|
Most recently I've read her Buddha. Having once been a practitioner of Buddhist thoughts and meditations, I thought it was worth checking in with Armstrong's take on the subject.
Her methodology is the main thing that stands out in this work, more than her writing or analysis. (Her writing is competent as always, and there is little analysis to speak of; it's more a matter of reportage.) The nature of the book was determined even before she wrote it by her restricted choice of source material: she limited herself to the earliest known sources from the Tipitaka. (That title always sounded to me like a New Orleans restaurant, but in Pali it means 'the book of the three baskets', because the earliest compilers of Buddhist palm-leaf manuscripts sorted them literally into three baskets depending on their subject matter: one for doctrine, one for monastic organization, and one for anecdotes on the life of Siddhartha Gautama.) Ti meaning 'three' and pita meaning 'basket'.
The result of Armstrong's methodological choice predetermines the character of the Buddha that is reported in her book: we get exclusively the Theravada version of Buddha. The more widespread Mahayana view of Buddha is therefore excluded. Most Westerners who take an interest in Buddhism, as far as I can tell, are attracted by some sort of Mahayana. Armstrong starts her book with a lengthy discussion of the sources, how they came to be written, and how she has chosen to read them. It's clear that her methodology has been guided by the historicist school of Western scholars of religion, the approach that has worked so well in her other books. I question, though, how well it works with Buddha.
She chose to limit her research to the earliest possible material in order to screen out the mythologizing elaborations that accreted onto the Buddha story in later centuries. However, even the Theravada version, no matter how early, is filled with mythologizing. If she was aiming for a rigorously historicist pruning away of all nonfactual elements, I'm sorry, I just don't see how this could succeed given her methodology. What we get instead is Theravada mythology in preference to Mahayana mythology. Face it, there simply is no source material with a just-the-facts-ma'am approach to Buddha's life. My personal feeling, as a former Mahayanist, is that the Mahayana view of the Buddha gives just as valid an interpretation of his life as the Theravada and is no less illuminating as to what sort of man he was.
But in fairness to Armstrong, maybe the task of sorting through huge amounts of Mahayana as well as Theravada material, for a subject in which she is not an expert, would have proved too overwhelming for her. In order to get the book written at all, she had to simplify her task enough to make it practicable. She felt the self-imposed limitations would still result in a readable book that could convey to the general reading public an understanding of how Buddha lived and accomplished what he did. In this, I agree she succeeded.
|
Printer-friendly format
Email this thread to a friend
Bookmark this thread
(1000+ posts)
Send PM |
Profile |
Ignore
