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Richard Gombrich is Professor of Sanskrit at Oxford and specialises in Pali texts and the Theravada. He did his PhD (published as Precept and Practice or Buddhist Precept and Practice) by living in a Sri Lankan village for a year and recording all the Buddhist events (he concluded that they were generally in accord with the Tripitaka).

In this book, which was originally delivered as a series of lectures in 1994, Gombrich explores several problems of the Tripitaka (the Theravadin canon).

There is a discussion about page 6 on 'the definition of Buddhism', a question that has given rise to some discussion on the talk.religion.buddhism newsgroup. Gombrich argues, "Whether or not we can see features common to the religion of Mr Richard Causton, the late leader of the UK branch of Soka Gakkai International, and that of Nagarjuna, or the Buddha himself, there is a train of human events which causally connects them. Buddhism is not an inert object: it is a chain of events."

Gombrich remarks that (9) "...almost all our evidence for the text of the Buddhist Canon comes from manuscripts and... hardly any Pali manuscripts are more than about five hundred years old." This leads him to suggest that textual criticism, similar to that applied to the Bible, needs to be applied to the Tripitaka to reconstruct the text from the various manuscripts found in Thailand, Burma, Sri Lanka etc and also the Chinese Agaamas. (We might add the texts recently found in Afghanistan).

Gombrich also argues (21 ff) against 'literalism' in favour of contextual interpretation of the texts, on the grounds that the Buddha taught differently to each according to their understanding. Gombrich gives us his reading of the 'raft' (22ff on MN sutta 22): "My interpretation differs from that of the great commentator Buddhaghosa... but that does not deter me" (24 fn27).

Gombrich argues (eg 27) the Buddha "was not an essentialist, and... was interested in how things worked rather than what they were." Gombrich argues that the Buddha's teaching on kamma has to be understood as a reaction to the Upanishadic beliefs of his listeners. He gives an example (40 on SN III, 144) where a text refers implicitly to a Vedic fire altar (which the Buddha reinterprets in terms of the khandhas).

Gombrich discusses conditioned origination (45ff) ('hard to understand'), summarising it as "no fuel, no fire" (48). Action (kamma, 48ff): "'It is intention that I call karma' is the Buddha's answer to brahmin ritualism" (51). There is a discussion (56ff) on the transfer of merit [can you transfer bad kamma? Anyone want some?]. Atta: see the story (62f) of King Pasenadi fishing for compliments and not getting very far (on SN sutta II,1,8).

I have only reached page 64 in this, which is enough for now. More later.

Gombrich, Richard F. How Buddhism Began. 1996, The Athlone Press, London. {paper|hard}back. number of pages pages.