Buddha’s reinterpretation of religious words of contemporary India

Abstract

The Buddha, who investigated not a new religion but the nature of conditionality (𝘪𝘥𝘢𝘱𝘱𝘢𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘺𝘢𝘵ā) as the first, was reluctant to speak of his new discovery. The way-out for this difficulty was to use the available language with new connotations or with new interpretations. This must have no doubt, became a linguistic issue, where completely new ideas had to be presented in the available language. This philosophy was known as the dependent arising (𝘱𝘢ṭ𝘪𝘤𝘤𝘢𝘴𝘢𝘮𝘶𝘱𝘱ā𝘥𝘢). Here, the Buddha had to express his new thoughts or observations using the same stereotyped vocabulary. At the very beginning, it was quite difficult to convey these ideas to the ordinary human beings in an easy way. In this paper I wish to suppose that it was the reinterpretation that became important to introduce some of religious words for introducing non-speculative teachings of Buddhism.

For instance: ‘𝘥𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘢’ is used to mean ‘discourse’ which distinguishes 𝘨𝘶ṇ𝘢 (quality, virtue); 𝘩𝘦𝘵𝘶 (cause, condition); 𝘯𝘪𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘢 (truth, non-substantiality); 𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘯ā (instruction); and 𝘱𝘢𝘳𝘪𝘺𝘢𝘵𝘵𝘪 (text, canonical text). For the term 𝘥𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘢, it had occurred even in the pre-Buddhist philosophical movement as ‘𝘥𝘩𝘢𝘳𝘮𝘢’. With the sense of dhammaas the liberating law discovered and proclaimed by the Buddha, can be found through the 𝘛𝘳𝘪𝘱𝘪ṭ𝘢𝘬𝘢. 𝘋𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘢-𝘤𝘢𝘬𝘬𝘢 [the Wheel (realm) of the Law], 𝘋𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘢𝘥𝘦𝘴𝘢𝘯ā (Exposition of the Doctrine, 𝘋𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮𝘢-𝘥𝘩ā𝘵𝘶 (Mind-object element), 𝘋𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮ā𝘯𝘶𝘱𝘢𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘯ā (Contemplation of the mind- objects) 𝘋𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮ā𝘯𝘶𝘴ā𝘳𝘪 (the Dhamma Devotee), 𝘋𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮ā𝘯𝘶𝘴𝘴𝘢𝘵𝘪 (Recollection of the Law); and 𝘋𝘩𝘢𝘮𝘮ā𝘺𝘢𝘵𝘢𝘯𝘢 (Mind-object as Base) are some of them. In this paper I will collect and give analytical conceptions for some of those terms. Some of eminent scholars like Prof: TW Rhys Davids, Prof: DJ Kalupahana, and Prof: H. Nakamura have written based on the Buddha’s standpoint that tells linguistic expressions should not be taken as an essential burden to be carried on.

Here we may differ from those writings and research for the means of reinterpretation as a new dimension for analysis of the Buddha’s way of expression. Objectives of the paper would be as follows:

(i) Finding of 15 such doctrinal terms that have specific Buddhist connotations (ii) How they stress distinctive ideas in different contexts of the Canon (iii) The flexibility and fluidity of those words Considering all these objectives, the research basically goes with the relevant references from the Canon and secondarily post canonical texts, books and Encyclopedia of Buddhism.

Conclusion of the paper will be come up with new suggestions that are more applicable in Linguistics.