Pudgalavada
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The Pudgalavāda (Sanskrit; Chinese: 補特伽羅論者; pinyin: Bǔtèjiāluō Lùnzhě) or "Personalist" school of Buddhism separated from the Sthavira nikāya around 280 BCE.
Pudgala or "person"
The Sthaviravādins[who?] interpreted the doctrine of anatta to mean that, since there is no true "self", all that we think of as a self (i.e., the subject of sentences, the being that transmigrates) is merely the aggregated skandhas.[citation needed] The Pudgalavādins asserted that, while there is no ātman, there is a pudgala or "person", which is neither the same as nor different from the skandhas. The "person" was their method of accounting for karma, rebirth, and nirvana. Other schools held that the "person" exists only as a label, a nominal reality.
Criticisms of the pudgala theory
Pudgalavādin views were sharply criticized by the Theravadins (a record of a Theravadin attack on the pudgala is found in the Kathavatthu), Sarvastivadins, and Mādhyamaka. Peter Harvey agrees with criticisms levelled against the Pudgalavadins by Moggaliputta-Tissa and Vasubandhu, and finds that there is no support in the Pali nikayas for their "person"-concept.[1]
Relationship to the Sammitiya
Among the most prominent of the Pudgalavādin schools were the Sammitiya. The distinguished Buddhologist Etienne Lamotte, using the writings of the Chinese traveler Xuanzang, asserted that the Sammitiya were in all likelihood the most populous non-Mahayanist sect in India, comprising double the number of the next largest sect,[2] although scholar L. S. Cousins revised his estimate down to a quarter of all non-Mahayana monks, still the largest overall.[3] They continued to be a presence in India until the end of Indian Buddhism, but, never having gained a foothold elsewhere, did not continue thereafter.
Notes
See also
Further reading
- Priestley, Leonard (1999). Pudgalavāda Buddhism: The Reality of the Indeterminate Self. Toronto: Centre for South Asian Studies, University of Toronto.
External links
- Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy article on 'Pudgalavāda'
