Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks

"After Burnouf, we see much of the European interest in Buddhism moving away from his emphasis on social history toward philosophy and doctrine. European thinkers became fascinated by ideas like karma, nirvana, and no self. In the process, Schopen argues, we lost sight of what Buddhism was ‘on the ground’ in India. Thus, rather than concentrating on canonical philosophical texts, Schopen looked to different sources. One was the monastic code that explains in great detail how monks and nuns are supposed to live their lives. Another source was epigraphy, especially those inscriptions describing donations made by monks and nuns. From examining these sources, Schopen was able to show that many of our views of Buddhist monastic life and practice were rather romantic. We tend to think that Buddhist monks and nuns had no possessions. In fact they owned property, which they willed to others when they died. We think that they had severed all ties with their families when they were ordained, when in fact they did good works and dedicated the merit or good karma to their parents. We think that they spent all their time in meditation when in fact meditation was just one of several specialties in the monastery. Exactly. Of course all religions are cultural and social, but for a variety of reasons, it became easy to lose sight of that in the case of Buddhism, which has sometimes been seen as a free-floating philosophy that benevolently descends on one culture after another without having much effect on the more quotidian elements of human experience."