Filial Piety and the Monk in the Practice of Indian Buddhism: a Question of 'Sinicization' Viewed From the Other Side

TLDR

Epigraphical inscriptions from across India, catalogued by Shizutani Masao, have been extensively studied by historians but largely ignored by Buddhist scholars, despite offering crucial insights into doctrinal concepts and actual religious practices. This paper investigates a specific instance of Buddhist scholars’ neglect of epigraphical evidence and the resulting distortions in Indian Buddhist studies. The analysis demonstrates that epigraphical material, being older than literary sources, reveals authentic practices and the intentions of lay and monastic Buddhists, and its omission has produced significant distortions in the field.

Abstract

Shizutani Masao in his catalog of Indian Buddhist epigraphical material, the final version of which was published in Kyoto in 1979, lists more than two thousand separate inscriptions.1 These inscriptions come, of course, from all periods and virtually every part of India and have been thoroughly mined by historians, but notunfortunately by Buddhist scholars. Buddhist scholars, in fact, have shown very little interest in this material, especially those scholars writing on the development of Buddhist doctrine-this, in spite of the fact that this material contains considerable information in regard to such important matters as the conception of the Buddha or Buddhas, the conception or conceptions of merit and religious acts, and the nature of the actual, as opposed to the ideal 'goal' of religious activity among practicing Indian Buddhists. In fact this epigraphical material has as I have said elsewhereat least two distinct advantages. First of all, much of it predates by several centuries our earliest actually datable literary sources. Secondly, it tells us what a fairly large number of Indian Buddhists actually did, as opposed to what according to our literary sourcesthey might or should have done.2 But in addition to these two advantages there is a third: this material, in a considerable number of cases, tells us what the individuals themselves-whether laymen or monks-hoped to accomplish by those religious acts which they chose to record. The failure of Buddhist scholars to take this epigraphical material into account has generated a number of distortions both within the realm of Indian studies and beyond. One particular example will concern us here.