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Buddhism in Central Asia

Buddhism in Central Asia...

1. Dharmaguptaka
2. Sarvāstivāda
3. Mūlasarvāstivāda

Religion in Kazakhstan

Turkic peoples and Buddhism

Yet copied from "StudyBuddhism":

"The earliest Turkic people to adopt Buddhism were the Turki Shahis. They ruled northwestern India from the mid-3rd to the early 4th centuries CE and then shifted westward to rule modern-day central Afghanistan and eventually central and northern Pakistan until the mid-9th century. They inherited the blend of Hinayana and Mahayana Buddhism of their predecessors in these regions, the Kushans and the White Huns, and were strong patrons of the great monastic centers of study that had previously been founded there."

"The next major Turkic group to adopt Buddhism were the Gokturks (Göktürk), who gave their name to the Turkic people. The Eastern Turk Empire ruled Mongolia from the end of the sixth to the mid-8th century. Under its royal patronage, Indian, Central Asian and Chinese masters translated many Buddhist scriptures into the Gokturk language. Several of the Gokturk technical Buddhist terms became standard in Central Asia and were later borrowed by the Uighurs and Mongols. The Gokturks blended into their form of Buddhism veneration of the traditional ancient Turkic gods or "tengri," as well as Zoroastrian gods with whom they were familiar from other Central Asian peoples."

"In the early 8th century, a princess from the Eastern Turk royal family married the emperor of Tibet and was responsible for the invitation to Tibet of many Buddhist monks from Khotan in southern East Turkistan."

"The Western Turk Empire was also a great patron of Buddhism from the early 7th to the early 8th century. Its rulers built new monasteries in Uzbekistan. One branch of the Western Turks, the Turgish tribes, was responsible for the spread of Buddhism to Kyrgyzstan and southeastern Kazakhstan during the later part of the 7th and early 8th centuries."

"The most prominent Turkic form of Buddhism, however, was with the Uighur people of East Turkistan (Xinjiang). After migrating from Mongolia to the Turfan region of present-day northeastern Xinjiang in the 9th century, they adopted a form of Buddhism that was a blend of elements from the faiths of the Sogdian merchant community from present-day Uzbekistan, the native Tocharians of Turfan and the Chinese merchants of the region. It spread throughout the Uighur Qocho kingdom that spanned all of modern-day Xinjiang except the Kashgar and Khotan regions in the southwest."

Buddhism played a major role in Turkic history, with the first Turkic state adopting and supporting the spread of Buddhism being the Turkic Shahis and the Göktürks. The Göktürks syncretized Buddhism with their traditional religion Tengrism and also incorporated elements of the Iranian traditional religions, such as Zoroastrianism. Buddhism had it's hight among Turkic peoples, specifically among the Uyghurs in the Xinjiang region.

Buddhism worldview - summary, arguments

Yet copied from Britannica:

"The teaching attributed to the Buddha was transmitted orally by his disciples, prefaced by the phrase “evam me sutam” (“thus have I heard”); therefore, it is difficult to say whether or to what extent his discourses have been preserved as they were spoken. They usually allude to the place and time they were preached and to the audience to which they were addressed. Buddhist councils in the first centuries after the Buddha’s death attempted to specify which teachings attributed to the Buddha could be considered authentic."

• The conditions that make an individual (self) are precisely those that also give rise to dissatisfaction and suffering. Individuality implies limitation; limitation gives rise to desire; and, inevitably, desire causes suffering, since what is desired is transitory.
• Living amid the impermanence of everything and being themselves impermanent, human beings search for the way of deliverance, for that which shines beyond the transitoriness of human existence—in short, for enlightenment. The Buddha’s doctrine offered a way to avoid despair. By following the “path” taught by the Buddha, the individual can dispel the “ignorance” that perpetuates this suffering.
• According to the Buddha of the early texts, reality, whether of external things or the psychophysical totality of human individuals, consists of a succession and concatenation of microelements called dhammas (these “components” of reality are not to be confused with dhamma meaning “law” or “teaching”).
• Life is a stream of becoming, a series of manifestations and extinctions. The concept of the individual ego is a popular delusion; the objects with which people identify themselves—fortune, social position, family, body, and even mind—are not their true selves.
• To make clear the concept of no-self (anatman), Buddhists set forth the theory of the five aggregates or constituents (khandhas) of human existence: (1) corporeality or physical forms (rupa), (2) feelings or sensations (vedana), (3) ideations (sanna), (4) mental formations or dispositions (sankhara), and (5) consciousness (vinnana). Human existence is only a composite of the five aggregates, none of which is the self or soul.
  • According to Steven Collins, the inquiry of anattā and "denial of self" in the canonical Buddhist texts is "insisted on only in certain theoretical contexts", while they use the terms atta, purisa, puggala quite naturally and freely in various contexts. Buddhist scholars Richard Gombrich and Alexander Wynne argue that the Buddha's descriptions of non-self in early Buddhist texts do not deny that there is a self. According to Wynne, early Buddhist texts such as the Anattālakkhana Sutta do not deny that there is a self, stating that the five aggregates that are described as not self are not descriptions of a human being but descriptions of the human experience. According to Johannes Bronkhorst, it is possible that "original Buddhism did not deny the existence of the soul", even though a firm Buddhist tradition has maintained that the Buddha avoided talking about the soul or even denied its existence. One with "great self", state the early Buddhist Suttas, has a mind which is neither at the mercy of outside stimuli nor its own moods, neither scattered nor diffused, but imbued with self-control, and self-contained towards the single goal of nibbana and a 'Self-like' state. Tibetologist André Migot states that original Buddhism may not have taught a complete absence of self, pointing to evidence presented by Buddhist and Pali scholars Jean Przyluski and Caroline Rhys Davids that early Buddhism generally believed in a self, making Buddhist schools that admit an existence of a "self" not heretical, but conservative, adhering to ancient beliefs. An Arahat, states Harvey, has a fully enlightened state of empirical self, one that lacks the "sense of both 'I am' and 'this I am'", which are illusions that the Arahat has transcended.
• The belief in rebirth, or samsara, as a potentially endless series of worldly existences in which every being is caught up was already associated with the doctrine of karma (Sanskrit: karman; literally “act” or “deed”) in pre-Buddhist India, and it was accepted by virtually all Buddhist traditions. According to the doctrine, good conduct brings a pleasant and happy result and creates a tendency toward similar good acts, while bad conduct brings an evil result and creates a tendency toward similar evil acts.
  • Buddhist texts stay however silent on what it is that is reborn or enlightened. Anattā does not mean there is no afterlife, no rebirth or no fruition of karma. The Anattā doctrine is key to the concept of Nibbana in the Theravada tradition. The liberated nirvana state, states Collins, is the state of Anattā, a state that is neither universally applicable nor can be explained, but can be realized.
• The acceptance by Buddhists of the teachings of karma and rebirth and the concept of the no-self gives rise to a difficult problem: how can rebirth take place without a permanent subject to be reborn? Indian non-Buddhist philosophers attacked this point in Buddhist thought, and many modern scholars have also considered it to be an insoluble problem. The relation between existences in rebirth has been explained by the analogy of fire, which maintains itself unchanged in appearance and yet is different in every moment—what may be called the continuity of an ever-changing identity.
• Awareness of these fundamental realities led the Buddha to formulate the Four Noble Truths: the truth of misery (dukkha; literally “suffering” but connoting “uneasiness” or “dissatisfaction”), the truth that misery originates within the craving for pleasure and for being or nonbeing (samudaya), the truth that this craving can be eliminated (nirodhu), and the truth that this elimination is the result of following a methodical way or path (magga).
• The aim of Buddhist practice is to be rid of the delusion of ego and thus free oneself from the fetters of this mundane world. One who is successful in doing so is said to have overcome the round of rebirths and to have achieved enlightenment. This is the final goal in most Buddhist traditions, though in some cases (particularly though not exclusively in some Pure Land schools in China and Japan) the attainment of an ultimate paradise or a heavenly abode is not clearly distinguished from the attainment of release.
• The living process is again likened to a fire. Its remedy is the extinction of the fire of illusion, passions, and cravings. The Buddha, the Enlightened One, is one who is no longer kindled or inflamed. Many poetic terms are used to describe the state of the enlightened human being—the harbour of refuge, the cool cave, the place of bliss, the farther shore.
• Nirvana is not extinction, and indeed the craving for annihilation or nonexistence was expressly repudiated by the Buddha. Buddhists search for salvation, not just nonbeing. Although nirvana is often presented negatively as “release from suffering,” it is more accurate to describe it in a more positive fashion: as an ultimate goal to be sought and cherished.
  • To achieve this status, one has to get rid of three psychological evils – Raga (greed, desire), Dwesha (anger) and Moha (delusion). Nirvana is then explained to mean a state of "without desire, without love, without wish" and one without craving or thirst (taṇhā); The term nirvana, "to blow out", has also been interpreted as the extinction of the "three fires", or "three poisons", namely of passion or sensuality (raga), aversion or hate (dvesha) and of delusion or ignorance (moha or avidyā). The "blowing out" does not mean total annihilation, but the extinguishing of a flame. The term nirvana can also be used as a verb: "he or she nirvāṇa-s," or "he or she parinirvānṇa-s" (parinibbāyati). "Literally nirvāṇa means 'blowing out' or 'extinguishing', although Buddhist commentarial writings, by a play on words, like to explain it as 'the absence of craving'. Nirvana is used synonymously with moksha (Sanskrit), also vimoksha, or vimutti (Pali), "release, deliverance from suffering".
• In some early texts the Buddha left unanswered certain questions regarding the destiny of persons who have reached this ultimate goal. He even refused to speculate as to whether fully purified saints, after death, continued to exist or ceased to exist. Such questions, he maintained, were not relevant to the practice of the path and could not in any event be answered from within the confines of ordinary human existence. Indeed, he asserted that any discussion of the nature of nirvana would only distort or misrepresent it. But he also asserted with even more insistence that nirvana can be experienced—and experienced in the present existence—by those who, knowing the Buddhist truth, practice the Buddhist path.

Transeurasian language dispersal

The Transeurasian language dispersal model tries to explain the origin and expansion of the "Transeurasian languages", specifically Turkic languages, Tungusic languages, Mongolic languages, Koreanic languages, and Japonic languages, outgoing from millet agricultural societies in Manchuria, specifically from the Xinglongwa and Hongshan cultures along the Liao River in Northeast China. The model was first proposed by Martine Robbeets, based on the older Altaic hypothese, and has since received increasing support from other linguists, but also geneticists and archaeologists. A "Northeast Asian substrate ancestry" is found at high frequency among most "Transeurasian-speaking" populations. However the exact relationship between the Transeurasian languages as well as their dispersal remain disputed. Critics maintain that their similarities can be explained by areal contact somewhere in Northeast Asia or the Mongolia region.

When peer-reviewed: