Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism. By Johannes Bronkhorst. Leiden: Brill, 2011. ISBN: 9789004201408, pp. 293. €119.00 (hardback).
Author Affiliations: Lancaster University
摘要
Much of the scholarly work of Johannes Bronkhorst has been dedicated to the relationship between Brahmanism and Buddhism. In The Two Sources of Indian Asceticism (1993), Bronkhorst claimed that the ascetic practices of Brahmanism and Buddhism developed independently, rather than from a common origin. More recently, in his book Greater Magadha: Studies in the Culture of Early India (2007), Bronkhorst argued that Buddhism, Jainism, and Ājīvikism emerged in a region where Brahmanism had very little influence and, therefore, that the main teachings of these traditions—including those about the self, karma, and rebirth—were not influenced by Brahmanical ideas and practices.
In his latest book, Buddhism in the Shadow of Brahmanism, Bronkhorst sheds further light on this issue, again challenging us to reconsider the old paradigm which reduces Buddhism to an offshoot of Brahmanism. Bronkhorst takes us through a number of thought-provoking discussions on a range of topics, including those about the relationship between science and religion in classical India, stupa and relic worship in Buddhism, and the relationship of both …
