Religion; Buddhism; Buddhist Philosophy; Buddhist Studies; Indian Buddhism; Madhyamaka; Religious Studies; Abhidharma; Buddhist Hermeneutics; Emptiness; Nāgārjuna; History of Buddhism; Buddhist emptiness theory
摘要
Which he deals with this, and also with the spread of Brahmanism to Southeast Asia, is disappointing in its brevity. I grant that this is a good question that is hard to answer, but, having introduced the issue in the very title, one wishes that it had been discussed in greater detail. One solution he proposes is storieshow the creation of stories can propagate ideas and "render social phenomena permanent, predictable, and commonsensical" (p. 409). That is certainly true. But the Buddhists also told stories, as evidenced in the Jātakas. Why did those stories have a lesser impact than the Brahmanical ones?
