THE BUDDHIST DOCTRINE OF TWO TRUTHS IN THE VAIBHASIKA AND THERAVADA SCHOOLS (ASIA)

A study demonstrating that the Buddhist doctrine of two truths--conventional and ultimate--was used by the Theravadins and the Vaibhasikas to develop a philosophy of language, justifying their attempts at scriptural exegesis, and by the Vaibhasikas to develop an ontology, in that the two "truths" referred to objects or levels of reality. The paper also develops an analogy between a prototypically "Hinayana" view of substance and their notion of language. Includes a discussion of religious issues in the Indians' study of grammar, the Buddhists' disavowal of the importance of any particular language in the description of reality, the early development of the abhidharma, a discussion of the Vaibhasikas' "atomic theory," and a discussion of the Theravadins' hermeneutical principles. Also includes a translation from the Tibetan of part of the 19th century Mongolian Ngag-dbang-dpal-ldan's work on the two truths in the Indian Buddhist tenet systems, as treated in Vasubandhu's Abhidharmakosa.