Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I The cultural and social setting of Buddhist thought
- Part II The doctrine of not-self
- Part III Personality and rebirth
- 5 The individual of ‘conventional truth’
- 6 ‘Neither the same nor different’
- Part IV Continuity
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Glossary and index of Pali and Sanskrit terms
- General index
5 - The individual of ‘conventional truth’
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 18 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- Dedication
- Preface
- Introduction
- Part I The cultural and social setting of Buddhist thought
- Part II The doctrine of not-self
- Part III Personality and rebirth
- 5 The individual of ‘conventional truth’
- 6 ‘Neither the same nor different’
- Part IV Continuity
- Conclusion
- Notes
- Bibliography
- Glossary and index of Pali and Sanskrit terms
- General index
Summary
It is self-evident that every historical study is to a large extent dependent on the condition of the tradition with which it has to work.
Erich Frauwallner (1953) p. 30On whatever theoretical horizon we examine it, the house image would appear to have become the topography of our intimate being.
Gaston Bachelard (1957) p. 18, English translation (1964a) p. xxxii‘Conventional’ and ‘ultimate truth’
The argument so far, and what follows
I said in the Introduction that the form of this book results from my approach to two classic problems in the study of Buddhism. Of the first, the doctrine of anattā, I have now completed my account. In discussing it, I have had occasion to refer, at many times and at crucial moments, to the second problem, ‘Buddhism and Society’ – conceived in terms of my particular concern, of how the dimension of social and individual differentiation within Buddhist culture is perceived by, and how it affects, the intellectual products of its textual tradition. This problem will now become increasingly important in the second half of the book, Parts III and iv, in which I shall discuss the Theravāda conception of the person, of personal identity and continuity (both in its general form and in the particular case of rebirth).
The dimension of ‘Buddhism and Society’ will enter into my account in various ways, as elements both of the Theravāda material and of my interpretative grasp of it. In the first place, there is the meta-linguistic dichotomy between ‘conventional’ truth (sammuti-sacca, Sanskrit samvrti–Satya) and ‘ultimate’ truth (paramattha-sacca, Sanskrit paramārtha-satya).
- Type
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- Selfless PersonsImagery and Thought in Theravada Buddhism, pp. 147 - 176Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1982