SV

Article
When Did Buddhism Become

Anti-Brahmanical? The Case of
the Missing Soul
Joseph Walser*
Many textbooks for Introduction to Buddhism or World Religions

courses treat Buddhism as a competitor of either “Hinduism” or
“Brahmanism” by asserting that Buddhism teaches that there is no eter-
nal self or soul and Hinduism teaches that there is. I ask whether these
assumptions hold up for one of the earliest sources about Buddhism, the
Pali canon. Using statistical analysis of 5,126 suttas or “discourses,” I ar-
gue that there is little evidence that the doctrine of soullessness was
preached to “convert” representatives of the Brahmanical tradition to
Buddhism. On the contrary, it would appear that Brahmin Buddhists
had their own canon-within-a-canon that simply avoided the topic of
soullessness. Rather than seeing the canon as “what the Buddha taught,”
the argument here will present canonicity itself as one of the stakes in a
nexus of power where different communities strove to assert their version
of Buddhism to be “what the Buddha taught.”
*Joseph Walser, Department of Religion, Tufts University, 329 Eaton Hall, Tufts University,
Medford, MA 02155, USA. E-mail: joseph.walser@tufts.edu. I want to thank Edwin Bryant, who
got me started on the first draft of this back in 2014. I would also like to thank Daniel
Veidlinger, Ananda Abeysekara, and the anonymous reviewers of JAAR for their kind and in-
sightful comments.
Journal of the American Academy of Religion, May 2017, Vol. 0, No. 0, pp. 1–32
doi:10.1093/jaarel/lfx024
C The Author 2017. Published by Oxford University Press, on behalf of the American Academy of
V
Religion. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com
2 Journal of the American Academy of Religion
I WOULD LIKE to examine a claim that is occasionally made about

Buddhism, sometimes in textbooks and sometimes in more advanced
monographs, namely that Buddhism teaches that there is no self or soul,
and that this doctrine marks the borderline between Buddhism and
Hinduism (or Brahmanism). The latter, in this case, is assumed to com-
prise the teaching that the soul exists. Buddhism and Brahmanism are
thereby asserted to be polar opposites with the doctrine of soullessness
(Sanskrit anatman/ Pali anatta) held to be the refutation of the
Brahmanical doctrine of the soul.
The latter assertion is, of course, rather crude and most works on
Buddhism avoid putting the matter so baldly. Donald Mitchell’s introduc-
tory textbook on Buddhism is typical:
. . .the Upanis: adic teachers of the time held that lasting happiness
(ananda) could, in fact, be found deep within one’s self. They called this

inner, permanent, and divine reality the “Self” (Atman). The Buddha, on
the other hand, presented a third characteristic of existence that rejects
any such permanent Self. He said that all phenomena lack any underlying
and permanent substance; they all have the characteristic of “no-self.”
This also means that within human nature, there is no permanent self or
soul. (Mitchell 2008, 37)
Notice that while Mitchell does not explicitly say that the doctrine of
anatman was directed at followers of the Upanis: adic doctrine, the juxta-
position of the statements certainly leaves the reader with that impression.
The default assumption here is that whatever the Buddha taught concern-
ing the self and its liberation, it ran counter to that of the Upanis: adic
teachers. By extension, after reading the above account we would expect a
“Buddhist Upanis: adic teacher” to simply be a contradiction in terms. One
either follows the teachings of the Buddha or the Brahmanical teachings
of the Upanis: ads. The doctrine of anatman is thought to form a rigid bor-
derline between Buddhism and Brahmanism—a line that may only be
crossed by conversion.
Although it is rarely mentioned in today’s textbooks,1 it has long been
debated whether the early Buddhist suttas ever actually deny the existence
of a self or a soul in the first place. Prominent scholars of Buddhism are
lined up on either side of this issue.2 While it is true that no sutta ever
makes what should be a grammatically simple declaration to the effect
1
Bronkhorst (2009) is the happy exception.
2
For those who argue that the suttas do not deny a self, we find C. A. F. Rhys Davids 1941, 656–57;
Frauwallner 1953, I. 224ff; Schmithausen 1969, 160 (citing Frauwallner); Pérez Rem on 1980; Oetke
1988, 153; and more recently Bronkhorst 2009, 21ff., and a nuanced argument in Wynne 2011. On
Walser: When Did Buddhism Become Anti-Brahmanical? 3
that “there is no self or soul” or “the soul does not exist,” the fact remains
that the body of suttas discussing the doctrine of anatta were looked to by
much later generations of logicians as warrant for arguments against the
existence of the self. The question is whether the discourses dealing with
the topic of anatta (however we want to interpret it) were intended to distin-
guish Buddhists from followers of Upanis: adic teachings. To answer this ques-
tion, I would like to examine whether and to what extent such a borderline
can be found in early Buddhist canonical texts by examining whether the
Buddha is ever represented as teaching the anatta doctrine to Brahmanical
opponents in the Tipit: aka. The simple answer is, not really. That short an-
swer, however, is less interesting than the subsequent questions that the data
raise, namely, what were the important religious distinctions at play in these
texts prior to the distinction between Buddhism and Brahmanism, when was
the borderline between Buddhism and Brahmanism drawn, who drew it, and
why? Of course, if there were individuals interested in drawing a borderline
between Buddhism and Brahmanism early on, we can assume that there
were others who had no use for such a distinction. How are we to understand
these two populations and the negotiations between them?
Some might want to argue that the doctrine of anatman does mark
the borderline between Buddhism and other traditions for Vasubandhu
in the fourth century CE. Vasubandhu rather famously opens the last
chapter (or appendix) to his Abhidharmakosabhas: ya with the question,
“Is it the case that there is no liberation elsewhere?” (i.e., outside of
Vasubandhu’s own tradition). He answers, “There is not. Why? It is due
to being invested in the false view of atman.”3 La Valée Poussin translates
anyatra (“elsewhere”) here as “apart from this doctrine (dharma)” and
then inserts, “apart from Buddhism,” which was not in the original text
(Pradhan 1975, 461).4 But Vasubandhu ascribes the atman view to three
opponents: the Vatsı̄putrı̄yas, the Grammarians, and the Vais: esikas.
Clearly, Vasubandhu understands the Vatsı̄putrı̄yas to be Buddhists, since
all his arguments against them appeal to identifiable Buddhist sutras.
Furthermore, he argues that if this opponent denies the authority of these
teachings, he will cease to be, “a son of the Sakyan.”5 This line of argu-
ment would be compelling only to someone who thought of themselves as
Buddhist. So whatever line Vasubandhu is drawing here, it is not the
the opposite end of the debate we find Collins 1982, 250–71; Gombrich 1988, 21 and 63; and Harvey
1995. Most of these sources are cited in Bronkhorst 2009, 23, notes 42–43.
3
“Kim khalv ato ’nyatra moks: o nastij n astij kim karanamj vitathatmadrs: t: i-nivis: t: atv
atj” (Pradhan
_ Cf. La Valée Poussin 1980, v. 5, 230. _
1975, 461). _ _
4
Nor is it in Yasomitra’s Sput: hartha or in Paramartha or Xuanzang’s Chinese translations.
5
“Yadi nikaya eva pramanam na tarhi tes: am budhah: sastaj na ca te sakyaputrı̄ya bhavantij”
(Pradhan 1975, 460). _ _ _
same line we are trying to draw between Buddhism and Brahmanism.

Sects such as the Vatsı̄putrı̄yas are often assumed to be a later develop-
ment that are held to be heretical by the likes of Vasubandhu precisely be-
cause the borderline between Buddhism and Brahmanism had already
been in the earliest Buddhist texts, the Tipit: aka. I will be arguing that it is
not—not even close.
A second objection to my argument might be that even if I am correct,
the place for this argument is in a monograph on early Buddhism.
Introductory textbooks on Buddhism should be allowed a degree of over-
simplification to better introduce the admittedly tricky concept of selfless-
ness. My problem with this particular oversimplification is that it presents
“religions” as if they are armies battling one another. The narrative that I
hear from undergraduates after they have read introductory textbooks goes
something like this: “Buddhism splits off from Brahmanism and fights with
it for converts and patronage until it is finally defeated by Islam.” This narra-
tive is not only flawed historically,6 it naturalizes the idea that “world reli-
gions” are categorically incompatible and incommensurate, which in turn
naturalizes the expectation that violence between religions is the natural, de-
fault state. Shackled to the transcendence or at least the presumed integrity
of our categories, it is only peaceful cohabitation and boundary blurring that
requires explanation. In light of all the mischief precisely these assumptions
have caused in colonial history, is this really the impression that we want to
leave the next generation of religion scholars? A more nuanced attention to
the way discursive traditions work will show that religious distinctions (I
prefer “distinguishings”) are actions: they are things people either do or
don’t do. They are not mere facticities or immutable properties of a religion,
but are rather produced by specific human decisions made within nexuses
of power in which these distinctions have very real and concrete stakes.
Although this is no less true today, these stakes and their relation to the un-
folding of tradition are perhaps more clearly interrogated in relation to the
problem of traditions and their origins.7 The mistake is to treat the distinc-
tions marking those nexuses of power as somehow natural to something
called “Buddhism” opposed to “Brahmanism” (and now “Hinduism”).
Here a parallel can be drawn to Christianity and its distinction from
Judaism. Daniel Boyarin has argued that there was no real borderline be-
tween Judaism and Christianity until Justin Martyr wrote the Dialogue with
Trypho in the second century. In the Dialogue, the main speaker states that
the difference between Judaism and Christianity is that Christians believe in
the Logos and Jews do not. Boyarin points out that this would have been
6
See, for example, Elverskog 2010.
7
For a more lengthy treatment of these issues, see Abeysekara, forthcoming.
news both to the Jews who had believed in the Logos for generations as well
as to the Christians who had never adhered to the Logos doctrine.
Once Justin Martyr made this distinction, Judeans had to choose between
identities: either Jewish or Christian—except of course for those who still (or
even now) improperly recognized the borderline, and who were labeled “her-
etics.” The first independent Christian communities distinguishing them-
selves from Judaism are found in Syria where Justin was writing. The idea
that there was a borderline to be recognized between Judaism and
Christianity spread to the rest of the Mediterranean only later. Of
course, once the idea that there was a border reached a certain level of
geographic and demographic saturation, subsequent generations would
come to read the Jewish/Christian distinction back into much earlier
sources, especially into the Gospels and the letters of Paul (see Boyarin
2004, esp. chapters 2 and 3).
Needless to say, there are Buddhist scholars who also assume that the
borderline between Buddhism and Brahmanism dates back to the Buddha
himself in a similar fashion to the way some Christian scholars read the
break from Judaism back into the words of Jesus. Under this scenario, ev-
ery Brahmin steeped in the Vedas and Upanis: ads who comes to follow the
Buddha would have to be considered a “convert.” But religious boundaries
are like national boundaries. Sometimes individuals cross borders, but bor-
ders also cross people—especially in the early days of nation-building.
BUDDHISM AND BRAHMANISM

IN WESTERN SCHOLARSHIP
The question of Buddhism’s relation to Brahmanism has been debated
by Western scholars since the middle of the eighteenth century. For over
two hundred years, opinion has gone back and forth between assuming
that Buddhism was opposed to Brahmanism and assuming that
Buddhism was merely a flavor of Brahmanism. Gyanendra Pandey has
written about the trend among nineteenth-century British colonial offi-
cials to see religion not only as a governing category of subject peoples but
to assume therefore that religious difference was a rationale for violence
that required no further explanation (Pandey 1990, 23–65). But more
than two decades before the advent of the Hindu-Muslim “communal riot
narrative” that Pandey documents, Sir William Jones addresses the
Asiatic Society of Bengal with a similar observation about the relationship
between Buddhism and Hinduism:8
8
In the first chapter of his book, G. Verardi (2011) gives many more examples of nineteenth-
century scholars discussing reports of violence between Hindus and Buddhists. I have benefited
The Brahmans universally speak of the Bauddhas with all the malignity
of an intolerant spirit: yet the most orthodox among them consider
Buddha himself as an incarnation of Vishnu. This is a contradiction hard
to be reconciled, unless we cut the knot, instead of untying it, by suppos-
ing with Giorgi, that there were two Buddhas, the younger of whom es-
tablished the new religion, which gave so great offence in India, and was
introduced into China in the first century of our era. (Jones 1799, 123)
It would seem, then, that Jones encountered this enmity of Brahmins

for Buddhists among the Brahmins he encountered in Calcutta. But if
that is the case, who were the Buddhists that had so incensed those
Brahmins and offended India? Jones doesn’t say. It is possible that he en-
countered distain for the Buddhists only in the Nyaya texts that he was
studying. Or perhaps he is referring to tales that were then circulating
about past violence among these communities such as those recorded a
decade later by Lieutenant Francis Wilford (Verardi 2011, 22). The only
living Buddhists he refers to are Tartars, Tibetans, and Chinese. And yet
Jones also notes that the same Brahmins also simply assume the Buddha
to be an incarnation of Vishnu—so not only was there no enmity in cer-
tain contexts, but no borderline either. This situation seems to have puz-
zled Jones, though not the Brahmins he encountered.
From very early on, then, scholars had to choose between seeing the
relation between Buddhism and Hinduism as one of enmity or identity. A
little over fifty years later, Albrecht Weber takes up the thesis of identity
in his History of Indian Literature (originally published in 1852). He sees
Buddhism as “originally of purely philosophical tenor, identical with the
system afterwards denominated the Samkhya, and that it only gradually
grew up into a religion in consequence _of one of its representatives [pre-
sumably the Buddha] having turned with it to the people.” He further-
more notes that, “The doctrines promulgated by Yaj~ navalkya in the
Vrihad-Ara nyaka [sic] are in fact completely Buddhistic, as also are those
of_ the later _ Atharvopanishads belonging to the Yoga system” (Weber
[1875] 1882, 285). He argues that the identity between Buddhism and a
number of Brahmanas and Upanis: ads is a result of the fact that both can
be traced to the same region. Nevertheless, Weber (anticipating more re-
cent work by Bronkhorst [2007]) also observes that while Buddhism had
a number of philosophical links with Brahmanism, it originated in a kind
of cultural frontier region. Postulating an indigenous culture separate
greatly from Verardi’s discussion of these sources (as indeed from the whole of his book), despite that
I come to very different conclusions. This article, however, is not the place for a sustained critique of
Verardi, since he is primarily concerned with relations between Buddhism and Brahmanism from the
Gupta Dynasty onward.

from Aryan culture, he argues that cultural difference allowed enough
perspective to develop a critique of Brahmanical norms such as the caste
system (Weber [1875] 1882, 286–87).
Yet if Weber saw Buddhism and the Brahmanical Upanis: ads to be
philosophically identical, there were others who still assumed a natural
hatred between the two. Just a few years after Weber’s work was published
in English, Rajendralala Mitra wrestles with the question of why early his-
tories of Orissa tell us that Greeks and Mongols were in Orissa when there
is no real evidence that they were—all the while omitting any mention of
the Buddhists who were there. His sole explanation for this silence is com-
munal hatred:
As already shown. . . during the four centuries preceding the Christian-

era, Orissa generally and the district of Puri in particular were under the
domination of the Buddhists; but they abstain altogether from any refer-
ence to them.
It is impossible to suppose that they [the dynastic authors] knew noth-

ing of the ascendancy of Buddhism, and the omission, therefore, can
be attributed solely to religious hatred. They would do anything to
avoid naming the Jains and the Buddhists; as the old adage has it “they
would rather be eaten up by tigers than seek shelter in a Jaina temple.”
(Mitra 1880, 104)9
Of course, we might reasonably question whether silence is indeed an

index of hatred, but it is also possible that Mitra’s sources are not as silent
as we might think. Jones is clearly talking to Brahmins who express antip-
athy toward Buddhists. Jones assumes that the Buddhists must be a sepa-
rate group from the Brahmins who universally malign them. But what if
they are not? Even as late as 1879, Leopold von Schroeder notes that,
“. . .even now Maitrayanı̄ya Brahmana’s who live at the foot of the
Vindhyas at Bhadgaon, _ not eat with those other Brahmanas; the rea-
do
:
son may have been the early Buddhist tendencies of many of _them.” (von
Schroeder 1879, 30).10 In other words, it is possible that Jones didn’t see
any Buddhists apart from Brahmins, because the only Buddhists around
were Brahmins. This would certainly not be unheard of. At the beginning
of the seventeenth century, a Jesuit, Roberto De Nobili, travels to Madurai
9
For a longer discussion of Mitra, see Verardi 2011, 29–32.
10
Of course, we would like to know whether the perception of these “Buddhist tendencies” came
from the Bhadgaon Brahmins themselves or were merely imputed to them by von Schroeder’s reading
of the Maitrayaņı̄ya Upanis: ad.
and encounters a group of Buddhist Brahmins wearing their sacred

threads:
A third reason to prove that the Brahmin cord is not tainted by supersti-
tion but is merely a badge of learning in any field whatsoever, is taken
from the practice of the Buddhist Brahmins, alias the class of unbelievers,
of whom we have spoken in chapters Three and Four. For these men are
wont to wear the badge of the thread from time immemorial; and they
flourished in these parts very long before those laws and books of the
Idolaters were introduced. (Rajamanickam 1972, 91).11
Later, in 1889, Sir Monier Monier-Williams argues that the Buddha

“himself was a Hindu of the Hindus and he remained a Hindu to the
end. . .. It is true he was a determined opponent of all Brahmanical sacer-
dotalism and ceremonialism, and of all theories about the supernatural
character of the Vedas. . . but being himself a Hindu he never required his
adherents to make any formal renunciation of Hinduism, is if they had
been converted to an entirely new faith. . .” (Monier-Williams 1889, 71).
As for the doctrine of selflessness, Monier-Williams, like Weber, holds it
to be one of the “mere modifications of the Samkhya, Yoga and Vedanta
systems of philosophy” (Monier-Williams 1889,_ 93) In this case, he argues
that the denial of a self is merely the corollary to the Brahmanical thesis
that nothing exists except for the “supreme Universal Spirit” (that is, only
the Universal Spirit exists, therefore the self does not exist) (Monier-
Williams 1889, 105–120).
Vincent Smith follows up on this work in his second volume of the
Cambridge History of India generalizing the Samkhya/Buddhist connec-
tion of his predecessors to state that, “When [the _Buddha] died, about 487
B.C., Buddhism was merely a sect of Hinduism, unknown beyond very re-
stricted limits, and with no better apparent chance of survival than that
enjoyed by many other contemporary sects now long forgotten” (Smith
1906, 170).12 What Smith adds to the discussion is the idea that
Buddhism’s spread lay in the Buddha’s opposition to “bloody sacrifices,”
11
However, as Verardi points out, by the beginning of the nineteenth century, Christians were la-
beled followers of the Buddha. He notes, “Wilford. . . was struck by the fact that ‘in many parts of the
Peninsula, Christians are called, and considered as followers of Buddha’, something that was con-
firmed by Paolinus a S. Bartholomao in his Systema Brahmanicum [1791].” (Verardi 2011, 60, note
17). It is doubtful, however, that Nobili would have been subject to this confusion, since his point was
to convert precisely these Brahmins to Christianity. From evidence elsewhere in Nobili, it would ap-
pear that the Brahmins he identifies as Bauddha Brahmins are some kind of Dharmakirtians who es-
chew forms of worship and were known for their debate skills.
12
This idea is echoed in Bloomfield (1908, 4), published a year later: “Buddhism started in the
bosom of Brahmanism. Its radical reforms, concerning both doctrine and practical life are directed in
good part against Brahmanism. Yet Buddhism is a religion genuinely Hindu in its texture.”
which happened to dovetail nicely with the policies of Asoka Maurya.

Thus, for Smith, Buddhism is basically a detour for “Hinduism,” which
eventually returns to the main highway with the advent of Mahayana
Buddhism.
When we get to Charles Eliot’s three-volume Hinduism and
Buddhism (1921), we find something of a disjointed picture of the relation
between the two religions. On the one hand, apparently unaware of
Weber’s earlier discussion of the geography of Vedic schools, Eliot claims,
“At [the time of the Buddha] the influence of the Brahmans had hardly
permeated Bihar, though predominant to the west of it, and speculation
there followed lines different from those laid down in the Upanishads, but
of some antiquity, for we know that there were Buddhas before Gotama
and that Mahavı̄ra, the founder of Jainism, reformed the doctrine of an
older teacher called Parsva” (Eliot 1921, 8). Despite the apparent mutual
isolation during the time of the Buddha, the image that Eliot uses most of-
ten is that of two streams running parallel down through history, which
in the end (at least in India) reunite: “For twelve centuries or more after
the death of this great genius Indian religion flows in two parallel streams,
Buddhist and Brahmanic, which subsequently unite, Buddhism colouring
the whole river but ceasing within India itself to have any important man-
ifestations distinct from Brahmanism” (Eliot 1921, 292). But the contact
for Eliot is not limited to the beginning and end of Indian Buddhism. The
two cross-pollinate throughout their histories, and in cross-pollination,
Mahayana Buddhism is especially singled out as marked by a
Brahmanical infusion.
In the twentieth and now the twenty-first century, we notice that
many of these issues are still alive and well. Arguing that Buddhism is re-
ally just a flavor of Hinduism seems to have become passé in Euro-
American scholarship, although it is not hard to find many in India who
assume this to be true. Recent scholarship tends to assume a natural an-
tipathy between the two. To pick just one example, Sue Hamilton quotes
G. P. Malalasekera’s 1957 The Buddha and His Teachings in the beginning
of her 1996 book, Identity and Experience: The Constitution of Human
Experience, as follows:
This is the one doctrine which separates Buddhism from all other reli-
gions, creeds, and systems of philosophy and which makes it unique in
the world’s history. All its other teachings . . . are found, more or less in
similar forms, in one or other of the schools of thought or religions which
have attempted to guide men through life and explain to them the unsat-
isfactoriness of the world. But in its denial of any real permanent Soul or
Self, Buddhism stands alone. This teaching presents the utmost difficulty
to many people and often provokes even violent antagonism towards the
whole religion. Yet this doctrine of No-soul or Anatta is the bedrock of
Buddhism and all the other Teachings of the Buddha are intimately con-
nected with it. . . Buddhism denies and asserts that this belief in a perma-
nent and a divine soul is the most dangerous and pernicious of all errors,
the most deceitful of illusions, that it will inevitably mislead its victim
into the deepest pit of sorrow and suffering. [emphasis mine] (Hamilton
1996, xv–xvi).
Hamilton cites Malalasekera, no doubt, because his statement as a

“distinguished modern Theravada Buddhist,” lends an indigenous voice
in support of the relevance of her project. But in citing him, she misses
the context of Malalasekera’s statement and merely takes for granted that
both the boundary he draws with selflessness and the presumption of the
violence that it (naturally?) engenders mark the entire category of
Theravada Buddhism13 and not just the specific conjuncture that
Malalasekera’s 1957 work occupied (here Malalasekera was far more con-
cerned with Buddhism’s distinction from and conflict with Christianity
than Hinduism).14 Not that Malalasekera was unique in stating this in the
1950s; just two years prior in India, T. R. V. Murti would write:
Indian philosophy must be interpreted as the flow of these two vital

streams, one having its source in the atma doctrine of the Upanis: ads and
the other in the anatmavada of Buddha. Each branched off into several
sub-streams with a right and a left wing and several intermediary posi-
tions. There were lively sallies and skirmishes, but no commingling or
synthesis of the two streams. Throughout the course of their develop-
ment they remain true to their original inspirations. The Brahmanical
systems took the real as Being, Buddhism as Becoming; the former es-
poused the universal, existential and static view of Reality, the latter the
particular, sequential and dynamic; for one space, for the other time, is
the archetype. The Brahmanical systems are relatively more categorical
and positive in their attitude (vidhimukhena), while the Buddhists were
more negative (nis: edhamukhena). Again, the former are more dogmatic
and speculative, the Buddhists empirical and critical. Subjectively
minded, Buddhism is little interested in cosmological speculations and
constructive explanations of the universe. The Brahmanical systems were
bound to an original tradition; they all accepted the authoritarian charac-
ter of the Veda. Buddhism derives its inspiration from a criticism of expe-
rience itself. (Murti 1955, 12)
13
The remainder of her book deals mainly with the Pali Sutta Pit: aka and Abhidhamma Pit: aka,
which mark of a very different social and political context than Malalasekera’s own.
14
Tambiah (1992, 30–42) provides the context for Malalasekera’s writings.
In Murti’s treatment, Buddhism and the teachings of the Upanis: ads

are two sides that have “sallies and skirmishes, but no commingling or
synthesis.” They form polar opposites and can never be reconciled.
But if Malalasekera draws the boundary between Buddhism and
Christianity with the selflessness doctrine, other scholars assume
Buddhist doctrine to incite antipathy from a different “other”:
Brahmanism. Perhaps the most striking recent example is that of
Giovanni Verardi, who takes this thesis so far as to say that the cultural
differences between the Buddhist and Brahmanical cultures were so great
in the first millennium CE that they actually motivated widespread po-
groms of Buddhists by Hindus—leading to the eventual disappearance of
Buddhism from the Indian subcontinent. For Verardi, the reason for the
ongoing violence between Buddhism and Hinduism and for the eventual
eclipse of the former lies largely in the contrasting natures of the two. He
sums up his thesis as follows:
The historical domain covered by this book is thus one where an antino-
mial model takes the shape of a religious system, Buddhism, which is
bound, by ideology and violence, from within and without, to renegotiate
continuously and dramatically its own antinomial position. . .. The anti-
nomial stance of early Buddhist thought and early Buddhist communities
condemned them to the impossibility of emerging out of their subaltern
positioning throughout the whole of ancient and medieval history.
(Verardi 2011, 12)
Verardi then rather awkwardly attempts to paint those who argue that
Buddhism is somehow identical to Brahmanism as merely playing into
the hands of the Hindu right wing (Verardi 2011, 44–54). Verardi’s ar-
gument relies on identifying the transhistorical essence of Buddhism
and Brahmanism to render their contrast as the ubiquitous condition
for violence. Verardi, I think, nicely summarizes some of the differ-
ences between Buddhism and Brahmanism that are assumed by many
scholars:
Many misconceptions formed over time on Buddhism and its position

towards Brahmanism depend on assessments made on the relationship
between early Buddhism and the world of the Upanis: ads. The phenome-
nological aspects common to the two systems conceal the profound dif-
ference that separates them.. . .
At the phenomenological level, we observe [in Buddhism] anti-cosmism

(the phenomenal world is sorrow, and the causal chain keeps men bound
to it) and dualism (samsara is in sharp contrast with nirvana, however
_ _
the dynamics between the two came to be represented). The subordina-

tion of the divine is another typical feature of early Buddhism. . . The
gods for the Buddhist are not relevant with respect to either the teaching,
revelation and attainment of praj~ na. Antinomianism is expressed by the
refusal to recognize that caste division is sanctioned from above; it has, if
ever, only a de facto validity. Destructuring the self, Buddhism tends to
destructure society. Here then is an anti-clerical position: the brahmanas,
from whose ranks the priestly class comes. . . have no rights deriving
from birth. The true brahmana is whoever enters the spiritual elite
_
founded by the Buddha. The opposition to rituals, especially bloody ones,
has the aim of emptying the sacerdotal functions. Another shared feature
is individualism: while j~nana or gnosis is a means of individual salvation
valid for the aryas. . . an individualist ethic informs as well the
upasakas. . . As for universalism. . . the Buddha’s preaching is freed from
social, ethnic, national and even religious ties. (Verardi 2011, 69–72).
After over two centuries of scholarship on Buddhism, then, we have a

genealogy of two competing claims that find their way into general treat-
ments of Buddhism: the first is that Buddhism is a form of Hinduism and
the second is that Buddhism (and particularly its doctrine of anatman) is
pitted against Hinduism. But how do these theorists justify their picture
of what Buddhism is in the first place? Verardi abstracts an essence of
Buddhism and “the world of the Upanis: ads” without showing us how he
comes up with this essence. Presumably, he has relied on the mountain of
studies of early canonical material, which would seem natural enough. So
where do scholars of early Buddhism get their understanding of what
Buddhism is? Some, such as Richard Gombrich, ascribe to a kind of au-
teur theory, in which the figure of the Buddha becomes not only the (sin-
gular) “root or trunk of all subsequent Buddhist diversity,” but a source
who was “startlingly original” (Gombrich 2009, 2). This perceived origi-
nality is pitted against “the fact that the Buddha’s main ideological oppo-
nents were Brahmins of Upanis: adic views. . ..” The coherence and
uniformity of Buddhist doctrine is thus vouchsafed by being anchored in
a single author, the Buddha. This Buddha lived in a thoroughly
Brahmanical culture but resisted it either through straight out denuncia-
tion, or, when he appears to be supporting it, through “metaphor and
irony, registers imperceptible to the literal-minded” (Gombrich 2009, 2).
Gombrich, rather anachronistically, argues that all of the Buddha’s appar-
ent “capitulation” to Brahmanical ideas is merely evidence of his “skill in
means” (a reference to the later Mahayana doctrine of upaya)—a term
that he acknowledges is altogether absent from early Buddhist sources,
even early Mahayana ones (Gombrich 2009, 7). But I don’t single out
Gombrich because he stands out, but because he represents a trend. The
most famous example of this trend is that of T. W. Rhys Davids who de-
scribes the Buddha’s “invariable method. . . when discussing a point on
which he differs from his interlocutor”:
When speaking on sacrifice to a sacrificial priest, on union with God to

an adherent of the current theology, on Brahman claims to superior so-
cial rank to a proud Brahman, on mystic insight to a man who trusts in
it, on the soul to one who believes in the soul theory, the method is al-
ways the same. Gotama puts himself as far as possible in the mental posi-
tion of the questioner. He attacks none of his cherished convictions. He
accepts as the starting-point of his own exposition the desirability of the
act or condition prized by his opponent. . . He even adopts the very phra-
seology of his questioner. And then, partly by putting a new and (from
the Buddhist point of view) a higher meaning into the words; partly by
an appeal to such ethical conceptions as are common ground between
them; he gradually leads his opponent up to his conclusion. This is, of
course, always Arhatship. . .. (Rhys Davids 1899, 206)
With this hermeneutic, even if the Buddha appears to be saying

something other than the party line, we know that he is not actually
doing so. He is merely engaging in skillful means. Everything that
does not fit can then be read as a strategy to lead the interlocutor to
the opposite of the ostensive meaning of the text and the coherence of
Buddhist doctrine across the canon is preserved. The problem, of
course, with a thesis in which all counter-evidence is treated as evi-
dence for the thesis is that the thesis is no longer falsifiable, rendering
it suspect at the very least.
Now many authors avoid explicitly connecting a set of doctrines to
the Buddha himself, but rather ascribe specific doctrines or sets of doc-
trines to generic “Buddhists” or occasionally to a reified “Buddhism.” My
point is that whether any given author asserts Buddhism to be the same as
Brahmanism or a religion opposed to it, the disjunctive “or” requires us to
take the two poles of the disjuncture as homogenous units.
In light of the fact that this debate has gone on for so long, what do I
think I can contribute to the discussion? Whether one thinks that
Buddhism and Brahmanism are the same or different, evidence is usually
marshalled in the form of a close reading of a selection of sutras that are
then synthesized to either characterize the whole (“Buddhism”) or charac-
terize an author (“the Buddha”). Murti explains it like this:
Passages must not be counted, but weighed. We must consider the entire
body of texts together and evolve a synthesis, weighing all considerations.
We require a synoptic interpretation of the Buddhist scriptures. It is
necessary to make a doctrinal analysis of the contents and assess philo-

sophically their value. Such syntheses of doctrines and texts have been
made from time to time by the Buddhist schools themselves. We need
consider only three such important syntheses done by the Vaibhas: ika
and the Sautrantika, the second by the Madhyamika and the last by the
Yogacara. Each is an attempt to reconcile all the texts and doctrines from
a definite point of view. In spite of the specific differences they exhibit,
they have a generic affinity that is particularly Buddhistic. (Murti 1955,
12)
The problem, of course, is that there are many competing versions

of Buddhism that one could synthesize from the collection of suttas
as they stand. Scholars, both ancient and modern, who wish to cast
Buddhism as “anti-Brahmanism” must go to some effort to subordi-
nate apparent contradictions to the dominant theme of their
synthesis.
Of course, not everyone has been comfortable with this method or the
synthetic unity that was the intended result of its hermeneutic. In 1935,
Stanislaw Schayer asserts that the very idea that a text was not to be read
at face value (that it was neyartha instead of nı̄tartha) is a later scholastic
invention, and that scholars should take each sutra at face value to prop-
erly evaluate what is going on in canonical texts (Schayer 1935, 124). This
makes some sense, especially because the Tipit: aka as a whole cannot be
taken as the primary unit of authority before it was completed and under-
stood to be an enclosed unit. In other words, maybe we should be count-
ing sutras and eject our inherited academic synthesis of Buddhism—at
least initially, so that we can begin to really listen to our Buddhist sources.
Only then will we be able to recognize when, where, and why Buddhists
do their own synthesizing of tradition to create coherent boundaries. . . or
not to create them. I remind my students often that “Buddhism” doesn’t
teach anatman—or anything else for that matter. “Buddhists” do or
“suttas” do, which also means that some Buddhists and some suttas don’t.
What I want to argue here is that it matters which ones do and which ones
don’t, because when we look at the extant suttas in the Tipit: aka, we are
not looking at a homogenous pronouncement of an atemporal source, but
rather the result of a long series of debates and negotiations between mul-
tiple communities over a period of some time. So instead of dismissing or
interpreting contradictions away, I suggest we pay attention to them. It is
in the conflicts in the canonical accounts that we can catch a glimpse of
early debates that were not our own and allow for a critique of the very
ideas of Buddhism and Brahmanism to entertain an “insurrection of sub-

jugated knowledges” (Foucault 2003, 7).15
THE DEVIL AND THE DETAILS

So what do our early sources tell us about the borderline between
Buddhism and Brahmanism? To get a better sense of the canonical terrain
on this issue, I compiled a spreadsheet of all the discourses (sutta) of the
Pali versions of the Dı̄gha, Majjhima, Samyutta, and Anguttara _ Nikayas
along with the Dhammapada and the Suttanip _ ata and Udana to see the
distribution of discourses discussing or broaching the doctrine of anatta/
anatman. If you count all the repetitions, this amounts to 5,126 discourses
or potential discourses—an admittedly soft number considering the na-
ture and number of repetitions involved. Although my sample does not
comprise all the Pali canon, I believe that the distribution of doctrines in
this sample as well as the caste of the interlocutors is representative
enough of the whole.16 Of course, there are variants of most of these dis-
courses preserved in other languages, but in order to not introduce possi-
ble errors or double-counting from what are essentially translation
mistakes (or multiple translations of what may have been the same manu-
script), I have kept to one language.
Counting discourses in this way was a bit tricky, since I had to make a
judgment as to what counts as a discourse. Most discourses were obvi-
ously independent discourses, but some were either full repetitions of dis-
courses found elsewhere (presenting the problem of double counting) or
some were peyyalas or mere key words or phrases to discourses peppered
with the Pali equivalent of an ellipsis (. . . pe. . .) to indicate that the rest of
the discourse is to be filled in according to a previous paradigm, substitut-
ing the titular doctrine in the key place of the paradigm.17 Modern trans-
lators tend to ignore peyyalas, because they do not offer any new doctrinal
content. However, the fact remains that they are there in the Tipit: aka and
someone not only thought they were important enough to insert into the
15
The full context of this phrase will be helpful to understanding my approach here. “Beneath this
whole thematic, we have seen what might be called the insurrection of subjugated knowledges. When
I say “subjugated knowledges,” I mean two things. On the one hand, I am referring to historical con-
tents that have been buried or masked in functional coherences or formal systemizations. . . Quite
simply, because historical contents alone allow us to see the dividing lines in the confrontations and
struggles that functional arrangements or systematic organizations are designed to mask. Subjugated
knowledges are, then, blocks of historical knowledges that were present in the functional and system-
atic ensembles, but which were masked, and the critique was able to reveal their existence by using,
obviously enough, the tools of scholarship.” (Foucault 2003, 7)
16
All Pali sources come from Chattha Sangayana Tipit: aka 1995.
17
Most of these are in the Samyutta and Anguttara Nikayas, e.g., S.N. 4. 43–51.
_ _
canon, but generations of Buddhists for the past two thousand years have
thought it important to keep them in there. On the one hand, an argu-
ment can be made to exclude these from my survey, because they are not
really unique discourses and tend to inflate the importance of certain doc-
trines. On the other hand, it is precisely the fact that they inflate the ap-
pearance of certain doctrines in the Tipit: aka that I chose to count them.
Somebody at some point thought it was important to beef up, as it were,
the number of discourses on things like anatta. Apparently, we are not
the only ones who were counting discourses.
If we take each discourse at face value and include all repetitions, the
doctrine of anatta (¼ Skt. Anatman) or some version thereof appears in
about 378 of these 5,126 discourses (about 7.4%). This appears to be on
par with other doctrines of liberation. By comparison, the Noble
Eightfold Path occurs in 368 of these discourses, and the jhanas (or other
states of absorption) are taught in 340 discourses. Surprisingly, however,
only sixteen discourses18 contain both the doctrine of anatta and a discus-
sion of the Eightfold Path, and only twenty-five19 contain a discussion of
both jhana and anatta.
The first thing to note here is that while the Tipitaka does teach the
doctrine of anatta, it does so less than 10% of the time. Muslims eat burri-
tos in North America, but the statistical frequency of this in other ethnic
populations prevents us from jumping to the conclusion that burritos are
iconically “a Muslim thing” in American culture. I will grant that the
7.4% occurrence of anatta in the Tipit: aka is significant in contrast to the
relative absence of the term in non-Buddhist texts.20 Nevertheless, at 7.4%
we can hardly say that the teaching of anatta is more prominent than
other doctrines conducive to liberation (such as concentration). If 7.4%
discuss anatta, then 92.6% of discourses in the sample never mention it at
all. What this means is that potentially someone could listen to a great
many Buddhist suttas and never hear a discussion about anatta.
Furthermore, the doctrine of anatta could theoretically be a representative
Buddhist doctrine even at 7.4% if a community of Buddhists had access to
the whole Tipit: aka. But this was assuredly not the case during the genera-
tions in which the canonical texts themselves were being composed. The
question then is how much of this canonical material should we assume a
18
DN 6, DN 16, DN 33, DN 34, MN 8, MN 44, SN 22.44, SN 22.78, SN 22.81, SN 22.84, SN 22.103,
SN 22.105, AN 1.378–393, AN 10.237–746, Dhp vss. 273–289.
19
DN 6, DN 9, DN 15, DN 16, MN 1, MN 8, MN 44, MN 64, MN 102, MN 106, MN 112, MN 122,
MN 138, MN 140, SN 8.4 [SN 212], SN 22.47, SN 22.80, SN 41.7, AN 1.378–393 [AN 1.20.1], AN 3.94
[AN 3.92b], AN 4.200, AN 6.29, AN 9.36, Snp 2.1, Snp 3.12.
20
The exceptions of course are the Maitri Upanis: ad and other works of the Black Yajurveda that
use a synonym, niratman as a state that the yogin might attain.
given community would have access to? Might it be the case that different
communities had access to and circulated different collections with differ-
ent doctrinal compositions prior to the final redaction of the Tipit: aka as a
whole? If this were the case, then instead of seeing Buddhist doctrine as a
whole marked by the doctrine of anatta in opposition to Brahmanism, we
should be open to the idea that prior to the Tipit: aka’s final form, there
were Brahmanical Buddhist communities and communities opposed to
Brahmanism (as well as communities indifferent to it), each composing
and circulating their own discourses as “Buddhism.”
With this possibility in mind, let us return to the question of whether
the suttas support the claim that the Buddhist doctrine of anatta was un-
derstood to exclude Brahmanical communities. Yes, but not really in the
way one might expect. And the opposition that we do find certainly does
not support the contention that there was a recognized borderline be-
tween Buddhism and Brahmanism in the Tipit: aka, or that the doctrine of
anatta was preached against Brahmanical or Upanis: adic doctrines. The
devil, of course, is in the details.
If the doctrine of no-soul was supposed by the authors of the suttas to
challenge the Brahmanical doctrine of the soul, then we should expect to see
this challenge represented somewhere in the canon. Somewhere we should
find a representation of the Buddha or some paradigmatic non-Brahmin
Buddhist refuting the doctrine of an eternal soul espoused by someone coded
as Brahmanical. Now, what scholars today mean by “Brahmanical” or
“Brahmanism” appears to mean anyone influenced by the Vedas, and more

importantly their ancillary literature: the Brahmanas, Araņyakas, Upanis: ads,

Grha- and Srautas utras. One did not have to be a Brahmin to learn these
_
works or to practice them.21 Nevertheless, when issues of the Vedas or
Upanis: adic teachings are addressed in the Tipit: aka, the chosen representative
of that position is invariably someone who is in fact a Brahmin by birth.
Hence, if the doctrine of anatta was targeting Brahmanism, we should expect
to find some representative Brahmin abandoning this belief and accepting
the doctrine of anatta, thereby “converting” to Buddhism.
With this in mind, I set out looking for a sutta in which somebody tries
to convince a Brahmin that there is no soul. Generally speaking, Brahmins
are not too hard to spot in the Tipitaka, and I think we can safely assume
that Brahmanical status would have been even more obvious for the intended
audiences of early canonical texts than it is for us. A character named
Mahakassapa or Bharadvaja would have been a walking Brahmanical
21
Alara Kalama, the first of the Buddha’s meditation teachers in the Aryaparyasanasutta was
known to be a ks: atriya. Udraka Ramaputra may have been as well, although no caste information
about him has been recorded. On the Upanis: adic nature of their meditations, see Wynne 2007.
signifier in much the same way as a character named “Moishe Finklestein”

might index Judaism for us today. Of course, some interlocutors have names
that are less easy for us to recognize, but often there are other indications that
the character was meant to be read as Brahmin. Sometimes Brahmanical sta-
tus will feature as a narrative element in the sutta or else the Brahmanical sta-
tus of the interlocutor will be reflected in forms of address (e.g., only
Brahmins and devas address the Buddha with the vocative “Gotama”).
With this in mind, I went through the set of 5,126 sutras that discuss
anatta four times, recording the name and caste of every interlocutor in ev-
ery discourse. What I discovered was interesting.22 First of all, while there
are Brahmins represented as holding the doctrine that the soul is eternal, no
sutra claims Brahmins to have a special relation to this doctrine, and in fact
there are a few sutras that depict Brahmins as holding a wide range of be-
liefs concerning the soul, including the belief that when the body dies there
is nothing left (e.g., Brahmajalasutta of the D.N. and the Pa~ ncattayasutta of
the M.N.). But to say that the doctrine of anatta has nothing to do with
Brahmins is not quite right either. When we single out discourses in which
the interlocutor actually is a Brahmin, the situation gets more complicated.
Of the 5,126 discourses, there are 648 discourses delivered to recognizable
Brahmins (roughly 12.6% of the sample). Of these, 195 discourses are deliv-
ered to Brahmin householders or to Jat: ila ascetics performing sacrifices in
the woods. In these 195 discourses the doctrine of anatta is never men-
tioned or broached even once. Not that there are many discourses in which
the doctrine is taught to a non-brahmin householder: there are 194 dis-
courses to named non-brahmin lay interlocutors of which seven contain a
teaching that could be understood as anatta.23
Of course, the authors of these suttas were well acquainted with their
nonfictional Brahmin friends and neighbors in a way that most modern
scholars are not. Despite considerable literature on the Buddha’s so-called
“redefinition of the Brahmin,”24 most Brahmins in these suttas are simply
assumed to have been born as Brahmins. Just as there is nothing to pre-
vent a contemporary Brahmin from being a devout bhaktin or staunch
22
I will present the summaries of my findings here, but of course these findings are only valid if
others can replicate my results. For this reason, I have put a version of the database that I used for this
study on my academia.edu site (https://tufts.academia.edu/JosephWalser) so that you can look for
yourselves.
23
SN. 22.1, 22.49, 41.3, 41.7, 53.3; AN. 10.93. MN 44.
24
Scholars like to point to the Br ahmaņa chapter of the Dhammapada as an example of the
Buddha redefining what it means to be a Brahmin. One can imagine that the laity would have gravi-
tated to Brahmin-born monks to do the piņda : rite for their dead ancestors, since this is what
Brahmins were becoming known for more generally. In such a case, ks: atriya-born monks would have
been left out. Texts like the Brahmaņa chapter of the Dhammapada would have constituted an argu-
ment for equal ritual status. On Buddhists and the piņda: rite, see Sayers 2013.
Marxist, our early Buddhist authors knew that individual Brahmins could
and did believe many things. There was certainly nothing that prevented
a Brahmin from embracing the doctrine of anatman or niratman as a va-
riety of Brahmanical belief.25 Nevertheless, if we can assume (and I think
that we can) that the social dynamics represented in the suttas reflect the
social assumptions of their presumed audiences, this absence of the anatta
doctrine in the presence of Brahmin laity is remarkable and suggests
some kind of avoidance regarding Brahmin laity when it comes to the
doctrine of anatta. So, yes, it does appear that the doctrine of anatta was
understood to be confrontational to Brahmins, but also that there was
some effort devoted among our sutta writers to not being confrontational.
If anything, the tacit message to Buddhist preachers is: don’t bring up that
doctrine when preaching to Brahmins. Why? They might not become fol-
lowers of the Buddha if they thought “Buddhism is the doctrine of
anatta.” And with only 7.4% of sutras even mentioning the doctrine, there
were lots of other options for what to preach to Brahmins.
But if Buddhist preachers avoided the doctrine of anatta to accommo-
date Brahmins within an emerging Buddhism (or, alternately, if Brahmin
preachers of Buddhism avoided the doctrine of anatta so as to not to con-
tradict the Upanis: ads circulating within their communities), then this
avoidance just as surely does not support the idea that the doctrine of
anatta formed the assumed borderline between Buddhism and
Brahmanism. On the contrary, the assumption seems to be that a special
place was to be carved out within Buddhism for Brahmins as Brahmins.
As Ryutaro Tsuchida (1991) pointed out long ago, the fact of the matter is
that the Buddha does teach to Brahmins, most of whom take refuge in
him or otherwise express appreciation for his teachings. And even when
he tangles with a cranky Brahmin, the Brahmin is usually depicted as be-
ing a young disciple of a Mahasala Brahmin who, in turn, chastises his
disciple for being rude. Some groups of Brahmins were even granted spe-
cial status due to the perceived propinquity between jat: ila who perform
the agnihotra and Buddhist monks. For example, in the Pali Vinaya, there
is a passage discussing the probationary period (parivasa) that a member
of another sect must wait before ordination. Toward the end of the section
it states:
If fire-worshippers and Jat: ilas [alt. “fire worshipping jat: ilas”] come to
you, O Bhikkhus, they are to receive the upasampada ordination (di-
rectly), and no parivasa is to be imposed on them. And for what reason?
These, O Bhikkhus, hold the doctrine that actions receive their reward,
25
Again, the Maitrayaņı̄ya Upanis: ad is a good illustration of this point.
and that our deeds have their result according to their moral merit. If a
Sakya by birth, O Bhikkhus, who has belonged to a Titthiya school,
comes to you, he is to receive the upasampada ordination (directly), and
no parivasa is to be imposed on him. This exceptional privilege, O
Bhikkhus, I grant to my kinsmen. (Rhys Davids and Oldenberg 1899,
190–1)26
This passage, which at first appears only in Theravadin texts but be-
gins to be known in northern texts by about the fifth century,27 asserts the
distinction between Buddhists and agnihotrins to be one of close affinity
based on a common belief in karma. Apparently, in some Buddhist
schools at least, certain schools of Brahmanic ascetics were granted privi-
leged status due to a perceived propinquity to Buddhist asceticism.
So what are lay Brahmins taught if not anatta? Among the discourses
involving Brahmin laity, there are twenty-five that discuss the jhanas28
(12.3%), five that discuss the Eightfold path29 (2.5%), one that discusses
the formless meditations,30 and six that present the state of nothingness
as the highest attainment31 (3%). If we compare this to the 194 discourses
involving named non-Brahmin laity, we have the six32 suttas discussed
above dealing with the doctrine of anatta (3%), seven teaching the Noble
Eightfold Path33 (3%), ten discussing the formless spheres34 (2%), seven-
teen discussing the jhanas35 (5%), and only one36 that teaches the state of
nothingness as the highest state.
Not all Brahmins were lay-brahmins. There are 130 discourses in which
the interlocutor is neither a householder nor a Buddhist monk but a “wan-
derer” or paribbajaka. Of these discourses, there are 115 in which the par-
ibbajaka is identifiable as a Brahmin. Of the 115, there are 60 or roughly
26
“Ye te, bhikkhave, aggika jat: ilaka, te agat
a upasampadetabba, na tesam parivaso databbo. Tam
kissa hetu? Kammavadino ete, bhikkhave, kiriyavadino. Sace, bhikkhave, _ _
jatiya sakiyo
a~
nn~atitthiyapubbo agacchati, so agato upasampadetabbo, na tassa parivaso databbo. Imaham, bhik-
khave, n
~atı̄nam avenikam pariharam dammı̄’’ti”. _
27
My thanks _ to Claire
_ _ Maes for pointing
_ this passage out to me. The passage in question shows up
in Samghabhadra’s 488 CE translation of the Samantapasadika (T. 1462, 789c11–13) and shows up in
some later Chinese commentaries on the Dharmaguptavinaya. It is also referred to in passing in
Gunaprabha’s (5th cent) Vinayas utra—a vinaya handbook for Mulasarvastivadin monks.
28
DN 3, 4, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 16; MN 4, 7, 27, 45, 85, 99, 100, 107, 108; SN 48.42; AN 3.58, 4.22,
4.35, 8.11, 9.38. 11.14.
29
DN 6, 16, SN 45.4, AN 10.117, 10.119.
30
AN 9.38.
31
AN 6.52; Snp 2.2, 3.9, 5.7, 5.12, 5.15.
32
MN 44; SN 22.1, 22.49, 41.3, 41.7, 55.3; AN 10.93
33
DN 19, MN 44, 78, 126, SN 3.18, 42.12, AN 4.196, 5.32.
34
MN 44, 52, 105, 121, 143, SN 41.6, 41.7, 55.54, AN 9.41., 11.16.
35
DN 2, 11, MN 36, MN 44, 52, 53, 59, 78, 125, SN 41.8, 42.13, AN 3.73, 3.74, 4.194, 9.41, 10.30.
11.16.
36
SN 41.7.
53% that either invoke or have been interpreted to invoke the doctrine of
anatta. However, the statistics here are deceiving, since 59 of these dis-
courses are variations of the same discourse delivered to the same person:
Vacchagotta. If we factor out the Vacchagotta discourses that broach the
subject of anatta, we are left with only two other discourses delivered to
Brahmin paribbajakas that discuss anatta (the Susı̄masutta [SN 12.70] and
the Anattalakkhanasutta [S.N. 22.59]; N.B. Susı̄ma’s Brahmanical status it-
self is uncertain37). Thus, if we factor out the Vacchagotta repetitions, and
count the number of independent sutras touching on anatta delivered to
Brahmin paribbajakas we get only two (three if you count Konda~ : nn
~a in the
Anattalakkhanasutta).38 This is pretty much on par with what _ we find
among non-Brahmin paribbajakas. There are thirty-six discourses in which
the interlocutor is a non-Brahmin paribbajaka and there are only one or
two39 in which the doctrine of anatta is broached.
Finally, ordained monks and nuns could also be coded as Brahmins.
The majority of the main disciples of the Buddha discussed in the
Tipit: aka are in fact Brahmins by birth. Sariputta was one, but
Mahakassapa, Mahakaccana, and Pindola : Bharadvaja in particular are
coded as Brahmins by birth. Moggalla_na is even addressed by the Buddha
with the vocative “brahmana” in a few discourses.40 When the Buddha re-
fers to a monk as Brahmin, _ 41 it is unlikely that he is referring to an ac-
quired brahmanical status, since he never addresses a monk born of some
other caste with this vocative. Indeed the only monks other than
Moggallana with whom the Buddha uses this form of address are the
monk Dhammika42 (who is thoroughly unpleasant) and Angulim _ ala, the
[Gargı̄ya] Brahmin serial killer (albeit reformed).43 Hence, it was not con-
sidered unusual for the authors of these discourses that a Buddhist monk
37
Buddhaghosa indicates he might be a Brahmin (he says he is skilled in the vedangas),_ but gives
no other information. See Malalasekera, 1960, 1266, note 1.
38
MN 35, SN 12.70, 22.59, 44.10.
39
This is certainly true of AN 10.95, and I think we can also include the Pot: t: hapadasutta of the
Dı̄gha Nikaya. The caste of Pot: thapada, however, seems to change between the Pali and the Chinese
and newly discovered Sanskrit manuscripts. Both of the latter have Prs: t: apala address the Buddha as
“Gautama” (Stuart 2013)—a form of address that not only is used only _ by Brahmins and gods to ad-
dress the Buddha, but also seems to make the Buddha into a Brahmin himself by Brahminizing
“Gotama,” the common name for the Buddha, into “Gautama,” a common Brahmanical gotra name.
For a good discussion of Gotama vs. Gautama, see Attwood 2013.
40
SN 40.1–9.
41
As the past Buddha, Sikhı̄ refers to bhikkhu Abhibh
u at AN 6. 14.
42
AN 6.54.
43
MN 86. He also calls Dhammika Bhikkhu “brahmin” even as he castigates him for his poor treat-
ment of his fellow monks. AN 6.54. The same occurs with Abhibhu Bhikkhu at SN 614. In the
Angulim
_ ala case, King Pasenadi even addresses Angulim
_ ala by his brahmanical gotra name (Garga
Maitrayani) after he has been ordained.
would still be known and addressed as “Brahmin” long after ordination,44

while to my knowledge the Buddha never addresses as “Brahmin” any
monk who was not born Brahmin, no matter how accomplished.
In contrast to Brahmin laity, there are quite a few discourses involving
the doctrine of anatta taught to Brahmin Buddhist monks. Of 712 dis-
courses involving named monks or nuns, 394 discourses involve named
Brahmin monks or nuns (153 of which involve Sariputta alone), whereas
309 involve named non-Brahmin monks. Of course, many of the dia-
logues involving Brahmin monks also include non-Brahmin monks, so
there is quite a bit of overlap between these two sets of discourses. If we
filter out the discourses in which Brahmins are present (in order not to
double count), we get 283 discourses in which a non-Brahmin monk is
present when no Brahmin (of any sort) is present. Of the discourses to
Brahmin monastics, only twenty-nine45 (or 7.4%) deal with anatta, as op-
posed to fifty-five anatta discourses (or 18.7%) delivered to named non-
Brahmin monks or nuns when no Brahmin is in sight. Of these twenty-
nine Brahmin monastic discourses, there are none in the Dı̄gha Nikaya,
one in the Udana, three in the Majjhima, three in the Anguttara,
_ and a
whopping nineteen in the Samyutta Nikaya. Of the nineteen in the
_
Samyutta Nikaya, nine are iterations of the same discourse delivered to a
_
single monk, Radha. In all, only ten Brahmin Buddhist monks are ever de-
picted as being aware of the doctrine of anatta,46 and only one of these
discourses registers any awareness that the soul might be a doctrine out-
side the pale of Buddhism.47 By contrast, there are eighteen named non-
Brahmin monks who are treated to discourses on anatta (Rahula, the
Buddha’s son hears thirty of these discourses alone).48 That leaves fifteen
Brahmin Buddhist monks and nuns inhabiting a total of twenty-nine dis-
courses who are never depicted as having been anywhere around when
anatta is taught.49 So, for instance, monks coded as über Brahmins such
as Mahakassapa and Pindola: Bharadvaja apparently never heard of the
doctrine—at least in the_ current sample. By contrast there are fifty-eight
44
Though there are fewer incidents, a Khattiya monk could also be known as a khattiya after ordi-
nation. See S.N. 12.32 in reference to “bhikkhu Kal¸ara the Khattiya.”
45
MN 8, 138, 144 SN 5.2, 8.4, 21.2, 22.71, 22.83, 22.122, 22.122–123, 23.17, 23.18, 23.24, 23.29 ,
23.30, 23.41, 23.42, 35.69, 35.78, 35.87, 35.164, 35.234, 44.7, 44.8 AN 6.14, 6.29, 10.60, Ud 7.1
46
Sariputta (x4), Cunda (x3), Mahakaccayana, Soma, Radha (x8), Maitrayaniputta, Mahakot: t: hika
(x3), Udayi, Moggallana (x2), and Girimandana.
47
S.N. 44.7 the Moggalanasutta, which appears to be a later adaptation of both the S.N. 44.10

[Anandasutta] and more distantly the Aggivaccagottasutta [M.N., 72].
48
Ananda, Arittha, Dhammadinna, Rahula, Malunkhya, Pukkusati, Nandala Gotami Vajira,
Nakula, Sona, Tissa, Yamaka, Khemaka, Channa, Bahiya, Kimbila, Godatta, and Meghiya.
49
Mahakassapa, Pindolabharadvaja, Subhuti, Vangisa, _ Abhibhu, Cala, Upacala, Sisucala, Upavana,
Sujata, Suradha, Uttiya, Kassapagotta, Visakha Pancaliputta, and Dhammika.
discourses (14.7%) delivered to Brahmin monks about the jhanas and

forty-five (11.4 %) about the Noble Eightfold Path, as opposed to eighteen
discourses (6.4%) delivered to or by named non-Brahmin monks about
the jhanas when no Brahmin is around50 and sixteen (5.7%) that mention
the Noble Eightfold Path delivered exclusively to non-Brahmin monks.
Finally, if we group together all the different types of concentration from
the jhanas to the formless meditations to the cessation of perception and
feeling (and thus avoid double counting), we come up with a total of 116
(29.4%) discourses containing a discussion of absorption delivered to or
by a Brahmin monastic while only thirty-two (11%) are delivered to or by
a non-Brahmin monastic.
All the above suggests that discourses depicted as involving interlocu-
tors coded as Brahmin lean significantly more toward teachings involving
mental absorption and the Noble Eightfold Path than toward the doctrine
of anatta, while discourses involving ordained non-Brahmins skew to-
ward the doctrine of anatta, at the expense of mental absorption or the
Noble Eightfold Path. The numbers are, needless to say, quite small, and
so the usual Chi-square test is not valid (many of the values are less than
5). However, if we do a Fisher’s Exact test, we find that the table probabil-
ity is less than .0001 for the association between Brahmins and jhanas and
non-Brahmins and anatta.51 In other words, the apparent skewing is, in
fact, statistically significant. All of this suggests a general attitude among
our sutta authors that the absorptions and the Noble Eightfold Path were
considered more appropriate for Brahmin Buddhist monks than the doc-
trine of anatta, and that the doctrine of anatta was generally more appro-
priate for non-Brahmin Buddhist monks.
In this regard, it may be significant that, as mentioned above, there is
very little overlap between discourses that discuss some kind of concen-
tration or absorption and those discourses that discuss anatta. Between
the 340 discourses discussing samadhi and the 378 discussing anatta,
there are only twenty-five discourses discussing both.52 If we put this to-
gether with the fact that discourses including Brahmins skew more toward
samadhi practices, then our data suggest that the tension between concen-
tration and insight across the canon generally may in fact index a tension
between Brahmin Buddhist communities and non-Brahmin Buddhist
communities. In other words, I believe that the trend we see here probably
has something to do with the fact that meditations akin to the jhanas and
50
There is quite a bit of overlap here. There are actually forty-five sermons in which a non-
Brahmin monk or nun is present, but most of these are also delivered to or by a Brahmin monastic.
Hence, there are only eighteen unique sermons delivered to non-Brahmin monastics.
51
My thanks to Hocine Tighiouart for running these statistics for me (and for explaining them).
52
See note 29 above.
the formless meditations were understood to be appropriate for Brahmins

because they were understood to already be Brahmanical.53 Whether the
discourses on anatta actually contradict the teachings of any particular
upanis: adic tradition,54 it appears that some of our sutta authors did not
want to take the chance. Every tradition has a functional canon within a
canon. It would appear then that there was a functional canon of dis-
courses circulating (though not exclusively) within Brahmin communities
and another functional canon circulating among non-Brahmins, and that
the distinction between the two canons fell along the lines of samadhi and
insight into selflessness. The discourses that deal with both selflessness
and samadhi may have been written either at a time and for a community
when there was an interest in bringing the two canons together, or else
they may have been written in an environment in which the two parts
had already been brought together and there was an interest in subordi-
nating one part of the canon to the other.
THE INTERPRETATION?
What do we make of all of this? A key point here is that in the sutras fa-
voring Brahmins that appear interested in having Brahmins contribute to
Buddhism as Brahmins, there is little evidence for any kind of solid bound-
ary between Buddhism and Brahmanism. This is not to say that there are no
anti-Brahmanical (or better yet, “anti-Brahmin”) texts, but not many.
Presumably the communities that wrote and circulated these discourses,
like Justin Martyr’s Syrians, had a vested interest in distinguishing them-
selves from (and denigrating) Brahmins. But also like Justin’s Syrians, we
cannot assume the texts of this community to stand for some pan-Buddhist
perspective on caste. Indeed, if a data driven approach shows us anything, it
is that claims that “Buddhism teaches x” are merely a metonymic mask for
what should be a set of demographic claims (this community tended to talk
about and circulate x doctrines and practices in contrast to that commu-
nity). It is highly unlikely, for instance, that Brahmins would nod their heads
in agreement to the statement made in the Sonasutta of the Anguttara _
Nikaya that, unlike dogs, Brahmins will have sex with_ anything that moves.
In most Brahmin-favorable texts, the Buddha’s teaching is presented
as the fulfillment of the path that his Brahmin interlocutors were already
53
Alexander Wynne (2007) makes a good case that the jhanas and formless meditations probably
derived from Brahmanical element meditations and not the other way around.
54
It should be remembered here that the Upanis: ads would not have been understood to speak with
one voice—they were divided into Vedic branches each competing with the others for patronage. An
argument against the Kat: has’ articulation of the atman the size of a thumb would not necessarily have
been understood to be confrontational to a Maitrayaņı̄ or Kaņva Brahmin.
on (despite the fact that some youthful Brahmins may not have recog-
nized that fact), and in discourses delivered to Brahmin audiences, what
the Buddha teaches is usually confirmed by Brahmin celebrities as being a
correct interpretation of the Vedas. If we couple this information with the
fact that discourses delivered to audiences coded as Brahmin are statisti-
cally less likely to have included a teaching of anatta and far more likely
to have preached an absorption series (albeit new and improved) that
Brahmins were already using, then we come to the conclusion that there
was, in effect, a canon-within-a-canon that appears to have circulated in
Brahmin communities.
What would these Brahmin communities have looked like, and at
what point were the texts of these communities composed? Oskar Von
Hinüber (2006), in a delightful article, goes a long way toward answering
these questions. He begins with the observation that while most Buddhist
sutras begin with the standard, “Thus have I heard, at one time the
Blessed One was staying at X. . .,” there are a number of suttas beginning
with a slightly different introduction, which he calls a “parenthetical.” For
example, at the beginning of the Nagaravindeyyasuttanta [M.N. 150], we
find:
“Thus I have heard. At one time, the Lord, walking on tour in Kosala to-
gether with a large group of monks, where there is the Brahmin village of
Kosala named Nagaravinda, there he went.” (Hinüber 2006, 200)
Drawing on the work of Karl Hoffmann, Hinüber points out that this
alternative introduction most likely represents the oldest textual strata
of the Pali Canon, since it replicates an Old Persian formula that had
been in use by the Acaemenians (Hinüber 2006, 198–99). If we isolate
those sutras having this parenthetical formula, a number of interesting
questions present themselves. First of all, none of the standard cities
(nagara) such as Savatthı̄ or Rajagaha are mentioned. Instead, we have
the Buddha travelling to and preaching at “market-places” (nigama)
and “Brahmin villages” (brahmanagama). We know, then, that even in
_ writing, Brahmin villages were as-
the very earliest phases of Buddhist
sumed to be one of the important venues for Buddhist preaching.
Looking at the locations of the Brahmin villages found in this earliest
formula, Hinüber notes that their distribution conforms to what we
would expect at a time when Brahmanism was just beginning to
spread into eastern India.
Interestingly, nine of the altogether fourteen Brahmin villages mentioned

in the Theravada-Tipit: aka are situated in Kosala, four in Magadha, and
only one in the Malla country. This compares well with the evidence
gathered from Vedic literature on the history and geographical distribu-
tion of the Vedic schools. As research by M. Witzel has shown, Kosala
was at the eastern fringe of later Vedic literature, and the Brahmins there
used to study the Kanva Sakha of the Satapathabrahmana. These then
could well be the very _ Brahmins traced in ancient Buddhist _ literature.
(Hinüber 2006, 200)
But why is there no mention of a monastery either in the market pla-

ces or in the Brahmin villages? (Hinüber 2006, 201) If the Acaemenid for-
mula does indeed reflect an early date of composition, is it possible that
these sutras were composed at a time before Brahmin Buddhist monks
lived in monasteries? Could these Brahmin Buddhist monks have been
itinerant or perhaps hosted in the homes of laity? Two suttas in the
Samyutta Nikaya (S.N 47.4 and 48.51) taking place in the Brahmin village
_ ala bear an introductory formula that is intermediary between the old
of S
Persianesque formula and the later standard formula. What is interesting
about these discourses is that they take place in a Brahmin village where
there is no mention of a monastery, and yet the Buddha’s audience is not
a group of householders, but “monks.” Was the assumption here simply
that these Brahmin Buddhist monks lived as Buddhist monks in their
own homes—presumably still tending to their household fire?55 The ques-
tions are provocative, even if we don’t have answers.
While it has become a scholarly commonplace to state that Buddhism
was an urban phenomenon, with Brahmanism rooted in the countryside,
the archaeological evidence actually points in the opposite direction.
Hinüber’s data has the earliest sutras placing the Buddha’s discourses in
marketplaces, not cities. The closest thing to a city for these early venues
would be precisely the Brahmin villages. Indeed, while there are st upas
scattered across the subcontinent from the time of Asoka, there is no real
evidence that Buddhism had any significant presence in urban centers un-
til at least the first century CE and the second or third centuries CE in
Gandhara. According to Pierfrancesco Callieri:
When we consider the sum of archaeological evidence indicating the

Buddhist presence in urban settlements of the Northwest, it is striking
that there is an almost complete absence in pre-Kus: ana layers and a
weak presence during the Kus: ana period. It is worth_ noting that at
_
55
This is the practice of the lineages of Jain mendicants that reject temples (such as the
Sthakakvasis or the Terapanthis). These particular lineages began as reform movements in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, but are hearkening back to what they understand to be Jain practice
prior to the advent of Jain temples.
Mathura, evidence from the German excavations at Sonkh also shows a

remarkable prevalence of local cults and a limited presence of
Brahmanical sculptures. (Callieri 2006, 77)
As Buddhism was being established and circulated among Brahmin

communities in the earliest phases of its development, it is significant that
unlike many other groups at the time, Brahmin communities are repre-
sented as homogenous, tight-knit, and set apart both physically and by
rules of commensality from other groups. In a brahmanagama, everyone
is assumed to be a Brahmin. In cities, we find a similar_ balkanization of
Brahmins. According to Megasthenes:
The philosophers have their abode in a grove in front of the city within a
moderate-sized enclosure. They live in a simple style, and lie on beds of
rushes or deer skins. They abstain from animal food and sexual pleasures
and spend their time listening to serious discourse, and in imparting their
knowledge to such as will listen to them. . .. After living in this manner
for seven-and-thirty years, each individual retires to his own property,
where he lives for the rest of his days in ease and security. They then ar-
ray themselves in fine muslin, and wear a few trinkets of gold on their
fingers and in their ears. They eat flesh, but not that of animals employed
in labour. They abstain from hot and highly seasoned food. They marry
as many wives as they please, with a view to have numerous children.
(McCrindle 1877, 99–100, as discussed by Lubin 2013, 31–33)
Although Strabo’s term “philosopher” includes both Sramaņas and

Brahmanas, his description here probably does not refer to Buddhists, but
as Timothy Lubin has argued, probably to Brahmins. For our purposes,
what is important about Megasthenes’s observations is the fact that these
Brahmins lived in a separate Gemeinschaften immediately outside the city
walls but with clear ties and functions within the city. The strong network
ties engendered by commensality, cohabitation, and consanguinity, not to
mention the teacher-disciple relationship of Vedic learning, would have
easily accommodated and incorporated the Buddhist teachings on ab-
sorption and nirvana.
_
While it is certainly true that Buddhism came to be distinct from
Brahmanism in certain communities at some point, the borderline was
never universally recognized. It certainly appears that there were always
Brahmins who continued to be recognized for both their caste status as
well as their ritual prestige while also self-identifying as Buddhist. In the
seventh century Hars: acarita of Bana, King Hars: a tells us, “I have heard
_
there is a gentleman, a childhood friend of the deceased Grahavarman of
auspicious name, who was a Maitrayanı̄ and who, in spite of the threefold
(knowledge), was a descendent of Brahmins who dwelled in the unarisen

wisdom in the doctrine of the Well-Gone One and who as a youth
donned the Buddhist robes.”56 Whether one translates vihaya as “distanc-
ing himself from” as Cowell and Thomas do, or “in spite of” as I have, we
have in Bana’s work the depiction of an ordained Maitrayanı̄ Brahmin
Buddhist who_ wears Buddhist robes and practices a form of Buddhism
that is coded as a form of Perfection of Wisdom (its samadhi being the
“unarisen wisdom” vidva-anutpanna-samadhi). What is more important
here is that Divakaramitra, the Maitrayanı̄ brahmin, continues to be re-
ferred to as a brahmin even after ordination (just like Angulim
_ ala and
Moggallana in the canon).57 Closer to our time, Christiaan Hooykaas
(1973), Gananath Obeyesekere (2015), Justin McDaniel (2013), and
Jacques Leider (2005/6) have each written on the ritual role of Brahmins
in the courts, temples, and monasteries of Indonesia, Sri Lanka, Thailand,
and Burma, respectively.
CONCLUSION
In the sutras favoring Brahmins that appear interested in having
Brahmins contribute to Buddhism as Brahmins, there is little evidence for
any kind of solid boundary between Buddhism and Brahmanism marking
the former as orthodox and the latter as heterodox. For what it is worth,
the work of Vincent Eltschinger (2014, 35–92) shows the (non-Buddhist)
Brahmanical authors similarly did not make a strong distinction between
orthodoxy and heterodoxy until much later, during the Gupta Dynasty
(ca. 320 CE–550 CE). Thus, the idea that one or a handful of doctrines
like selflessness distinguish “Buddhism” from other “religions” is less
helpful than paying attention to the way doctrines were used and distin-
guished (or not) among particular communities. Statistically speaking, no
one set of doctrines really rises to the top as defining of the genre of
Buddhist literature. We therefore need to be careful when we teach sur-
veys of Buddhism not to present Buddhism as if it was ever simply identi-
fiable with a single doctrine—especially anatta.
The second point is that our survey does not show that the doctrine of
anatta had anything to do with the border between Buddhism and
Brahmanism during the time of the composition of the Tipit: aka. Later on
it did, for some sects,58 but for reasons that were specific to the nexus of
power in those times and places—not the Buddha’s. In fact, early evidence
56
Cf. Cowell and Thomas [1897] 1993, 233; Bronkhorst 2011, 184.
57
For Moggalana and Angulimalla
_ being referred to as “Brahmin” after their ordination, see SN
40.1–9 and MN ii p. 104.
58
For example, for the Sarvastivadins although not for the Vatsı̄putrı̄yas or Sammitı̄yas.
for such a border is tendentious at best. Finally, depending on how loosely

one wants to define “conversion,” I see no evidence in the Tipit: aka of any-
one abandoning one religion to embrace another. The only transition in
identity that I see is laity deciding to follow a particular teacher and some
individuals shifting from lay to ordained life.59
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Article

When Did Buddhism Become

Many textbooks for Introduction to Buddhism or World Religions

I WOULD LIKE to examine a claim that is occasionally made about

same line we are trying to draw between Buddhism and Brahmanism.

BUDDHISM AND BRAHMANISM

It would seem, then, that Jones encountered this enmity of Brahmins

As already shown. . . during the four centuries preceding the Christian-

It is impossible to suppose that they [the dynastic authors] knew noth-

Of course, we might reasonably question whether silence is indeed an

and encounters a group of Buddhist Brahmins wearing their sacred

Later, in 1889, Sir Monier Monier-Williams argues that the Buddha

which happened to dovetail nicely with the policies of Asoka Maurya.

Hamilton cites Malalasekera, no doubt, because his statement as a

Indian philosophy must be interpreted as the flow of these two vital

In Murti’s treatment, Buddhism and the teachings of the Upanis: ads

Many misconceptions formed over time on Buddhism and its position

At the phenomenological level, we observe [in Buddhism] anti-cosmism

the dynamics between the two came to be represented). The subordina-

After over two centuries of scholarship on Buddhism, then, we have a

When speaking on sacrifice to a sacrificial priest, on union with God to

With this hermeneutic, even if the Buddha appears to be saying

necessary to make a doctrinal analysis of the contents and assess philo-

The problem, of course, is that there are many competing versions

ideas of Buddhism and Brahmanism to entertain an “insurrection of sub-

THE DEVIL AND THE DETAILS

signifier in much the same way as a character named “Moishe Finklestein”

would still be known and addressed as “Brahmin” long after ordination,44

discourses (14.7%) delivered to Brahmin monks about the jhanas and

the formless meditations were understood to be appropriate for Brahmins

Interestingly, nine of the altogether fourteen Brahmin villages mentioned

But why is there no mention of a monastery either in the market pla-

When we consider the sum of archaeological evidence indicating the

Mathura, evidence from the German excavations at Sonkh also shows a

As Buddhism was being established and circulated among Brahmin

Although Strabo’s term “philosopher” includes both Sramaņas and

(knowledge), was a descendent of Brahmins who dwelled in the unarisen

for such a border is tendentious at best. Finally, depending on how loosely

Malalasekera, G. P. Dictionary of Pali Proper Names. 1960. London: Published

Schmithausen, Lambert. 1969. “Ich und Erlösung im Buddhismus” Zeitschrift für

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