Buddhist historiography | Society and civilization - Digha Nikaya of the Sutra Pitaka in Buddhists writings

Buddhist historiography:

Buddhist historiography has been mentioned many times above and a summary of the Buddhist description of the early development of society and civilization has also been made.  Theoretically (Tripitaka) accounts of important events in the life of the Buddha, including the discourses in which he organized his doctrine (Sutrapitaka), and the events associated with the founding of his Sangha (Sangha, a noun that refers to democratic political institutions).

Buddhist constitution and rules of discipline (Vinayapitaka) It provides sufficient information about India during Buddha's lifetime (BC 566-486) ​​- especially because of the detailed nature of the account.  Society and Culture.

Buddhist historiography

There is a lot about life, a little on the economic system and there are indications of some political events, as well as these discourses which are often attributed to Buddha, themselves have included ancient history in themselves.  (in the Digha Nikaya of the Sutra Pitaka) which has been mentioned above and some other accounts of ancient events. 

(On Buddhist Commentaries in Sinhala  The traditional accounts are later propounded by Manu.  , although he does not critique it in detail.  The (late) Deepvansh presents a series of dynasties of the present 'yuga' or kalpa.  It refers to the cycle of evolution that begins with the Mahasammat. According to the Buddhist idea of ​​the irrationality of the Kalachakras, which are clearly drawn from the study of astrology, this (swaroop) is more related than the Puranic version. 

It says that there have been more than 4,00,00,00,000 kings in twenty different cities, although more detailed lists of clans give details of less than 4,00,000.  Only a few famous names match the names of the Puranas, and the list ends with the Buddha himself, because by this time the folk tale had been invented, that the Buddha was the son-in-law of the sovereign state, which he had abandoned. 

Given because he had more attraction towards philosophy.  and (Dighnikaya) No. 26, describes the reign of three Chakravarti emperors who came after each other, who supposedly tried to rule justly in the tradition of Mahasammat, but eventually came and allowed the society to become more corrupt and more violent.  .  The names of some of these emperors have not been given elsewhere, whose knowledge is also known to the mythological accounts, but there are great differences in the order of counting the dates. 

The Buddhists (writers) were often not much interested in describing the legends of the ancient kings.  The exception to this was only those kings whose moral actions were idealized, or those who were immediate ancestors of the Buddha or who were related to the heroes of the earliest Buddhist narratives, including the Buddha's own prior births (many of these are described in the Tripitik). 

But they are probably relatively later additions to it.) The ancient kings mentioned in the Tripitik are Ikshvaku (in Pali it is written as Okkak, who is a relatively well-established king and whoever it may be, he is Manu.  is not the son of.) Mandhata, Bharata, Dhritarashtra Shiva and Janaka.  In describing the establishment of the Buddhist sangha, and looking at the later events of the same sangha, the Vinayapitaka, in its endeavor to mention in chronological order, actually started Buddhist history.

This inscription continued to be written after the Buddha's parinirvana, and the events of the Sangha even after a century, (during the reign of Kalashoka of Magadha) were added to the Vinaya Pitaka itself.  Some time after that (most likely dated to 349 BCE) the Buddhist sangha split, and different branches continued to write their own historical records separately (but did not include them in the Tripitaka).  

Thus the Sthaviravada branch (whose main center (eventually formed in Sinhala) in its traditions of Tripitaka, called (Athkatha) Bhashya, intertwined the history of the name of the dynasty. It did not mean here, the family tree, which was once  - Sometimes it happens, but in the sense of the masters of the branch, and the subject of the history of Buddhism.

The same noun 'vansh' is also used in the same sense in the traditional Vedic narratives, and thus texts such as the Shatapatha Brahmana present the lineage of their masters.  One of the Tripitakas is the Buddhavamsa, a tradition of imaginary Buddhas who took place at vast intervals of time before our Buddha.  The present form of Vinayapitaka's commentary, presents a continuous historical account, including the establishment of the Sthaviravada branch in Sinhala by 200 BC.

A lineage of Acharyas associated with it goes back to the first century AD.  Another commentary (on Kathavathu) gives a detailed description of the other branches of Buddhism, as they diverge from Sthaviravada.  The Dipavansh (History of the island i.e. of Sinhala. But it also writes about the ancient history of India.) The traditional copy of the same ancient commentary, is another accessible version of which has already been mentioned.

This is a compiled text in which history has been collected from different sources, which were probably all under the narrative tradition.  This leads this description to the middle of the fourth century, at which time it is more likely to be written down.  (Coincidence with the end of the mythological universal history is visible) After this, the history of Sinhala continued to be written by Buddhists from time to time and without any interruption has been carried to the present period.  

Similar work was done by Buddhist writers in Burma and South East Asia.  In stark contrast to the rich history of Sinhala, there are only a few scattered works of Buddhists here and there.  The obvious reason for this is the historical situation of suppression of Buddhism in India, and the disappearance of the maximum number of its Indian branches.  The remnants of the Indian narrative are supplemented by Tibetan and Chinese sources covering Indian history.  In the first place, there is Manju Srimoola Kalpa which is the text of Mantravan (Tantra), a historical volume whose original copy has been preserved in Kerala.

It traces the general history of India to the eighth century, although its style is brief and mystical.  It is useful for Nanda Kaal, Mauryas, Guptas (Valabhi's) Maitrakas, Maukharis, Pushyabhutis and Gopala (at the time).  Tibetan.  Historiography can be magnified by the works of Taranath (seventeenth century), and to some extent by the Boo Tast (fourteenth century), it is clear that Taranatha compiled from many texts composed in India, and was often in sync with them.  failed.  Description of the Kushanas (in the form of moonsof

Because they were Chandravanshi according to their own fictional tales) is given in a very delusional style.  The description of the kings of eastern India (Magadha etc.) is more confusing.  Under them, some of the Gupta kings, are given in a dim and diminutive mode.

(The later branch of the Guptas, from Narasimha to Mahasen, appears to have been placed in the 6th century.) The account of the Pala dynasty from the eighth century onwards, along with other later kings, is presented by Taranatha in a more satisfactory style, making  They seem to have used Indian sources which were closer to the events they are describing.

The Turks' invasions are discussed in detail, while Buddhism gradually disappeared from India and refugees fled to different neighboring countries.  We also have the Tibetan biography of Dharmaswami on this subject.  For the ancient history (before Buddha), Taranatha suggests his readers to look at the Mahabharata and the eighteen Puranas etc.

Finally, we have the Avadana literature, which is considered to be a part of the Tripitaka, especially the Ashokavadana written about the Mauryan emperor Ashoka, with many recitations.  (The original avadana is the stories of Buddha and his predecessors and Buddha's followers, whose subject is often their previous births. The story of the Buddha's previous births is called Jataka. In principle, the meaning of avadana is a great work. 

Which has definite results.  When the lineage means a kind of ancestral or traditional sect, or a clan. Intuitively, we think of the contribution stories of past lives as imaginary or artificial, but it is strongly requested that they are in fact  Thus they are part of a branch of history that recognizes such evidence of the past.) In Buddhist historiography, we can distinguish between original historiography and anecdotal historiography. 

 

The meaning of the first is a direct or slightly contemporary description of events.  The second means a later retelling of such events, and often changes from history to fables, and in the Tripitaka we find conclusive, detailed accounts of the Buddha's activities, which are more or less a direct record of events.  are, and according to which predetermined opinion they have not been composed. 

Later on we get a tradition of Buddha's biographies, for example, the Mahavastu Nidan - of

those stories, Shakyamuni Buddhacharita Lalitavistara and Ashvaghosha's Buddhacharita, in which the chronicle has been converted into narrative more and more.  Events are not what we might expect in an extended historical chronicle, but fit certain ideals.  Nothing has happened suddenly.  Everything has meaning.  In fact, according to the Buddhist doctrine of righteousness, all actions are dependent on previous actions. 

Just as an action is associated with past events, so it is full of its future consequences.  As a result of this idealism, there was naturally a tendency in ordinary history writers to select, distort and imagine events so as to enhance the moral picture of history as they were presented.  That is to say, in addition to the question of the moral fact of a chronicle, we also come across the question of the artistic fact.

The art side of literature (heroic poetry etc.) becomes dominant.  For example, Ashvaghosha is one of the great poets of India, not a history-car.  We will discuss this in more detail later in the context of other authors.  This tendency to move away from history to narrative was done by later writers, this interpretation also affects other characters such as Udayana, Pradyota, Ashoka (on etc.).