Portal de Periódicos da CAPES

New light on the twelve Nidānas

2009; Taylor & Francis; Volume: 10; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/14639940903239793

1476-7953

Dhivan Thomas Jones,

Religious Studies and Spiritual Practices

Abstract Pa icca samuppāda (dependent arising) is the central philosophical principle of Buddhism, and is most commonly exemplified in the suttas in terms of the twelve nidānas. The ubiquitous interpretation of the twelve nidānas of pa icca samuppāda as taking place over three lives, a religious doctrine explaining the rebirth process, is a commentarial development, not found in the suttas. Recent Theravādin exegetes Bhikkhu Buddhadāsa and Ñāavīra Thera argue for an interpretation of the twelve nidānas of pa icca samuppāda as taking place in the present moment, but Bhikkhu Bodhi disputes the claim that their interpretation is the Buddha's original meaning. Recent work by Vedic scholar Joanna Jurewicz, however, suggests that originally the twelve nidānas were a parody of Vedic cosmogony. This scholarship opens the way for renewed exegesis of pa icca samuppāda liberated from Indian Buddhist metaphysics. Notes 1. For more details see Frauwallner (Citation1973, 150–169) and Bucknell (Citation1999). 2. In Buddhadāsa (Citation1989, 122) he describes this complete pa icca samuppāda as a 'diamond crowned toad'. The dukkha side of pa icca samuppāda is a 'despicable toad', 'absolutely loathsome', but it is crowned with saddhā, or faith, from which arises the ending of dukkha. 3. Bhikkhu Bodhi would like to convince the reader that kāyūpago hoti (here translated 'fares on to [another] body') 'denotes movement towards the fruition of past kamma—movement fulfilled by the process of rebirth' (Bodhi Citation1998b, 161). But upaga (lit., "going on to") cannot be made to mean 'according to karma', and he admits that 'fare on to [another] body' only loosely corresponds to punnabbhavābhinibbatti, 'productive of future re-becoming', a phrase that is more easily glossed in terms of karma (Bodhi Citation1998b, 167). I would venture to observe that Bhikkhu Bodhi prefers to interpret the meanings of words concerned with pa icca samuppāda in terms of the later commentarial exegesis, which is not a historical form of translation, and begs the question of the original meaning of the suttas in question. 4. Also at D 24 PTS iii 29–30. Gombrich (Citation1990, 13) points out that this is a satirical retelling of the creation myth in B hadāra yaka Upani ad 1.4.1–3.