[Buddha-l] Lamas and such

[Richard Hayes]

On Dec 6, 2009, at 2:32 PM, James Ward wrote:

> Maybe Richard is onto something here: we could use a term like
> "Suttaagamaabhidhamma Buddhism!"  Ha ha!
>
> This reminds me of that wonderful term of Chinese historical
> periodization, "San guo wei jin nan bei chao" (and its variations),
> "Three Kingdoms-Wei-Jin-Northern and Southern Dynasties."  Just pick
> the terms you want to include and string them all together -- problem
> solved!

This is the solution adopted by the Center for Chicano/a Hispano/a  
Mexicano/a Studies at University of New Mexico. Such terms are  
monstronsities that reveal the underlying vacuousness of the things  
referred to. Why have a center that tries to study a conglomerate of  
overlapping ill-defined categories? Since there is no particular  
reason to think of Theravādins, Sautrāntikas, Vaibhāṣikas,  
Puggalavādins and Lokuttaravādins as a body distinct from what Nagao  
called the Madhyamaka-Yogācāra branch of Buddhism, I suspect we just  
don't need a term at all to refer to all those kinds of Buddhism that  
various other Buddhists saw as hīna, xiao, dman, petit, petty, mean or  
small.

> We haven't touched upon an earlier usage, "Northern Buddhism" and
> "Southern Buddhism."

I have used that terminology consistently to distinguish Canadian from  
American Buddhism, and more recently I have found it very useful to  
distinguish Dutch from Belgian Buddhism.

> (Richard, is "gospel" really out of favor in secular teaching circles?

I believe so, but I could well be wrong. I usually am.

> That seems like kind of a necessary term to keep.  Maybe you are
> referring to the phrase "the gospel" as an umbrella term for the
> canonical Christian writings?  When used to refer to the synoptic
> gospels, or the four canonical gospels, or the Gospel of Thomas  
> (etc.),
> I have an [unexamined] feeling that it serves a useful purpose.

Of course it serves the purpose of designating that corpus of texts  
that have the word "gospel" in the title.

> I guess we could just pick the terms we fancy and put "so-called" in
> front of them.  Or "formerly-known-as!" :-)

Yes, we do that sort of thing all the time. People rarely speak of,  
say, The Dark Ages without noting that the time period in question was  
designated as dark by people who saw themselves as purveyors of light.  
Although it is admittedly cumbersome (as all careful speech is), one  
can say such things as "What Christians called the Old Testament" or  
"What self-proclaimed Mahayana Buddhists called the hīnayāna" or  
"What Jews call gentiles" or "What Christians called pagans" and so  
forth. One can note that the terms are used by members of an in-group  
to denigrate members of the out-group and make an effort not to take  
the deliberately derogatory term as descriptive or scientific.

Richard