BAU or Buddha's life ... which came first?

[Antonio Ferreira-Jardim]

Dear Professor Houben,

I would recommend your student consult the following passages of
NAKAMURA's important work:

NAKAMURA Hajime. A History of Early Vedanta Philosophy (vol 1). MLBD
(1983) pp.10-16.

This volume is an English translation of Books 1 & 2 of Nakamura's .
The relevant pages in the Japanese Edition are Volume 1 pp.14-23.

NAKAMURA Hajime. "shoki no vEdAnta tetsugaku." [shoki vEdAnta
tetsugakushi vol. 1] . tOkyO: iwanami shoten. 1981

[中村元. 初期のヴェーダーンタ哲学. [初期ヴェーダーンタ哲学史 ; 第1卷].
東京: 岩波書店. 1981 ]

The 1981 Japanese edition of this work contained a substantial
supplement updating the work with further translations, corrections,
explanations and bibliographical material. This material was not
translated in the English edition of this work. Interestingly in light
of the previous discussion, NAKAMURA includes a short article on the
teachings of YajNavalkya as contained in an early Jaina work (the
Isibhasiyaim) - on pages 636-647.

This article and material is not referred to in GOTO Toshifumi's
aforementioned article or in Witzel's recent article:

Witzel, M. "YajNavalkya as Ritualist and Philosopher, and His Personal
Language." in Siamak Adhami (ed). PaitimAna: Essays in Iranian,
Indo-European, and Indian Studies in Honor of Hanns-Peter SCHMIDT.
California: Mazda Publishers (2003) pp.103-143

cf also. Jain, SAgarmal. "RSibhASit: ek adhyayan". [prakRt bhArtI
puSpa: vol 89]. Jaipur: Popular Printers (1988). pp.45-6 (Surendra
Bothar's English translation "Rishibhashit:  A Study. [Prakrit Bharti
Pushpa: vol 90] Jaipur: Popular Printers (1988) pp.34-5).

Another very useful resource is the work by Professor Signe Cohen
(http://religiousstudies.missouri.edu/people/cohen.html) -  in
particular her Doctoral thesis which will soon be published and is
currently available via UMI Microfilms. See her bibliography on her
faculty page for details of excerpted articles and also see the
extract available below:

TITLE                    The relative chronology of the older Upanisads: A
metrical and linguistic approach (India)
----------
AUTHOR          Cohen, Signe Marie
----------
DEGREE          PhD
----------
SCHOOL          UNIVERSITY OF PENNSYLVANIA
----------
DATE            1999

http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI9953515/


I hope this short note helps your student!!!

Kind regards,

Antonio Ferreira-Jardim
Brisbane
Australia

On 12/5/06, Jan E.M. Houben <j_e_m_houben at yahoo.com> wrote:
> Dear Luis,
> Thanks, this is an important article. The author
> apperently accepts, without questioning, the
> classical view that the Vedic Upanisads including
> the BAU are (just) before the life and teaching
> of the Buddha. See for instance in the concluding
> paragraph "The conceptions of life and world in
> early Buddhism have thus inherited the
> reflections on birth and death found in the old
> Upanisads, and further explicated them."
> Jan
>
>
> --- Luis Gonzalez-Reimann <reimann at BERKELEY.EDU>
> wrote:
>
> > Dear Jan,
> >
> > This article may be of some help:
> >
> > Goto, Toshifumi. 2005. Yajñavalkya's
> > Characterization of the Atman and the Four
> > Kinds
> > of Suffering in Early Buddhism. Electronic
> > Journal of Vedic Studies 12, no. 2: 71-85.
> > Online at: http://www1.shore.net/~india/ejvs/.
> >
> > Luis
> > _____
> >
> >
> > At 09:15 AM 12/4/2006, you wrote:
> > >Dear All,
> > >One of the many problems of dating texts and
> > >events in Indian cultural history concerns the
> > >relative dates of the Brhad-Aranyaka-Upanisad
> > and
> > >the life of the Buddha. The 'traditional'
> > view,
> > >starting from estimates by Max Müller and
> > others,
> > >would place the old Vedic Upanisads, including
> > >BAU, before the Buddha. Some have argued,
> > >however, that the BAU was composed
> > (finalized?)
> > >after the Buddha (and after Panini). I
> > remember
> > >that Johannes Bronkhorst (The two traditions
> > of
> > >meditation) and Richard Gombrich have written
> > on
> > >this (in the 80s-90s). What are the latest
> > >contributions on this topic in which a student
> > of
> > >mine is interested?
> > >Thanks,
> > >Jan Houben
> >
>
>
>
>
> ____________________________________________________________________________________
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