Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Who Was the Buddha?

aeon.co

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

131–140 of 176 posts

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#131

Post by pbhjpbhj »

gerdesj wrote: post #126
wyclif wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Americans often get confused when in the UK because "chippy" can mean either a carpenter or the fish and chips shop on the street.

To, not really, help counter that the shop is often called a "fish and chippery"!

Depends where your are, chipper is common to some, others say 'fish shop', some 'chippy'. Other people say they're "getting chips", or "having carry-out" and leave the place to be entirely implicit.

That said, I've never seen it called the "fish and chippery", but it wouldn't surprise me to see that used.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#132

Post by mangatmodi »

mantap wrote: post #105
factorialboy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bhavana does mean a palace. Mandira and vimana do not mean palace. Nivasa means residence and does not indicate the nature of residence. I am appalled by this comment. These Sanskrit / Pali words you quoted, these are not obscure words. Infact they are used today in most of North India. Your translations and assertions are completely wrong. I would expect a higher level of scholarship before one makes such a matter o…

Is it not possible for a word to change in meaning over time? For example "mansion" in English means a big and expensive house befitting nobility, but in the original Latin it just means a dwelling.

I am a native Hindi speaker with good background in Sanskirit and yes, Bhavana means huge palace may or may not be a king's palace though.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#133

Post by mangatmodi »

sombremesa wrote: post #44
alexmingoia wrote: post #2

The article is correct in that Buddha being a prince is a myth. The Pali canon (Tripitaka) does not assert he lived in a palace, depending on the translation used. It states he was born in bhavana (Sn. 685) which has in the past been translated as palace but it simply means a place. When Buddha talks about his fathers abode he just refers to a house or mansion or family complex, using the word nivasana (A.I 145) whic…

Are you sure about this? "Bhavana" most certainly does not mean "a place" in modern parlance (see: "Rashtrapati Bhavan", which is the president's residence), and a lot of the other words have extant meanings in Hindi which differ significantly from what you've said here. Either Hindi has diverged a whole lot from Sanskrit and the meanings have changed (vimana literally means flying vehicle, and I'm pretty sure it's t…

Hindi had a complete overhaul under British rule. Hindi have several dialects and all of them are quite different than Sankirit.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#134

Post by rajekas »

sessy wrote: post #110
mantap wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it not possible for a word to change in meaning over time? For example "mansion" in English means a big and expensive house befitting nobility, but in the original Latin it just means a dwelling.

Unlike English, the Sanskrit words do not change over time. Because in Sanskrit what you speak is what you write and what you write is what you speak.

Simply not true. Vedic Sanskrit is quite different from classical Sanskrit. If you track the meaning of individual terms across texts from different eras - even famous ones like 'Dharma'- you'll notice that Sanskrit words are polysemic and have changed in meaning.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#135

Post by factorialboy »

mantap wrote: post #105
factorialboy wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bhavana does mean a palace. Mandira and vimana do not mean palace. Nivasa means residence and does not indicate the nature of residence. I am appalled by this comment. These Sanskrit / Pali words you quoted, these are not obscure words. Infact they are used today in most of North India. Your translations and assertions are completely wrong. I would expect a higher level of scholarship before one makes such a matter o…

Is it not possible for a word to change in meaning over time? For example "mansion" in English means a big and expensive house befitting nobility, but in the original Latin it just means a dwelling.

Anything is possible. Please provide credible sources to prove your assertion of a change of meaning.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#136

Post by jaldhar »

nsomaru wrote: post #79
jaldhar wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I have read that Pali could have been a trade language. Interestingly this method of textual comparison has also proven useful in tracing the history of the “Hindu” Samkhya school; one of whose early works, lost in Sanskrit, is preserved in the Chinese (Mahayana) Buddhist canon.

I’m interested in the Sankhyans! Any reference?

Sorry for the late reply but as an introduction I suggest “Encyclopedia of Indian Philosopies Volume IV: Samkhya A Dualistic Tradition in Indian Philosophy” Gerald James Larson & Ramshankar Bhattacharya (editors), Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, 1987.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#137

Post by Shihan »

Shihan wrote: post #129
thinkingemote wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I thought zen taught that you shouldn't follow the Buddah as if he was a role model, as if he was a religious figure like in other religions. "Kill the Buddah if you encounter him" might be something to do with it but might be unrelated? I also remember something about how Buddah can be found in the butchers shop, as if to say "stop looking for him as if he was something outside you, you are doing it wrong." Or about…

But that might be exactly the problem. This Buddha-Nature, the enlightenment thing, to me honestly is just like the believe in a God in other religions. It is very cult like for me. I heard there are lot of stories out there of so called Zen Masters who claim to have achieved enlightenment (those according to your example, who can drink alcohol, kill animals for eating them) who get drunk and otherwise act weirdly an…

"leaving without drugs" -> "living..."

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#139

Post by nestorherre »

humbfool2 wrote: post #34

Recently I read Siddhartha by Hermann Hesse quite an interesting book. In the book he tried to convey Knowledge is transferable, wisdom is not. Wisdom can only be gained from experience. The existence of buddha is debateable but literature has some good and relatable lessons we can learn.

This is a hell of a book, I read it last month and found it pretty powerful.

The main message that I got from it was that every road or path that people take in life is valid, everyone is different and have their own preferences and tastes and consecutively, not because you find the other paths "worse" or less worthy than yours it indeed means that they are, neither that those people are inferior to you.

Book should be read by way more people, specially by high arrogant ones who put down on others.

Re: Who Was the Buddha?

#140

Post by gerbilly »

He may not have been a literal historical prince, but to make the distinction may be to miss the point a bit.

For example if you compare the Mesopotamian creation myth, the Enuma Elish to the book of genesis you will find many correspondences at the formal level.

What I mean by that is that the overall structure of the Enuma Elish is preserved in Genesis, but with some changes. In the Mesopotamian myth, there were seven generations of gods, but in Genesis this was transmuted into seven days for one god.

You could say that Genesis is a parody of the Enuma Elish. I don't believe for an instant that the people who wrote genesis believed in the seven days and what was created on each day, it's probably allegorical.

The most important point being made in genesis is to be found not in the sequence of events, but in the differences against the backdrop of the Mesopotamian myth, the main one being that there is only one god.

Likewise, the embellished life story of the Buddha, the bit with the white elephant, and the birth in a palace, and the journey on the cart through the town with the charioteer 'Channa' all borrow elements from well known Indian motifs. The most important parts of the story are probably to be found in the 'diffs' and are not to be taken literally.

They probably weren't even taken literally at the time.

In summary, I think we are reading too much into ancient texts that were probably written in the allegorical mode.

Post reply on HN