2008年度第12回AA研フォーラム

Abstract： The emergence of Buddhism in mid-first millennium has often been attributed to ideas present in his homeland, the Sakya tribal area on the borders of Nepal and India. Some have traced the emergence of the concepts of rebirth and karma to the aboriginal people of the area, others have seen them as the logical outcome of discussions within the contemporaneous Vedic religion of western North India (Kuru-Pañcāla area). In this paper the important changes occurring in the socio-political conditions, in mythology, religion and spirituality of early India are investigated by cautiously teasing apart the elements of the various populations involved, their social and political structures, their likely religion and rituals, and the actual ‘axial’ breakthrough of the Buddha and Mahāvīra as well as its dependence on the preceding ideologies of the Indian West and East. The paper aims to contribute to our understanding of the development of early Indian thought leading to the axial breakthrough that, due to pathway dependency, has influenced Indian religion until this day, and additionally had a major impact on most of Asia.