Recontextualizing Satire of Brahmanical Dharmasastra in the Aggañña Sutta

Authors

  • Alf Hiltebeitel George Washington University Author

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v3i1.77

Keywords:

Aggañña Sutta, dharmasūtras, householder, humour, orality, satire, Vinaya, writing

Abstract

This article takes up passages that allow for comparison of Buddhist and Brahmanical ‘law’ in dharmasastra (including the early dharmasutras) and Vinaya. The discussion of Vinaya draws on Steven Collins’s demonstration of Vinaya allusions in the Aggañña Sutta. The article revisits the advocacy for a pre-Mauryan dating of this sutta, arguing that it is unlikely. It proposes that we redirect discussions of the Aggañña Sutta’s satiric and humorous allusions to Brahmanical law and practices to focus on the moment that involves the building of houses. And, taking this sutta to refer to written ‘books’, it challenges scholarly insistence on its orality.

Author Biography

  • Alf Hiltebeitel, George Washington University

    Alf Hiltebeitel is Professor of Religion, History, and Human Sciences at the George Washington University. His main work has been on the Sanskrit epics, principally the Mahābhārata, and on the goddess cult in Tamilnadu, India, of that epic’s chief heroine, Draupadī. His current work includes two books on dharma. First to appear will be a book titled Dharma (2010) for the ‘Asian Spirituality Series’ of the University of Hawai’i Press. A more extensive historical treatment of dharma is targeted for 2011 publication in Oxford University Press’s South Asia Research Series. Both books compare Buddhist and Brahmanical understandings of dharma. Hiltebeitel is also serving as Editor in Chief, for the Hinduism bibliography of the Oxford Bibliography Online (OBO; 2010 launch). Entries by him in that bibliography include Dharma, Cosmogony, and Geography and Hinduism. Department of Religion 2106 G Street, NW, George Washington University Washington DC 20052 USA

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Published

2010-05-22

Issue

Section

Articles

How to Cite

Hiltebeitel, A. (2010). Recontextualizing Satire of Brahmanical Dharmasastra in the Aggañña Sutta. Religions of South Asia, 3(1), 77-92. https://doi.org/10.1558/rosa.v3i1.77