Beginnings of Buddhist Ethics

The Chinese Parallel to the Kûtadantasutta. Edited, translated and compared with the Pâli by Konrad Meisig.

The chinese text is given in the original characters along with the Pinyin transcription, in synopsis with the transcribed Pali text, followed by an english translation. The text-critical introduction deals with the "variae lectiones" both of the Chinese and the Pali; the final analysis focuses on the literary stratification and criticism of forms, thus reconstructing the archetypical nucleus of the Kutadantasutta. The Chinese parallel to the Pali-Kutadantasutta marks one of the major turning points in Old Indian history of ideas: the transition from magic to ethics. In this sermon, the Buddha rejects the Vedic animal sacrifice and re-interprets it according to Buddhist ethics. He preaches sacrifices in a new sense of the word: the sacrifice of giving alms to Buddhist monks, or, even better, of building monasteries, of converting to Buddhism as a Buddhist layman, of obeying the five Buddhist rules for laymen, or becoming a Buddhist monk. VII,120 Seiten, broschiert (East Asia Intercultural Studies/Interkulturelle Ostasienstudien; vol. 4/Harrassowitz Verlag 2011)