thesis, the canonical and commentarial materials related to the Susīma Sutta which are preserved in schools other than the Theravāda are investigated. This thesis reveals that the concept of arahants who lack the first form-sphere jhāna is accepted not only by the Theravāda but also by the Sarvāstivāda, the *Satyasiddhisāstra, and the Yogacārabhūmiśāstra. Since various Buddhist schools in India unanimously advocate the idea that there are arahants who have not achieved the form-sphere jhāna, this research concludes that the dry-insight meditative approach and dry-insight arahants are not an invention by Theravādin commentators, but a common heritage which was most probably handed down from the time of the Buddha and then shared by various Buddhist schools.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rijkuniversiteit te Utrecht, 1992. / eContent provider-neutral record in process. Description based on print version record.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Rijkuniversiteit te Utrecht, 1992.