Paul B Donnelly | Northern Arizona University (original) (raw)

Papers by Paul B Donnelly

Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2014

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2018

The English word “pilgrimage” has been used to translate the Tibetan nekor or nejel, which means ... more The English word “pilgrimage” has been used to translate the Tibetan nekor or nejel, which means to circumambulate or to meet a sacred place, respectively. “Tibet” here refers not only to the modern Tibetan Autonomous Region but also to what has been called “Ethnographic Tibet.” This area includes the three provinces of Utsang, Kham, and Amdo, but also regions outside the modern political borders of China, such as Ladakh, Zangskar, Bhutan, Dolpo, and Mustang. The people across these regions share a common written language, largely similar social institutions and values, and a shared sense of historical connection. Though lesser known in the West than the doctrinal and meditative traditions of Tibet, pilgrimage has always been central to the religious lives of the people of the Tibetan cultural regions. In fact, while doctrine and meditation have been the purview of the elite monastic scholarly minority, pilgrimage has been far more pervasive and practiced by laypeople as well as the...

Religions, 2017

Tibetan and Himālayan Buddhist doctrine and meditative traditions have been extensively studied a... more Tibetan and Himālayan Buddhist doctrine and meditative traditions have been extensively studied and are well-known even to non-scholars, but pilgrimage and other non-elite practices have received far less attention. Pilgrimage is one of the most important practices for Tibetan and Himālayan Buddhists, whether traditional scholars, ordinary monks, lay yogis, or Buddhist laypeople. Scholarship on pilgrimage has increased significantly since the 1990s, and has tended to focus on territories within the political boundaries of the Tibetan provinces of the People's Republic of China. This study looks at a pilgrimage in what was once the far western end of the Tibetan empire, but is now within the political boundaries of India. Being outside of the People's Republic of China, this pilgrimage escaped the disruption of such practices that occurred within the PRC during the Cultural Revolution and after. Having interviewed people in the region, and performed the pilgrimage myself, this study shows that this pilgrimage possesses features common to Tibetan pilgrimage to sites of tantric power, but also has its own unique qualities. This study provides new data that contributes to the growing body of knowledge of Tibetan pilgrimage and to our understanding of such practices among the Buddhists of Himālayan India.

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2017

Along with Yogācāra, Madhyamaka (Middle Way) is one of the two foundational doctrinal systems of ... more Along with Yogācāra, Madhyamaka (Middle Way) is one of the two foundational doctrinal systems of Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism, which flourished from the 3rd century ce to the final disappearance of Buddhism from the subcontinent in the 12th–13th centuries. Beginning in the 4th century, it spread to East Asia, where it became the foundation of an independent school of thought and influenced the other major Chinese Buddhist schools. It took root in Tibet beginning in the 7th century, where it served as the cornerstone of all the scholastically inclined Buddhist sects. Throughout the Mahāyāna Buddhist world, Madhyamaka has occupied a foundational position in doctrinal formulations and practices. Madhyamaka has tended to be regarded as either the supreme formulation of Mahāyāna thought, as was often the case in Tibet, or as complementary to Yogācāra, which was more commonly held in China and Japan.The name “Middle Way” references a fundamental assumption in Buddhism that stakes a middle pos...

Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2012

序號. 342682. 題名. A TIBETAN FORMULATION OF MADHYAMAKA PHILOSOPHY：A STUDY AND TRANSLATION OF TSONG-K... more 序號. 342682. 題名. A TIBETAN FORMULATION OF MADHYAMAKA PHILOSOPHY：A STUDY AND TRANSLATION OF TSONG-KHA-PA'S "OCEAN OF REASONING". 作者. DONNELLY, PAUL BRYAN. ... 編修日期. 2000.02.01. 附註項. 445; THE UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MISON ...

Religions, 2018

The text known in English as The Tibetan Book of the Dead is arguably the principle source for po... more The text known in English as The Tibetan Book of the Dead is arguably the principle source for popular understandings of Tibetan Buddhist conceptions of death. First translated into English in 1927, subsequent translations have read it according to a number of interpretive frameworks. This paper examines two recent films that take The Tibetan Book of the Dead as their inspiration: Bruce Joel Rubin's Jacob's Ladder (1990) and Gaspar Noé's Enter the Void (2009). Neither of these films overtly claim to be depicting The Tibetan Book of the Dead, but the directors of both have acknowledged that the text was an influence on their films, and both are undeniably about the moment of death and what follows. The analysis begins with the question of how, and to what degree, each of the films departs from the meaning and purpose of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, before moving on to examine the reasons, both practical and ideological, for these changes. Buddhist writer Bruce Joel Rubin wrote a film that sought to depict the death experience from a Tibetan Buddhist perspective, but ultimately audience expectation and studio pressure transformed the film into a story at odds with Tibetan Buddhism. Gaspar Noé wrote and directed a film that is based on a secular worldview, yet can be seen to be largely consistent with a Tibetan Buddhist reading. Finally, I consider if, and to what extent, these films function to express or cultivate an experiential engagement with Tibetan Buddhist truths and realization, concluding that Jacob's Ladder does not, while Enter the Void largely succeeds, despite the intention of its creator.

Religions, 2017

Nāgārjuna is the most influential and revered author and religious figure in many of the the Maha... more Nāgārjuna is the most influential and revered author and religious figure in many of the the Mahayana Buddhist traditions. Chinese and Tibetan sources credit Nāgārjuna with retrieving the Mahayana sutras from the realm of the submarine serpent/dragon beings, the Nāgās, from which Nāgārjuna gets his name, and he is generally regarded as the founder of the Madhyamaka school of thought. With Nāgārjuna claimed by Vajrayāna, Ch’an/Zen, Shingon, and Pure Land traditions, it is clear that adherents of the major lineages that identified themselves as Mahayana long believed it important to claim this figure and regarded him as embodying more than philosophical brilliance. It is generally accepted that Nāgārjuna lived in South India in the 2nd or 3rd century CE, and he is widely regarded as the first great philosopher of the Madhyamaka school of philosophy and as the first great intellectual figure of the Mahayana developments of Buddhism in India. Buddhist tradition credits him with the authorship of a great many texts, including philosophical works, ethical advice, hymns to the Buddha, and, in the Esoteric Buddhist schools, tantric works. Though the various Mahayana traditions that claim him frequently emphasize his miraculous powers and exceptionally long life, it is primarily his philosophical works that have received the most attention among modern scholars. Due at least in part to the terse and difficult style of these works, his thought has often been approached through his Indian interpreters, especially (in Tibet) Candrakīrti. His writings have also spawned numerous commentaries, mostly in China and Tibet. Schools and sects in these lands have often been defined by their understanding of or relative emphasis on Nāgārjuna’s works and the Madhyamaka school of philosophy.

The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is generally regarded as the masterwork of the 2nd- to 3rd-century India... more The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is generally regarded as the masterwork of the 2nd- to 3rd-century Indian Buddhist master Nāgārjuna and has been used by scholars as the test case against which other texts are judged to be authentic compositions of Nāgārjuna. Its subject matter consists of a series of examinations of Buddhist doctrinal concepts. In every case, the concept under consideration is revealed to be without reality at the ultimate level and thoroughly lacking in any unique substantial existence. To put it in Nāgārjuna’s own terms, everything is empty (śūnya) of inherent existence (svabhāva) because everything has arisen dependently (pratītysamutpāda). The world appears to the senses and the mind as composed of real, independent entities, but while this might be true from the conventional perspective (samvrtti), it is revealed to be ultimately (paramārtha) false. Nāgārjuna states that distinguishing between these two levels of knowing is crucial to understanding the teachings of the Buddha and for understanding what Nāgārjuna is doing in the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. Realizing ultimate truth is what brings the attainment of nirvana. The Mūlamadhyamakakārikā consists of 447 verses in twenty-seven chapters. Typical of the kārikā genre, the subject matter is presented in a concise style. Like other such texts, numerous commentaries were composed to elucidate the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā. By the end of the 12th century, at which time Buddhism’s popularity was beginning to fade in India, there were numerous commentaries by Indian masters on the text, including one attributed to Nāgārjuna himself. Chinese and subsequent Japanese traditions also accept a commentary by Piṅgala and one by Asaṅga. Several of the early commentaries were by important masters traditionally understood to belong to the Yogācāra school, so the very idea of exclusive, discrete philosophical schools should be treated cautiously. Only a few of the commentaries, however, endured and influenced the development of Madhyamaka schools of thought in China and Tibet. The text exists in Sanskrit, embedded in Candrakīrti’s 7th-century commentary, the Prasannapadā, which was translated into Tibetan in the 11th century. In Tibet, and in much of Western scholarship, Nāgārjuna’s text has been seen through the lens of Candrakīrti’s interpretation and frequently through the further interpretive lens of the commentaries of the Geluk sect of Tibetan Buddhism. In China, however, the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā is found embedded in the commentary attributed to the early-5th-century Indian master Piṅgala. This version and its legacy have been much less studied.

The Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school, along with the Yogācāra, is one of the two major schools of I... more The Madhyamaka (Middle Way) school, along with the Yogācāra, is one of the two major schools of Indian Mahayana Buddhist thought, which flourished there from the 3rd century CE to the final destruction of Buddhism in India in about the 12th century. It was carried to East Asia and Tibet prior to this time and continues there to this day, surviving in scholastic Tibetan Buddhism, Zen, and even Pure Land, frequently regarded as the cornerstone of Mahayana thought. The name “middle way” refers to a fundamental claim in Buddhism that the teachings of the Buddha constitute a middle way between eternalism and annihilationism; that is, between the doctrine that things have a stable and eternal essence, and the doctrine that things pass utterly out of existence when they cease. “Mādhyamika” is the adjectival form, and refers to adherents of the Madhyamaka school. Though central Madhyamaka ideas such as the Two Truths and Emptiness can be found in Nikaya Buddhism and in Mahayana sutras, it is with the treatises of Nāgārjuna (2nd–3rd centuries CE) that we have a fully formed and distinct system of thought that we can call Madhyamaka. In Nāgārjuna’s texts, he subjects all phenomena, including the Abhidharma categories of dharmas and the structure of the Two Truths, to radical analysis, declaring all things, including the Four Noble Truths and the Buddha himself, to be empty of inherent nature. For the Abhidharmikas, dharmas possess their characteristics intrinsically, which make them uniquely what they are, despite accepting the paradigmatic Buddhist position that all things exist dependently. Nāgārjuna and the Mādhyamikas assert that dharmas cannot possess their own nature precisely because they exist dependently. In place of inherent nature, Nāgārjuna asserts that things exist only dependently, at least in conventional terms, and that ultimately, emptiness of inherent nature is the truth and reality of all things. Not surprisingly, numerous interpreters arose to elucidate this difficult philosophy. The question of which commentator is definitive has occupied many generations of Indian, East Asian, and Tibetan Buddhists, and the issue remains very much alive in modern scholarship. Much of the interest in Western scholarship has come, unsurprisingly, from philosophy, but it warrants noting that the intent of Madhyamaka, like all Buddhist thought, is primarily soteriological in nature.

Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2014

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2018

Religions, 2017

Oxford Research Encyclopedia of Religion, 2017

Oxford Bibliographies Online Datasets, 2012

Religions, 2018

Religions, 2017