The Buddha and the Upanishads
richard.gombrich at BALLIOL.OX.AC.UK
Wed Dec 13 11:20:01 UTC 2006
The posting from Prof. Christian Wedemeyer dated 9 Dec raises two
points of fundamental importance. Since none of the subsequent
correspondence has mentioned them, I feel constrained to do so.
1. Use of the word "know". Do we know what "the Buddha" "preached"?
(The scare quotes are Wedemeyer's.) Except in the case of analytic
truths, "to know" means "to follow the best hypothesis available". An
analytic truth is just a matter of logic; e.g. "If Gombrich is
stupider than Wedemeyer, and Wedemeyer is stupider than the Buddha,
then Gombrich is stupider than the Buddha." Here evidence and its
interpretation are irrelevant. The truth of empirical statements
(whether made inside or outside academia) can however never be
finally established. There is a conference going on in Tehran about
whether the holocaust occurred. The evidence for it is incomparably
stronger than that for the existence of Buddhaghosa, let alone the
Buddha. But evidence does not speak for itself; it requires
interpretation, and that in turn requires the use of reason and
judgment, and the willingness to follow where they lead. There's none
so blind as those who will not see.
This basic epistemology has implications for pedagogy. We can tell
our students that we cannot know anything about the Buddha, and that
is true if one means "know with 100% certainty", but it is also
banal. Such information as the probable date of the oldest extant
manuscript is well worth teaching. But if one leaves it there, isn't
one selling them short? Why should our subject survive if all we tell
them about what they really want to know is that it is unknowable?
2. Professional ethics. I retired from Oxford University two years
ago, and may well be seen as a crotchety old man with outmoded
notions. But I would like to inform my juniors that in the old days
it was considered unethical to criticise work you had not read, and
particularly so in a public forum. If you did something so
unprofessional, well, hypocrisy is the tribute that vice pays to
virtue, and at least you did not admit to it. Professor Wedemeyer's
wording "Presumably..." makes it perfectly clear that he does not
even pretend to have read the works of mine which he is criticising.
Are his students encouraged to follow his example?
I am, for the time being, Academic Director of the Oxford Centre
for Buddhist Studies, and the University has just advertised a chair
in Buddhist Studies; its holder will very likely succeed me in that
position. If you look at the OCBS website (www.ocbs.org/) you will
see that we are concerned with the ethos of the profession. Those who
intend to make public criticism of works they have not read need not
apply. I hope that others will.
What about the Buddha and the Upanishads? Since I produced easily
accessible publications on this topic as long ago as 1990 and 1992,
and have already posted the references in this series, I invite those
interested to read them (and indeed my other listed works) -- and
then to criticise them.
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