Buddhism; decline; modern period; periodization; Vamsas
摘要
Buddha held a Spenglerian attitude toward the future of his teachings (dharma). Everything gets progressively worse and this applies as much to the dharma. In time, Buddhist literature outlines various “timetables of decline” in which the sāsana, the institutional form the Buddha's teachings took over time, are shown as deteriorating through periods of varying and increasing length. The Sri Lankan chronicles or Vamsas are regarded as important sources for the construction of coherent narratives concerning the history of Buddhism in the premodern era. The increase in Buddhist chauvinism is connected with the modernist prioritization of “original Buddhism” – Tambiah has termed the phenomenon “Pali text Puritanism.” By setting up a too rigid dichotomy between the earliest strata of tradition and its later manifestations, the modern period has witnessed a privileging of the doctrinal over other aspects of the religion, especially those connected with narrative and history.
