Asceticism in Buddhism and Brahmanism: A Comparative Study.

• Author: Olivelle, Patrick

By RYOKAI SHIRAISHI. Buddhica Britannica, series continua, VI. Tring, U.K.: INSTITUTE OF BUDDHIST STUDIES, 1996. Pp. 257.

Originally the author's doctoral dissertation at the University of Delhi, this study is intended "to depict and ascertain the style and nature of ascetic life during the period of Sakyamuni Buddha and his immediate disciples" (p. 1), and to recover "the incipient stage of original Buddhism" (p. 7). This goal is reiterated throughout the book: "the principal aim of this study is to depict Sakyamuni Buddha and his immediate disciples within the context of the society and world in which they lived" (p. 2). The author wants to discover the "Buddha's original preaching" (p. 2) in order to distinguish it from subsequent developments. The methodology proposed is to study Buddhist asceticism "not exclusively from the Buddhist point of view but rather from that of general Indian thought," an approach the author believes "has never been sufficiently taken into consideration" (p. 2).

Three chapters are devoted to Brahmanical modes of asceticism: historical background and development of the asrama theory, the life of vanaprasthas, and the life of parivrajakas. The author covers "the life of Buddhist monks" in one chapter, and devotes the final chapters to "a comparative study of asceticism" and "the meaning of asceticism."

Shiraishi's aim of studying Buddhism not in isolation but as part of the larger history of religions in ancient India is laudable, although not as groundbreaking as he appears to think. Shiraishi's method, especially his use of literary sources for historical reconstruction, however, is deeply flawed. In the case of Buddhism, the author, while acknowledging that "there exist no canonical texts written down by Sakyamuni Buddha himself," nevertheless believes that "the core of these texts was, however, acknowledged by the disciples of Sakyamuni Buddha as his true teaching at different councils" (p. 138). based on this assumption, he thinks that "the majority of the aforementioned Buddhist canonical texts may be employed as sources of reference to examine the life of the Buddha and the early Buddhist monks" (p. 140). The "canonical texts" Shiraishi uses are the texts of the Pali canon.

In the case of Brahmanism, the author uses almost exclusively the Dharmasutras and the Dharmasastra;(1) he does not address the problems inherent in using normative texts for historical purposes. Given that his method is to compare the...