Presentation of “living being” in early Indian Buddhism and its ethical implications

Ditrich, Tamara (author)

This article focuses on the presentation of the notion of “living being” and its link to ethics in the Pāli Buddhist canon and its commentaries. This objective is achieved by examining the key Pāli terms that refer to “living being” (i.e., satta, pāṇa, and bhūta) in different contexts with the aim of identifying their sematic ranges. The article then discusses how the notion of “living being” in the Pāli sources can be situated within the main doctrinal models developed in early Buddhism such as the six sense bases (āyatana), dependent origination (paticcasamuppada), and the Abhidhammic presentation of cognition, which are linked to a larger ethical framework that axiomatically repudiates the existence of a human “self” as the centre of all analysis. Instead, complex systems that link all living beings serve as the foundation for Buddhist praxis, and lead to a new understanding of the lived experience, which is founded on an ethics of behaviour, centred around non-vi-olence or the non-harming of all beings. The article concludes by exploring the important contribution of Buddhist ethics to the current environmental challenges by underscoring the essential role played by the doctrine of non-self (anattā) as the very source and foun-dation of an ethical stance from which ethical actions can proceed.

• Language: English
• Keywords: “living being” in ancient India, Theravāda Buddhism, Pāli terms satta, pāṇa and bhūta, plants in Theravāda Buddhism, early Buddhist ethics
• Work type: Article
• Typology: 1.01 - Original Scientific Article
• Organization: FF - Faculty of Arts
• Publication version: Version of Record
• Publication date: 01.01.2023
• Year: 2023
• Number of pages: Str. 201-230
• Numbering: Vol. 11 (27), iss. 2
• PID: 20.500.12556/RUL-146350-49b8172b-d8fd-2069-7ace-beadd11225fe
• UDC: 17:24
• ISSN on article: 2232-5131
• COBISS.SI-ID: 153288195
• Publication date in RUL: 24.05.2023

Record is a part of a journal

• Title: Asian studies
• Publisher: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete, Založba Univerze v Ljubljani
• ISSN: 2232-5131
• COBISS.SI-ID: 265206272

Licences

• License: CC BY-SA 4.0, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International
• Link: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/
• Description: This Creative Commons license is very similar to the regular Attribution license, but requires the release of all derivative works under this same license.

Secondary language

• Language: Slovenian
• Title: Pojmovanje “živega bitja” v zgodnjem budizmu in etične implikacije
• Keywords: pojem “živega bitja” v stari Indiji, theravādski budizem, pālijski termini satta, pāṇa in bhūta, rastline v theravādskem budizmu, zgodnja budistična etika

Projects

• Funder: ARRS - Slovenian Research Agency
• Project number: P6-0243-2019
• Name: Azijski jeziki in kulture