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“Like Children After Larks …”

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  28 February 2024

Roger-Pol Droit
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Extract

Socrates’ exact words are unknown. Nor do we know precisely what the Buddha said. All we have, in both cases, are statements attributed to them. Our ignorance of their own words is irremediable. This is not the only trait that these two contemporaries share. The statements ascribed to them are similar in many ways, particularly the therapeutic concern that motivates them. Both the Athenian and Prince Gautama strive to cure the ravages of ignorance, to treat the ills ignorance engenders and eliminate its source. This common aim produces comparable results, such as the use of dialogue to remove illusory questions rather than the teaching of a doctrine.

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Type
Research Article
Information
Diogenes , Volume 43 , Issue 169 , March 1995, pp. 97 - 108
Copyright
Copyright © 1995 Fédération Internationale des Sociétés de Philosophie / International Federation of Philosophical Societies (FISP)

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References

Notes

1. The varying contexts of these three statements, their respective chronological positions, and the different schools of the "Great Vehicle" to which their authors belonged, imply certain dissimilarities that need to be accounted for. For the purposes of this paper, however, it was decided to treat them as one.

2. The Lankâvatârasûtra, Transl. by D.T. Suzuki, London, 1932, p. 143.

3. L'Enseignement de Vimalakîrti (Vimalakîrtinirdesa), Traduit et annoté par Etienne Lamotte. (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain. Louvain, 1962), p. 317.

4. Mahâprajnâpâramitsâstra, attributed to Nâgârjuna. Traduit et annoté par Etienne Lamotte. (Publications de l'Institut Orientaliste de Louvain, vol. 1 Louvain, 1949), p. 560.

5. Abhayarajakumarâsutta, Majjhima-Nikâya no. 58, Pali Text Society, London, pp. 392-396.

6. These comparisons are inspired by those used by Vasubhandu.

7. Majjhima-Nikâya no. 26, Pali Text Society, London, pp. 211-214.

8. Ibid.

9. Mahîsâsaka, Vinaya, Tokyo, 1924-1929, pp.130-134.

10. Bareau, A. Recherches sur la biographie du Buddha dans les Sutrapitaka et les Vinayapitaka vol. 1 (Publications de l'École Française d'Extreme-Orient, Paris, 1963, p. 138.

11. Mahâprajnâpâramitsâstra, p. 442.

12. For further development of this point see Guy Bugault, La notion de ‘prajna' ou de sapience selon les perspectives du ‘Mahayana.' (Publications de l'Institut de civi lization indienne, Paris, 1968), especially pp. 175-186 and 202-203.

13. Plato. Euthydemus, 291B trans. by B. Jowett, New York, 1920, Vol. 2, p.153.