This article is written by Professor Saint Kay
Abstract: The history of Buddhist concepts as a research method stems from the enlightenment of Western historical theories; it is a question that needs to be explained as to why it can take into account the academic tradition and the particularity of Buddhism, and why it is superior to the conceptual history method in the field of Buddhist studies that is extremely similar to it. The buddhist classic genres such as Upitisheh and Mahariga demonstrate the historical tradition of ideas within Buddhism, and the "ideas" used as academic terms are also in line with the original meaning of the Buddhist scriptures. The conceptual history method arises from the "awareness" of philosophical speculation and the middle ground of social life; the history of Buddhist concepts is based on the "truth view" of the integrity, complexity, and dynamics of Buddhism. The conceptual history approach advocated by Skinner and Koserek is somewhat inverse to Buddhist studies; and "ideas" are more in line with the value of Buddhism than concepts. As a method of research and interpretation, conceptual history helps to present the characteristics of "Buddhism" as well as religion and philosophy, avoids portraying static and abstract history, and promotes the restoration of specific situations of the living world.
Keywords: history of Buddhist ideas; concepts; conceptual history; new cultural history
In the selection and proposal of Buddhist research methods, we must realize that Buddhism, as an ancient religious tradition, has a unique cultural form and profound historical accumulation, and we must also seriously consider a series of issues derived from it, that is, how to respond to the independence of the elements such as scriptures, concepts and life and the interaction between them, how to understand the interaction and penetration between Buddhism and the ideological trends of the times, and how to deal with the spread of Buddhism in society and the restrictions of the latter on it. Therefore, the construction of the history of Buddhist concepts should not only clarify the similarities and differences with methods such as conceptual history and new cultural history, but also pay attention to the particularity of Buddhism itself, and have "sympathetic accrual response" and "mental experience" to Buddhism as a whole from the levels of "Buddha, Dharma, Sangha" and "Teaching, Reason, Action, and Effect".
The history of Buddhist concepts as a research method stems from the enlightenment of Western historical theories. However, it is a matter of question why it can balance the academic tradition with the particularity of Buddhism, and why it is superior to the conceptual history approach that is so closely similar to it in the field of Buddhist studies. When Gao Ruiquan discussed the transmutation process of the concept of equality in modern China, he proposed "why is it a history of ideas". The construction of the history of Buddhist ideas must also answer the same questions in order to clarify the academic legitimacy and academic historical significance of the methodological construction of the history of Buddhist ideas.
Gao Ruiquan's "Historical Outline of the Concept of Equality"
I. The Buddhist Tradition of The Conceptual History of Buddhism and the Buddhist Etymology of Ideas
Although the history of Buddhist ideas is a new academic proposition, if we look back at the relevant research, we will find that in the academic tradition within Buddhism, there is itself a tradition of discussing and explaining or summarizing ideas. The "Dharma" that the Buddha spoke of is the source of the Buddhist concept, and all the ideas called the Dharma are either spoken by the Buddha or conform to what the Buddha said. The "Dharma" that the Buddha spoke of is integrated into sūtra, and its root is
Sūtra transliterated as "Shudra", which has the meaning of penetration, and the Chinese translation is "jing". Jing Haifeng advocated that classics have historical screening and accumulation, and have played a role in cohesive soul condensation in the process of cultural development. Because of the different forms or contents, the Buddhist scriptures gradually formed different types of sub-categories, and fixed them into twelve sub-teachings, that is, the twelve sutras - Shudra, Ghuya, Zhiji, Gadha, Udna, Bensheng, Fang guang, no Dharma, karma, metaphor, and argument. The collection of Buddhist scriptures involves changes in meaning after words commonly used in the world became Buddhist terms. Therefore, the interpretation of words becomes particularly important. Clarifying the connotation of words as Buddhist concepts is an important function of "argumentation."
Argumentation, or Upadesa, is one of the twelve sutras, also transliterated as Uppatisha, Wu BoDishuo, which translates into arguments, sayings, expositions, and chapters and sentences. Treatise on The Great Vipassana, Book 126:
What about the cloud? It is said that in the scriptures, the judgment is silent, the great teaching, and so on. For example, when the Buddha briefly said that the sutra had been completed, he went into the ashram and feasted on the silence for many hours. All the loud voices are gathered in one place, and each interprets the Buddha's teachings in various different sentences.
"Silent saying" is a false writing of "black saying", which refers to a statement that does not conform to the Buddha's intention, as opposed to the big saying (white saying), and the argument is a sutra that is discussed by the public and explained by many parties and is recognized as conforming to the Buddha's will. For example, the Great Wisdom Treatise says: "Those who discuss the scriptures, those who answer the questions, explain their reasons." At the same time, with the promotion and dissemination of the Dharma, in addition to what the Buddha said and what the Buddha's disciples said, the teachings of later generations were also included in the discussion. In this way, argument can also refer to the argument that interprets Scripture.
In addition to the Upanishas, which Indian Buddhism calls "commentaries," there are Maharijah, Abhidharma, Vishnu, and so on. Compared with Upitisha, Mahariga has a more in-depth explanation of concepts, which can be said to be a more mature genre of conceptual history. Matrka, also transliterated as Madraga, Mudaka, etc., means mother, benmu, wisdom mother, walking mother, etc. Its genre is to mark the outline and interpret it, that is, the title is like the mother, and it is interpreted from the standard, as born of the mother, so that the meaning is determined clearly. Mahariga includes two main categories, Vinaya and Dharma, the former being the sangha-regulated program and the latter being the general path-holding program. Therefore, Mahariga mainly classifies the precepts and righteousness, and then interprets and chooses them.
Book 40 of the Fundamental Sayings of All The Miscellaneous Affairs of the Vinaya says:
The so-called four mindfulness points, four righteous diligences, four divine feet, five roots, five forces, seven bodhi points, eight noble path points, four fearlessness, four unhindered understanding, four shaman fruits, four Dharma sentences, no slander, wish wisdom, and marginal concentration, emptiness, phaselessness, unwillingness, miscellaneous meditation, right-mindedness, and worldly wisdom, dharmakaya, dharmakaya, Dharma, dharma, such as the general name Of Mahariga.
In order to make a clear interpretation of the Buddha's sayings and to give clear meaning to the precepts and righteous entries, as shown in the above quotation, Mahariga lists the outline of the practice of the Noble Path such as the Four Mindfulness And the Four Righteous Practices, and it will further clarify their definitions, observations, practice methods, graded stages, and interrelationships in the interpretation of the program. This is in fact a classification and interpretation of ideas. With the development of Buddhism, the method of Distinguishing Interpretation in Mahariga gradually became the principle of exegesis, creation, and discourse. The List in Mahariga is both the main points of monasticism and the Buddha's interpretation of the world, a compilation of Buddhist ideas, in which the work of explanation is close to the study of the history of ideas.
The contemporary popular method of conceptual history originated with the American historian of philosophy, LoveJoy. He argues that the doctrines of any philosopher or school of philosophy are almost always, in general, a complex and conglomerate of different sources, an inscapable mixture of "unit-ideas." In his masterpiece The Great Chain of Existence, Lovejoy has sorted out several basic types of ideas: first, implicit, incompletely clear beliefs, or beliefs that function in the minds of individuals and even a generation but are more or less unaware; second, the intellectual habits peculiar to a certain place; third, the sensitivity to various metaphysical passions; fourth, the sacred words and phrases in a period or movement; and fifth, the more certain and clear ideas that exist in philosophical propositions, such as the "great chain of existence". He defines ideas based on dynamics, habits of thought, emotions, semantics, and other factors. The Chinese academic community uses the word "concept" to translate and transform ideas, which is transmitted from Japan in modern times.
As a new term in modern Chinese, "concept" was initially introduced by Zhang Zhidong and others. Zhang Baixi, Zhang Zhidong, and RongQing mentioned in the "Outline of Academic Affairs" formulated in 1903:
Where common nouns are not suitable for attacking and mixing with various Japanese nouns, there are many people who are quaint and elegant, but there are also many people who are not suitable for Chinese words... Another example is the words report, difficulty, misappropriation, concept, etc., although the meaning is understandable, but it is not necessary. And to survive in the past, the reader's explanation is uneven, and there are many obstacles in doing things.
Zhang Zhidong and others emphasized that many words in Japanese were not suitable for The expression habits of China at that time, and that words such as "report", "difficulty" and "concept" could be understood in Chinese contexts, but China itself already had words that could express these meanings, so it was not necessary to "survive from familiarity", so as not to cause difficulties in understanding and communication. In contrast to the conservative attitude of Zhang Zhidong and others in this regard, Wang Guowei earlier accepted the "idea" as an idea translation. In 1905, Wang Guowei published an article entitled "On the Input of New Academic Languages", which analyzed the rationale for using "concept" as an idea translation:
The conceptual one is the intuitive thing, the thing that is gone, and the image remains in the heart. However, it is also inappropriate to say that it is not appropriate. However, there is also this disease in the original language, not only the translation... The etymology of Idea comes from the Greek idea and idea, also meaning that the source comes from the five senses, so it is called the view; the thing it is looking at is gone, and the image is still there, so it is called the thought, or the person who is called "missing".
This is the earliest text in modern China to conduct a morpheme analysis of Japanese translations. Wang Guowei believes that although the Japanese translation may not be accurate, it is easy to use, and the newly created translation is not necessarily better. As far as the word "idea" is concerned, it is very close to the idea meaning, which refers to intuitive impressions and has a meaning derived from the five senses; however, what Wang Guowei has not noticed is that the Japanese word concept fits into idea because of its Buddhist etymology.
From the Buddhist tradition, the root word for "guan" is
, Sanskrit is pastaati, which is translated in buddhist scriptures as seeing, seeing, seeing, observing, contemplating, and saving.
It is also the root of the word "Vishnu vipassyanā" (Brahma vipasyanā, pali vipassanā), the "view" in the practice of "stopping", which is the role of wisdom in meditation, according to which the monk realizes. At the same time, view (vipasyanā) can be regarded as a synonym for Prajnaparamita (hui). The root of the word is
, sanskrit is smarati, which is translated in buddhist scriptures as chanting, remembrance, remembrance.
There are two combinations of "contemplation" and "mindfulness" in the translation of Buddhist scriptures: First, "mindfulness" is the diachronic movement of the mind, and "contemplation" is a reflective "examination" of the mind and "contemplation", as book 25 of the Zhong'a Han Sutra says: "When the thoughts correspond to goodness, there are bad thoughts, and when the concept is evil, those who are reborn with unwholesome thoughts should not recite this thought, so that the evil and the bad thoughts are born." "Contemplation" is a moral examination and reflection on the mind of good and evil, on the basis of which the cultivator controls the mind. Second, "contemplation" and "contemplation" refer to reflection and concentration of thoughts, respectively, as book 1 of the Immeasurable Life Sutra says: "The truth is to judge the truth, to contemplate the truth, to recite the Dharma sea, so that it can be attained." "Contemplation" is a kind of calm reflection away from the object, and "mindfulness" is concentrated thinking about the principles of the Dharma.
Gao Ruiquan synthesized the interpretation of the words "view" and "thought" in the "Commentary" and Jin Yuelin's understanding of idea, and put forward the modern academic connotation of "concept": both the meaning of "examining" and "contemplation" is also an activity closely related to "thinking", referring to a person's entire visual impression or direct perceptual impression at a specific moment; the specific field of view of a certain concept is called a certain view, indicating that people's consciousness has a relatively concentrated direction and scope, during which conceptual thinking must be used, but it is not necessarily subject to rigorous reasoning and argumentation. It can be seen that the "concept" used as an academic term is in line with the original meaning of the Buddhist scriptures.
Second, the characteristics of Buddhism and religion and philosophy and the history of Buddhist concepts
In the context of modern China's "gradual learning from the West and the East", since the Han and Tang Dynasties, the issue of the positioning of Buddhism has once again entered the field of vision of Chinese intellectuals. Only this time it is no longer the Confucian and Taoist schools in China's inherent tradition, but the "religion" and "philosophy" from the West. Buddhism has also shifted from the position of an outsider to the Chinese standard of examining foreign traditions. Zhang Taiyan (1869-1936) believed that Buddhism attached importance to the mind, and that the concepts of reincarnation, heaven and hell were inherited from the old teachings of Indian Brahmanism, not the fundamental concept of Buddhism, and that Shakyamuni's original intention was to "seek wisdom", so Buddhism was a philosophy rather than a religion, and was "the positivist of philosophy". Ouyang Jingwu (1871-1943) advocated Buddhism as non-religious and non-philosophical, arguing that Buddhism was higher than both religion and philosophy. In comparing religion with Dharma, he said:
One is humble and uneven, the other is equal; one is extremely ugly in thought, one is extremely free in reason; one is harsh and ignorant, one is grand and true; one is cowardly to obey others, and the other is brave to follow oneself. The distinction between the two is as black and white as black and white, and the religion of U can be compared with the Dharma!
In his view, the concept of equality, the freedom of reason, and the courageous spiritual temperament contained in Buddhist thought are far superior to Western religions; from the perspective of truth, Buddhist thought is also superior. Ouyang also emphasized that Buddhism is transcendent, eternal, infinite, absolute, and indiscriminate attachment, while philosophy is limited to this world, limited, relative, and differentiated attachment; this is actually based on the dual truth theory of religion to distinguish between Buddhism and philosophy, with Buddhism as the truth and philosophy as the custom.
Ouyang had no calligraphy
This discussion in the early 20th century focused on "Buddhism" rather than on "Buddhism as a whole." Tang Yongtong (1893-1964) proposed in the "History of Buddhism in the Southern and Northern Dynasties of the Han, Wei, and Jin Dynasties": "Buddhism, religion, and philosophy. Fang Dongmei (1899-1977) inherited this view, proposing that the extremely subtle mysteries of Buddhist interpretation are an incredible present realm, which cannot be included in the scope of "rationalism" or "rationalism", so that "from the perspective of such a highest value field, Buddhism is also religion and philosophy." When Fang Dongmei discussed the introduction of "Buddhism", he mentioned many aspects such as classics, thoughts, rituals, and canons. This statement actually covers the "Buddhist whole" with Buddha, Dharma, and Sangha at its core. Proceeding from the perspective of "Buddhism as a whole", then "Buddhism" or Buddhist research has both the subtle mysteries of the belief level of "Buddha", the philosophical system of the conceptual level of "Dharma", and the social life of the "monk" system. The characteristics of "Buddhism" and religion and philosophy determine that Buddhist studies are both religious and philosophical.
In the face of such a complex and concrete existence of Buddhism, the history of ideas was chosen as a research method because of its "opportunity to reason." The conceptual history method arises from the "awareness" of philosophical speculation and the middle ground of social life. The history of Buddhist concepts is precisely based on this point, hoping to build a bridge between the truths carried by the classics and the changes in social life based on the "truth" of Buddhism as a whole, complex, and dynamic. Buddhism has both ontological, cosmological, and axiological philosophical systems, as well as the social life of Buddhists as "religious people", and more institutionalized monastic orders as religious entities, so Buddhist research needs to broaden the original academic horizons through the methods of conceptual history and social history, and find that Buddhism is in a more complete historical state in China, East Asia and even the whole world, and the role of conceptual history is particularly critical, and through the history of ideas, multiple elements such as philosophical systems, social life and institutional forms can be linked.
Lovejoy's analysis of the types of ideas mentioned above also shows the elasticity of the field of conceptual history and its huge application space in Buddhist studies. When concepts refer to beliefs, they are suitable for the study of Buddhist beliefs, Buddhism and society, Buddhism and culture; when concepts refer to habits of thought, they are helpful in analyzing buddhist thinking patterns and psychological inertia; when concepts refer to the sensitivity of metaphysical passions, they can refer to the religious practice and social life of Buddhists; when concepts refer to sacred words, which are suitable for the study of the history of Buddhist concepts; when concepts refer to the principles of doctrine, it is suitable for examining the historical changes in some important ideas of Buddhism. Lovejoy points out that the history of ideas is characterized by:
It is particularly concerned with the clarity of ideas, which are particular units in the collective thought of large groups of people, and not merely in the doctrines or opinions of a few learned thinkers or eminent writers—the clarity of ideas, and it attempts to study the role of isolated factors in the sense of bacteriology. These factors may be separated from the beliefs, prejudices, pieties, hobbies, aspirations, and currents of thought of an entire generation or many generations of the cultured class.
As a term, "concept" can present the monastic meaning of Buddhism, grasp the level of religious practical significance such as perceptual psychology and the willingness of faith, so it is possible to achieve "sympathetic response" and "mental experience", which is different from relying on rational and abstract concepts and thoughts.
Cheng Lesong's book "Body, Immortality, and Mysticism: A Conceptual History perspective of Taoist Beliefs" has tried to use the conceptual history method to study traditional Chinese religion. He divides the study of the history of Taoist ideas into three levels: intention, concept, and systematization, and in his view, "the flow of ideas is the result of different coping methods adopted by the same intention in different beliefs and social environments, and at the same time, systematization is the only way for chaotic ideas to be collected in a specific context to implement the purpose of faith into the practice system." Traditional faith research usually unfolds on two levels: a textual combing, and a historical narrative that lacks an understanding of the inner structure of faith. As a result, there is a huge rupture between text combing and historical narrative, and "ideas" can become a bridge connecting textual thought and historical practice. Sorting out and interpreting the levels of faith through the history of ideas will help promote the study of traditional Chinese religions such as Taoism and Buddhism.
As a method of study and interpretation, conceptual history helps to present the qualities of "Buddhism" as well as religion and philosophy. Lovejoy notes that one of the ultimate tasks of conceptual history is to understand how new beliefs and intellectual styles were introduced and disseminated. This is of great significance to the study of Buddhism. On the one hand, the history of ideas helps to dissect the process of sinification of Buddhism. The changes, spread and penetration of Buddhism in the land of China can be analyzed from the perspectives of concepts, systems, and lives, so as to illustrate how Buddhism has become an important part of traditional Chinese culture; on the other hand, the history of ideas helps to analyze the influence of Chinese Buddhism on East Asian culture and even world culture, and to clarify the spread and change of Chinese Buddhism in East Asian countries such as Japan, South Korea, singapore, and even in contemporary European and American countries. Thus it shows how Buddhism, as an important part of traditional Chinese culture, can participate in the pluralistic exchange and dynamic shaping of world cultures.
III. The History of Buddhist Concepts from the Perspective of Contemporary Historiographical Trends
The change of methodology has become a basic consensus of contemporary historical research, and new methods are constantly emerging, forming a trend of methodological change. In the field related to the study of ideas alone, there are names such as the history of ideas, the history of concepts, and the history of new cultures. To choose conceptual history as a Buddhist research method in the currents of contemporary historiography, it is necessary to respond to the questions from conceptual history, both because of the close connection between concepts and concepts, and because both are directly born out of traditional research on the history of ideas. The new cultural history, on the other hand, takes the connection between ideas and social life as the main problem awareness, which has reference significance for the history of Buddhist concepts.
Conceptual history focuses on key, condensed words, interpreting their conceptualization processes in a particular context, and studying the nodes of their diachronic transmutation. In view of the relationship between language and history, the "Cambridge School" in Britain and the "Heidelberg School" in Germany took different paths. Quentin Skinner, the leader of the "Cambridge School", attached importance to the problem of semantics, believing that the expression of all ideas was inseparable from specific intentions, conditions, and problems, and thus opposed the continuity of constructing the history of ideas beyond the specific context, advocating the contextualization of the text, focusing on the relationship between the author's intention and the formation of the text, and the way the author expressed the text. In his article "Meaning and Understanding in the History of Ideas", he said:
In order to understand a text, we must at least understand the intention of the object of investigation and the intended act of communication that accompanies it. Thus, the problem we have to face when studying these texts is that the authors of these texts are in a particular era, in the face of a particular group of readers, and what they are actually trying to convey through their own words.
Skinner's emphasis on the social conditions or intellectual contexts in which classical texts are generated, thus forming the concept of "social context" and viewing it as part of the study of language; through "social context", it is possible to determine the recognizable meanings of certain habits that an author may in principle convey. Influenced by Wittgenstein's late philosophy of language and Austen and Söll's theories of "acting by words" and "acting with words," Skinner saw "political thought" as the act of political speech in history. In his article "Interpretation and Understanding of Verbal Action", he proposed that "text is action", and the process of understanding text is "to restore the intention embodied in the action of the author of the text". Skinner connects the intent of the text to the act of speech, focusing on how the speaker speaks, how to cash in on his intention and achieve effect in a particular situation. But contextual reduction does not encompass and exhaust the full implications of the classical text, and Skinner is not theoretically aware of the universality and transcendence of the classical text beyond the specific context; and he seems to have a tendency to regard all intellectual history texts as homogeneous, and therefore to take into account the differences in the hierarchy of the text.
The study of the conceptual history of the "Heidelberg School" places greater emphasis on the social context of concepts, represented by Reinhart Koselleck. According to Koserek, conceptual history is concerned with both which experiences and facts are brought into concepts and how those experiences or facts are conceptualized; conceptual history mediates between the history of language and the history of events, and one of its tasks is to analyze the consistency, deviation, or difference between concepts and facts produced in the course of history. He emphasizes that history cannot exist apart from "society" and "language", which belong to metahistorical Givens, and points out:
Linguistic understanding does not fully grasp the events that occur and the facts themselves, and the events that occur are not completely unaffected by linguistic interpretations. "Social history" and "conceptual history" are in an interactive, historical tension that can never be eliminated.
Concepts are the aggregation of existential meanings, which are the embodiment and condensation of the cognitions, thoughts, and concepts of people in the course of history, used for specific purposes in a certain context, and become the basic discourse reflecting the spiritual concepts of this society. The study of conceptual history focuses on how concepts become indicators and promoters of historical processes or stages of social development in the process of meaning generation. In Koserek's view, conceptual history is oriented and purposeful to social history, and it explores not only people's reflections on social phenomena and their definition as concepts, but the process of people's ideological response to social phenomena and actions.
Skinner's "conceptual history" focuses on the context of speech, ignoring the social situation of the author, the effects of speech and behavior, and the universality and transcendence of classical texts, which contradicts the religious nature of Buddhism. In the course of Buddhism's more than 2,600 years of development, the social status of monks and believers and the scope of the effectiveness of various discourses have been constantly changing; at the same time, the "sutras" and the truths they carry have transcended time and space. Conceptual history struggles to deal with the tension between change and invariance. Koserek emphasized that "conceptual history" can help social history examine experiences stored in language, but his conceptual history still relies on the discovery of social history. In this way, concepts are shaped and powerless, reflecting social conditions, but lacking the motivation and meaning to act. The Buddhist concept, on the other hand, lies precisely in the religious practice of monks and believers, and has the significance of guiding action. In addition, the spatio-temporal causes of the action process, the value concerns of the actor, the mental experience, the meaning of life, and the subject realm are beyond the reach of words. These contents, which have not been presented in the form of independent and clear concepts, cannot be ignored in Buddhist studies, and can be summarized and summarized with the help of the history of ideas.
From Buddhism's own standpoint, ideas are also superior to concepts. The concept is a kind of "facility" in Buddhism. Facilities (Prajnapti in Sanskrit, pannatti in Pali) are closely related to names, salutations, words, words, synonyms, idioms, etc., and are even judged to mean names or titles. The emergence of concepts as an institution is mainly the process of cognition of the existence of false, i.e., phenomenal nature, and is closely related to the "name", "righteousness", and "phase" that point to language; this is very different from the monastic meaning of "ideas". For example, Book 89 of the Great Wisdom Treatise says:
What is a name? What is a phase? Buddha's words: This name is strong and false, the so-called color, this desire to act, this man, this woman, this big, this small... Everything and what is legal is a pseudonym, and the name is taken from the law, which is why it is a name... It is a name but there is an empty name, a vain memory wants to be born separately, and Ru waits for a false memory! There is nothing at the end of this matter, the self-nature is empty, and the wise do not do it... What is a phase? Subhuti! There are two phases, where Mrs. Van wrote. What is two? One, hue, two, no hue. Subhuti! What is the name hue? All colors, if they are thick and thin, if they are good and ugly, are empty; they are the ones in which the mind is remembered and separate, and they are called hues. What is no hue? The colorless laws, remembering the separation, and focusing on taking the phase and causing troubles, are called no color.
"Name" and "phase" are the names and characteristics of things, that is, the contents of concepts and concepts, the meaning of words and words, all of which come from the thinking activities of the subject, and are things that the knower forcibly places on things. Things here are in a broad sense, referring not only to material things, but also to things that have no material form or do not occupy a spatial position. By nature, everything is the product of cause and effect, is empty, and cannot refer to the real existence of things by name or characteristic. Names or characteristics are illusory, they should be broken and transcended, and ordinary people have troubles because of their attachment to them.
"Ideas" as monastic terms are favored by Buddhism, and "concepts" as secular discourses are criticized by values. Although "ideas" become public knowledge from individual perceptions, they must go through the mediation role of "concepts", but the form formed at this time can be an independent and clear concept, or it can be a vague expression. In the former sense, ideas are transformed into concepts and at the same time become objects of study in the history of concepts. The transformation of concepts into concepts must be clarified through the interpretation and interpretation of the structure, eliminating contradictions, so as to enter the world of abstraction and rationality. This process shows the difference between the history of ideas and the history of concepts as methods—clear and definite concepts are based on the verbal interpretation of the existential world, lacking a monastic sensibility of metaphysical passion, and "ideas" as an academic term are more in line with the traditional context and value of Buddhism.
The "New Cultural History" has important reference significance for the history of Buddhist concepts. The new cultural history has two characteristics: First, it attaches importance to the cultural factors and cultural aspects in history, and shifts the research objects and research fields of history from the political, military, economic, social, and other aspects of the past to the social and cultural aspects; second, it proposes to use the concept of culture to explain history, and analyzes the connotation and meaning of cultural symbols such as language, symbols, and rituals with the help of theories and methods of cultural anthropology, linguistics, and cultural studies. Peter Burke, an important representative of the new cultural history, emphasized that the concept of culture implied the traditional concept, which was inherited from generation to generation about a certain type of knowledge and skill. He believes that there is a "twin paradox" between tradition and innovation, that superficial innovation will obscure the inheritance of tradition, that superficial signs of tradition will also obscure innovation, and that what is actually passed down will change in the process of being passed on to a new generation, and must change.
Although the new cultural history and the conceptual history are written differently, they have the same path: on the one hand, cultural symbols and concepts are the precipitation, accumulation and tradition formed in social life; on the other hand, they also have a certain "break" and "alienation" from the current action, and can even guide action and shape a new social reality. Robert Darnton, another representative figure of the new cultural history, divided the history of ideas in a broad sense into four levels: the history of the evolution of ideas and concepts, the history of the development of folk customs and customs, the history of social development of various ideas and concepts, and the history of culture, which correspond to the ideological systems in philosophical works, various ideological trends, public opinion and literary movements, ideologies and their social diffusion, and various world outlooks and mentalities from the perspective of anthropology. As he said, the "history of ideas" should deal with two relationships: one is the relationship between ideological and socio-political issues, and the other is the relationship between ideology and the level of mass culture. Only by clarifying these two relationships can we truly understand the interaction between ideas and society.
Afterword: From the History of Buddhist Thought to the History of Buddhist Ideas
The shortcomings of the history of traditional ideas have been criticized by scholars from many aspects. Ge Zhaoguang pointed out in "The History of Chinese Thought" that when traditional intellectual history research tries to interpret the soil and background of the occurrence of ideas in terms of political and economic events, it ignores the long distance between the two, and has never found that "general knowledge, thought and belief" is the real and effective soil and background for the occurrence of classic and elite thought. Therefore, he advocated the search for a "world of general knowledge, thought, and belief" outside of elite and classical thought, for the common sense that people really used to explain and understand the world, and to incorporate it into the field of intellectual history. This downward search for the mentality of the masses and the attempt to restore the general worldview can in fact be completed by the practice of conceptual history, and conceptual history can further penetrate into the soil of social life.
Ge Zhaoguang, Introduction to the History of Chinese Thought: Writing the History of Ideas
In current Buddhist studies, the traditional method of intellectual history is mainly used in the field of sectarian studies to sort out the context of sectarian thought. However, the "thought-to-thought" approach to the history of thought is abstract and does not pay attention to the psychology behind the texts as sources of thought, let alone deal with the practical problems of Buddhism in historical time and space. While revealing a series of linear historical contexts of the development of Buddhism, the history of sectarian thought also obscures the complexity of history and the real and concrete activities in the development of Buddhism in China. Therefore, it is necessary to guard against the doctrinal systems that have been overly dependent on sectarian theories in the past. The writing of the history of sectarian Buddhist thought often highlights the importance of "sects" and thinkers, and outlines an interconnected overarching network centered on thinkers. This method is bound to cause oppression and even exclusion of "ideas" and "ideas" themselves.
The author of this article is the author of "Chinese Buddhist Beliefs and Life History"
In order to solve this dilemma and find out the concepts in Buddhist thought that really affect the process of civilization and human life, we should shift from the history of ideas to the history of ideas, and conduct a long-term, holistic, and dynamic study of Buddhism. The religious practice of Buddhists is both the process of establishing individual life and the social life of the times. From the perspective of concepts, although buddhist religious practice is individual, it still maintains the "conceptual significance" of Buddhist conceptual traditions and contemporary concepts and trends, while the "presentness" and "machine" of multi-subject religious practice will also promote the transformation and evolution of Buddhist concepts. The study of the history of Buddhist ideas will help to avoid portraying static and abstract history, but will promote the restoration of specific situations of the living world. The "first" concept can ensure that the historical portrayal will not be fragmented and "out of focus" while fully considering the specific situation and multiple subjects.
The original article was published in the Journal of Tsinghua University (Philosophy and Social Sciences Edition), No. 6, 2021, by Sheng Kai, Professor of the Department of Philosophy, School of Humanities, Tsinghua University