Boiling Cauldron Hell, where Horsehead or Oxhead,
minions of the Ten Kings, ensured that the sinner
stayed within a vat of boiling oil. Mulian eventually
would find and free his mother, but not before rein-
forcing the Buddhist belief in karmic retribution.
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KARILJ. KUCERA
HERMENEUTICS
The term hermeneuticsderives from the Greek god Her-
mes, the messenger of the gods, whose task was to com-
municate between gods and humans. Since both sides
had different languages and worldviews, it was neces-
sary to interpret a god’s wishes in ways that humans
could comprehend. In addition, Hermes had to under-
stand the god’s intentions and how to translate them.
In its earliest uses in Western thought, hermeneu-
tics was mainly associated with biblical exegesis, and
specifically with the rules and standards that should
guide interpretation of scripture. During the twentieth
century, its scope was considerably widened, and it is
now generally seen as a fundamental aspect of all the
humanities and social sciences. It should be noted,
however, that the term hermeneuticsis not generally
conceived as applying to all interpretation, but rather
to the rules and methods that guide it.
In the Indian Buddhist context, hermeneutical lit-
erature is mainly concerned with identifying the
intention (abhipraya) behind scriptural statements,
particularly those that are viewed as being in conflict
with other statements. The Buddhist case presents spe-
cial difficulties for interpretation because of the vast-
ness of Buddhist scriptural literatures and the plethora
of conflicting doctrines and practices. According to
Buddhist tradition, the Buddha traveled from place to
place teaching those who came to him with questions.
He is compared to a skilled physician who provides dif-
ferent medicines specific to particular illnesses. The
Buddha taught each person or group what would be
most helpful soteriologically; he was not principally
concerned with creating an internally consistent doc-
trinal system. Thus, after his death, his followers were
left with a corpus of texts that all claimed canonical sta-
tus, but that contained often contradictory teachings.From an early period, Indian Buddhist exegetes
strove to differentiate those statements that were of
“provisional meaning” (neyartha) from those of “de-
finitive meaning” (nltartha). The former were expedi-
ent teachings given to a particular person or group, but
they do not represent the Buddha’s final thought, while
the latter reflect the (often hidden) intention behind
his teaching.Buddhist hermeneutics became even more difficult
around the first century C.E. when large numbers of new
texts began to appear that purported to have been spo-
ken by the Buddha when he was alive, but that often
differed in style, content, and doctrine from the texts
contained in earlier canons. These were the sutras of
the MAHAYANAschool, which claimed to supersede
earlier teachings, most of which were said to be of
merely provisional meaning. Within this new litera-
ture, however, there were even more conflicting doc-
trines. Many texts contained statements attributed to
the Buddha that claimed that a particular teaching
should be viewed as his final thought, but these state-
ments were sometimes contradicted by other sutras.Buddhist exegetes generally responded to this sit-
uation by privileging certain texts and basing their
interpretive schemas on them. Some of the new
Mahayana texts provided specific guidelines for in-
terpretation. The SAMDHINIRMOCANA-SUTRA (Ti-
betan, Dgongs pa nges par ‘grel pa’i mdo; Sutra on
Unfurling the Real Meaning), for example, states that
Buddha’s teachings may be divided into three “wheels
of doctrine” (dharmacakra). The first two wheels—
comprising certain HINAYANAdoctrines and teachingsHERMENEUTICS