androsov--ocherkidrbudd_1

SUMMARY 1

The present collection published under the joint title "Selected essays on Buddhism inAncient India" marks up the 40th anniversary of Professor Valeriy PavlovichAndrosov’s service in the Institute of Oriental Studies of the Russian academy. Professor Androsov has joined the Institute exactly 40 years ago as a young PhD student. The past 40 years have been very fruitful, indeed. During this period he has completed two PhD thesis (a PhD thesis and a habilitation thesis) authored about a dozen of books and actively participated in a number of joint projects. The latter resulted in several collective works, over 300 articles as well as other scholarly production.

In the first part of the Essays, ProfessorAndrosov highlights five major topics among many those, which have attracted his learned attention. These topics remain central for his studies.Thus the fifth essay deals with the literary activity of Śāntarakṣita’s (8th cent.AD). ThisAncient Indian author had been the central subject of ProfessorAndrosov’s research for many years. Subsequently its results were presented as a PhD thesis.The studies on Mahāyāna, Nāgārjuna (2nd –3rd cent.AD) and Nagarjunism were also a part of his PhD research, however, they received a more detailed treatment in the habilitation thesis. The years 1998–2018 were marked by his growing interest for the topics as above. Later the data collected were used in a research project, which dealt with the activity of Nāgārjuna, the founder of Mahāyāna or “the second Buddha”, who became the founder of the religious and philosophical school of madhyamaka.

The outcome of this project is represented in a series of monographs and articles mainly regarding the sources of Nāgārjuna’s writings. Along with this project ProfessorAndrosov published 20 commented translations from Nāgārjuna including the commentaries on the works by this philosopher written both in Sanskrit and Tibetan languages. This series of translations has laid a foundation for the Russian studies

on Nāgārjuna, which nowadays became a scholarly trend. Within its

The author wishes to thank Dr. N. I. Serikoff for correcting the English of the Summary1  .

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framework along with the pioneering research methods have also been shaped the specialist vocabulary of technical terms and expressions ever since used by scholars involved in this type of studies. Equally the data offered by ProfessorAndrosov were instrumental in shaping the research audience 2.As by products appear specialist vocabularies and research subject glossaries (the glossary of the proper names and technical terms)3,.

The present volume of Essays understandably covers only selected aspects of this multi-faceted project as well as Professor Androsov’s scholarly activity. Nevertheless they remain central for his studies. He commenced dealing with the topic, which became the subject of the first essay back in 1995, which since has been enlarged and augmented. The initial impulse for studying the origin of Buddhism, the life of Buddha Śākyamuni, the early Buddhist communities and their teachings was caused by Professor Androsov’s fundamental disagreement with the works of his predecessors. This disagreement was also based on his broad knowledge as well as the deep interest in the related scholarly disciplines, such as the history of culture, anthropology, psychology and semiotics. These disciplines being applied to the historical data and material from the second half of the 1st millennium BC –the first centuriesAD allowed to look at the early Buddhism from the different point of view and re-evaluate this historical phenomenon.

Professor Androsov argues that the life and the parinirvāṇa of Śākyamuni should be dated back not to the 6th 5th cent. BC, as is commonly believed nowadays but shifted approximately to the 344–343 BC, which is about 200 years later than is considered in the countries of the South Asia as well by the adherents of the Theravāda school.At this time the so-called “open” Vedic literature 4 was codified and the literature of dharma-sūtras and dharma-śāstra began.Then were also completed the

2  Published .in two volumes “Osnovopolozhnik Mahayany Nagarjuna i ego trudy” Moscow 2018 (based upon three researches published in 1990, 2000 and 2006) by the same“IndoPublisher-Tibetskii buddizm. Entsiklopedicheskii slovar” Orientalia, Moscow 2011 (comprising over 700 lemmas). The author looks forward o publish the augmented3  editionin2018or2019.

The corpus of the Vedic “litteratura” (śruti) was “open” because in course of a number4  ofcenturiesithadbeenenlargedbyaddingthenewUpaniṣads.

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colossal epic poems in Sanskrit and other smṛti texts. In the 4th century BC was created the "Middle" Upaniṣads.Their traces are believed to be seen in the early Buddhist suttas of Pali, for example, the "Śvetāśvatara Upaniṣad."

The activity of the Buddha and his first followers was preceded by the strong Āryan influence on the culture of the peoples who settled in the valleys of the middle current of Gaṅgā.To these fertile lands moved the tribes of the Indoarians from the northern areas.These tribes brought with them their cult and traditions. The event took place in the 6th –5th centuries of the first millennium BC and the time is confirmed by the archaeological findings.Apparently, this was not a peaceful move. We learn that the newcomers immediately began constructing fortresses and fortified camps.Almost immediately they started making alliances of various kind aiming to protect their power, life and newly acquired property. A specific aspect of the newcomers culture were numerous animal sacrifices.This was a feature, which stood out on the background of the beliefs of the indigenous population, who were farmers and nomads such as the people of munda and many others.

The origin of Buddhism and its further development in the first instance took place in the Gangā valley. The people settled there at that time did find themselves in the initial stage of making their own state. If in order to describe the actions of the Buddha of Śākyamuni one would have a recourse to the terms and expressions of today he would inevitably apply such terms as “alternative culture”, “alternative ideology”, “opposition of the new civilization and the communal way of life” 5 or even the “juxtaposition of the class (varṇa) society and the fraternity of equal people (regardless how poor they could be, i. e. the bhikkhu, bhikṣu)”.

The survey of Buddha’s teachings convey a feeling that he was reconciliated with the fact that the existing order of things could not be changed and had to be therefore accepted by the general public. However,

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of life otherwise called “the Path”. Following this Path an individual became liberated from the earthly burdens and received clear directions towards the Enlightenment, which could be gained in the brotherhood of friends and companions.This is also the Path of Desirelessness, which is the basic concept of Buddha’s teaching with regard to the "Four Noble Truths", which may be reduced to the single proposition.According to this proposition the suffering of life can be ended only by halting the process of desiring.This Path on one hand suggested for an individual the abandoning of passion, violence, lies, accusations, etc. and on the other hand the tireless work on the human’s own personality, up to denial the true self of an individual (ātman). The mechanism for getting "fit" into the civilization and being understood by the people for the Enlightened remained the laws of the Vedic culture.

According to the Upaniṣads, the third stage of the life of the righteous Āryans (vana-prastha) was the right to leave both the society and the own family and settle in the woods being accompanied by domestic animals.The fourth stage of the human life, the so-calledsaṁnyāsa was even more radical. It suggested that the righteous Āryan should not keep the ritual fire and heat in the woods but allegorically have it in his inner self.The internal tapas (heat) allowed the righteous to leave where he is pleased. The Enlightened One called on followers to have monasteries like settlements on the outskirts of cities and towns. They had to collect alms from those who lived around these settlements.This was perceived as giving the lay dwellers the opportunity to make merit (Pāli: puñña), which in accordance with Upaniṣads provided the benign birth in the next life. In addition, Buddha Śākyamuni while creating communities also used other cultural features of Āryan societies. He provided with the highest rank of authority the bearers of knowledge (brahmans, paṇḍitas, priests). These people were experts in various aspects of maintaining human life: nutrition, human and animal diseases, relationships, or more globally the laws which regulate both the Universe and society.

The Indian paṇḍitas did even not hesitate to closely explore the sexual relationship between men and women and their anatomy. They were constantly engaged in making laws, creating new senses and from the 3rd–2nd centuries BC they started to create and personify the deities.

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Namely then both the gods and the heroes like Viṣṇu, Kṛṣṇa, Śiva, Rāma, Sitā, Hanuman, Ravaṇa, Nāga as well as dozens of hundreds and thousands of other Indian deities acquired iconographically recognizable features.These features allowed to distinguish between them when being depicted or sculptured.The creation of new pictorial contexts allowed the Buddhists and Jains to become completely immersed in textual activities of various kinds.They competed against each other and achievements of one religion were borrowed and “recycled” by other without any conflict thus creating a principle of complementarity, which universally became dominant for the Indian culture. What was happening in neighboring religious communities was clear to everybody who participated in this cultural dialogue.Therefore, it is not by chance that by the end of the 1st millenniumAD Buddha became a manifestation (an avatāra) of Viṣṇu like it did happen to Kṛṣṇa.

Another aspect of the “Essays” by ProfessorAndrosov is a digest from his recent studies of the tantric heritage of the Indian Buddhists. He became to work on this subject in the first decade of this century when he was working on an authoritative iconographic collection “The images of Vajrayāna”. This work resulted in a new commentary to the tankhas published there as well as in completing a separate research of this topic. To the better knowledge of tantric subjects significantly contributed ProfessorAndrosov’s work on the early Tibetan Buddhism (Essay 5 in this volume) as well as on the detailed monograph “Marpa and the History of Karma Kaghyu, i. e. the Biography of Marpa the Translator”, which he authored together with E. V. Leontieva in 2008–2010.

Being already rather familiar with the teachings of the tantric Buddhism 6, ProfessorAndrosov was nevertheless stunned by cornucopia

Buddhist Vajrayāna. However, at that time he had his aimouldt study the heritage of NāgārjunaandMahāyāna.

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about rituals, mythology, world of ideas, etc., which could be gained from there. It should be noted here that although the author pursued purely academic goals while working on these subjects, some of his students became practicing tantric. One of them is now a tantric lama and others are heading various tantric communities in Russia.As a cultural phenomenon the tantras completely change the general perception of a Buddhism even by an educated individual.To this new insight particularly contribute the “Guhya-Samāja-Tantra” and the “Hevajra-Tantra”, which is the tantric teaching of the “utmost yoga” (anuttara-yoga-tantra), which is considered as the culmination of the spiritual knowledge.

First, all the former Buddhas and Bodhisattvas receive definitions as "indestructible," "unshakable," "insurmountable," "everlasting," "diamond" (vajra), that is, having all the properties of the diamond. In this sense, the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas refute all the previous statements as well as statements of Buddhism of the Lesser and Greater Chariots, which as their main principle have the teaching about the ignorance (anitya). The meaning of the word vajra, however, is not only a diamond, but also a flash of lightning, metaphorically a moment that illuminates the whole universe. The semantics of the word in this instance corresponds to the idea of the Buddhist Enlightenment (Bodhi) and, thus, remains in accordance with the Buddhist teaching.

In fact, theVajrayāna tantras had entered the mainstream of Buddhist textual activity already a thousand years since the first words of the Enlightened One have been spoken. By this time the Indian spiritual scholars had already created an impressive cultural heritage, which became universally known. However, the results of this cultural and legislative activity remained “real” only at the level of the language and semantics, which encompassed aspects such as the consciousness, “the manifestation at the level of "appearance" 7, the illusion (māyā), and social harmony. Apparently, this level had been already appreciated by the creators of

andgroundlesspromisesaregivenbythepoliticiansinthewholeworld!

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a dilemma, which was as follows.A) How one could break everything superficial, which had already been accumulated in course of centuries in order to purify his mind and make it to perceive the Light? B) How one could explain to the people that every idea is actually a lie tightly connected to the phenomenon of language and notion?This phenomenon was considered to deprive the mind of freedom and purity, clarity and enlightenment, which were inherent in it from the very beginning.

Consequently, the tantric adepts 8 had to create and invent their own way. They simply had to turn upside down the old order of things and crown it with the act of “transgression” and “transition”. In other words, what was considered before to be positive had to become negative.As the main behavioral principle they accepted the destruction and violation of the morality (used in the traditional sense of this word). Further, they also had to destroy the rules of social conduct, the familymores, the obsolete (as they deemed to be) religious dogmas. Equally they have rejected piety, righteousness, love, holiness, kinship, etc.All these principles, which were used in the rituals and practices (upāya) were also used in the new rituals, however, it was advised to treat them all with aequo animo.The main driving principle of equality (samatā) had to be applied to everything, namely to every living being, every individual, without any prejudices and predilections. Literally there is nothing either good or bad. Thus the dilemmas like “home” – “foreign”, “love – hatred”, “preference–disgust” ceased to exist. In the dietary aspect the urine, excrement, blood, semen, bone marrow were all considered to be the five elixirs of pleasure (amṛta). Five types of meat were also considered to dietary acceptable: beef, dog, elephant, horse and even a human, in other words everything, which was traditionally forbidden to eat in India.

The tantric practices were exercised under supervision of an instructor or teacher. He urged his disciples to participate in rituals, which lasted for long period. The tantric education was based mainly upon rejecting

the old behavioral and cultural patterns.The teacher’s task was directed

Now they haveThesereceived the names siddha and mahāsiddha but not just the gūruandmuni. namesmeanthe“perfect”andthe“mostperfect”mastersof the8 spiritualPath.Normallytheydidnottakemonasticvows.

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towards the achievement of theśūnyatā i. e. ravage of the consciousness, which was necessary for the subsequently obtaining the spiritual light and enlightenment. Especially strict was the obligation to follow the principle of equality while treating the disciple as well as each other. For this purpose, the tantric teachers started using the means, which was taboo for monks and adherents of all world religions, including Hinduism, Buddhism and Jainism. This means was sexual relations (maithuna).

The maithuna rituals aimed also to annihilate family relation and kinship ties.Their participants were the tantrics who already was married and had families.According to the authors of "Guhya-Samāja-Tantra" the tantric instructor (siddha) had to choose a girl or woman whose age, appearance and other criteria fitted the purpose of a particular ritual. He then had a sexual intercourse with her being followed by other participants of the ritual regardless of their age or relationship to this woman. In the first instance this ritual seems to be not dissimilar to a kind of orgiastic mysteries or cults, which are known historically to exist among other peoples, including the Slaves. However, the Guhya-Samāja-Tantra text contrasts with the description of the known orgiastic cults. It constantly emphasizes that this ritual is performed not “live” but exclusively in the imagination and can be only completed in the course of the most complex forms of meditation. To perform it seems to be the hardest work for an adept, since such meditations (dhyāna) are identical to real actions.A person has to go through these imaginative but real-like actions only as a result of huge concentration of all internal forces of his. The main goal of the ritual is nothing more than even temporary deliverance from being attached to the generally accepted morals cultivated by upbringing, knowledge, habits, etc. Talking about the sexual side of the tantras one has also to stress that all the tantras were created and arranged (sometimes by translating the texts from other languages into Sanskrit) by the monks in the Mahāyāna-Vajrayāna University-monasteries, such as Nālanda, Vikramaśilā, Odantapurī and many others. Of course, the monastic ascetism in these monasteries continued to be very strict.

After all the main goal of this exercise would be not to indulge in one’s own voluptuousness, but to get rid of the generally accepted morality, in other words to “dump the burden” of one's upbringing, education and habits. It could not be otherwise, since all the tantras were compiled in the

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“University monasteries”.The educated monks, the inhabitants of these monasteries edited these compilations.They often translated into Sanskrit the vernacular texts, which emerged from the popular environment.At the same time, nobody even thought about abolishing the rules and the strict monastic order, where the sexual intercourse, the amṛta and eating flesh were considered as phantasm, which helped to liberate the monks from the monastery routine.

However, everything can happen. The Russian population, for example, has recently witnessed (and some may take part in it) the phenomenon of “urinotherapy” widely spread among the country.And this did happen at the end of the 20th century, and the Russian population was far from being uneducated. The hoax as a cultural phenomenon is not dissimilar to religious beliefs. One just have to simply believe in something and this becomes real so it does not to have be verified or proven.

According to Nāgārjuna’s “Precious stanzas” (RĀ, I, 5) “Faith is like a communion to join the Law, the ProfoundWisdom helps to comprehend the Ultimate Reality.Although theWisdom is basic, the Faith is easier to acquire”.The Faith (śradhā) was not favored by the Buddhists from the very beginning.They say that the Buddha allowed the laymen to believe in gods, to make sacrifices, however, at the same time he used to say that religious practices would never contribute either to the Path or to nirvāṇa. Equally the Mahayana sutras made clear that following the Path of Perfection means the Perfection of the Wisdom (prajnā-pāramitā). Other five or six minor perfections are only auxiliary to this Perfection. And, frankly, the Faith is not a Perfection but a means either to convince or to deceive oneself.

The tantras offered an effective and quick method of purification, deliverance from deceit, illusions and fantasies, which filled up a human life both then and nowadays. The tantrics apparently assumed that one thousand years of Buddhist denial of passion (rāga), the hatred (dveṣa), the ignorance (avidyā), the spiritual blindness (moha), the malice (krodha) and the envy (irṣya) as well as struggle with these vices of human consciousness resulted in the accumulating huge but hidden energy, which was sufficient for the creation of a new human. They have therefore attributed to the five Buddhas the “charts” (maṇḍalas)

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