[Y-Indology] samkara tradition and temple worship

[Guest guest]

The question of who originated and who absorbed is

not an appropriate question for the Indic traditions, since there

are no institutionalized orders. It is the

"christian church" way of thinking to ask such questions

and in many ways irrelevant to the particular guru-shishya

lineage that may be under discussion.

 

Depending on the guru, the location and the interactions

you will find all kinds of combinations and interpretations.

 

 

 

INDOLOGY, "Phillip Ernest"

<phillip.ernest@u...> wrote:

>

> -

> "vpcnk" <vpcnk@H...>

> <INDOLOGY>

> Tuesday, March 11, 2003 4:05 PM

> [Y-Indology] Re: samkara tradition and temple worship

>

>

> > So what? So many elements in Tantra have been absorbed by

numerous

> > schools including Advaita. Anyway Tantra was itself a Buddhist

> > innovation which was absorbed by "Hindu" streams.

>

> I am more familiar with what I think is the commoner view, that

tantra

> originated in brahmanical circles and then spread to Buddhism. Is

the view

> you have represented here also widely held?

>

> From the positionless position,

>

> Phillip

[Guest guest]

-

"subrahmanyas2000" <subrahmanyas

<INDOLOGY>

Thursday, March 13, 2003 12:05 AM

[Y-Indology] Re: samkara tradition and temple worship

 

 

>

> The question of who originated and who absorbed is

> not an appropriate question for the Indic traditions, since there

> are no institutionalized orders. It is the

> "christian church" way of thinking to ask such questions

> and in many ways irrelevant to the particular guru-shishya

> lineage that may be under discussion.

 

I think this is a real overstatement. Just looking at Buddhism, it is true

to say that adherents of different Buddhist schools lived in the same

monasteries, and that exclusively pudgalavaadin monasteries, for example,

were not set up. But Buddhist literature reveals that there was intense

interest in drawing boundaries between schools, deciding what was whose and

what had originated where (many words were expended on trying to sort out

whether the pudgalavaadins were or were not tiirthikas) even if these

doctrinal divisions did not manifest as institutional schisms _within

Buddhism_ in the same way that similar ones did in Christendom. But who

will deny that Brahmanism and Buddhism had by the time of shankara become

separate institutions? And the bitter criticisms that were brought by

vedaantin and Buddhist alike against what even at the time was seen as his

cooptation of madhyamaka ideas arose within and hardened institutional

boundaries.

 

P