dhism as sharing an Indian worldview where time is
cyclical and events (like the Buddha’s awakening) are
repeatable, where true reality transcends time. They
find no writing in pre-Muslim India at all that deserves
the name of history. Scholars like Robert Frykenberg
argue that this view is a simplistic stereotype. A. K.
Warder proposes that the story of the Buddha’s life,
the record of episodes after his death in early VINAYA
literature, and the separate accounts of various schools
after their schism, all clearly indicate a sense of history
in Indian Buddhism. Buddhist literature in all of Asia
contains a rich array of historical schemes used to make
sense of a changing world.
The seeming lack of historical consciousness in
Buddhism has also become a point of intense discus-
sion in interreligious dialogue linking history and
ethics. Jewish and Christian theologians often say that
Buddhist PHILOSOPHYoverlooks the possibility that ul-
timate reality (be it God or S ́UNYATA[EMPTINESS]) is
of consequence to humans only in the vicissitudes of
history—that to overcome historical EVILwe need eth-
ical action, not liberation from KARMA(ACTION), or
that any ultimate liberation will come only eschato-
logically, through history. Buddhists, for their part, do
not recognize a historical battle between good and evil
with only humans on earth at stake. They stress insight
into the nature of the cosmos and the self more than
ethical imperatives or an understanding of anthro-
pocentric history. MAHAYANABuddhist answers have
emphasized the timeless inseparability of NIRVANAand
SAMSARA, the endless activity of the BODHISATTVA, and
the perpetual danger of absolutizing the distinction be-
tween good and evil. (Another philosophical response
is discussed at the end of this entry.) In any case, his-
torical scholarship has found ample evidence that Bud-
dhism has been anything but ahistorical.
Patterns of didactic history: National order and
eschatological decline
All scholars recognize the Buddhist chronicles or VAMSA
literature of Sri Lanka as historical in some sense. These
works, composed by Buddhist monks, began in the
sixth century C.E. and were continually supplemented
until the British occupation in the early 1800s. In the
Mahavamsa(The Great Chronicle), S ́akyamuni Buddha
visits the island and proclaims that it will become the
repository of his teachings. A sequence of kings pro-
motes the DHARMAand protects the SAN ̇GHA, at times
against foreign invaders, and Sri Lanka appears as a
model for an ideal Buddhist nation. This work orga-
nizes past events to demonstrate not only the effects of
karma and the reality of ANITYA(IMPERMANENCE) but
also the necessity of meritorious works and deeds for a
better future. Its concern is to understand the progres-
sion of human society within a Buddhist worldview; a
sense of right intention (a soteriological practice en-
joined by the noble eightfold PATH) rather than factual
accuracy guides its author. To modern critical sensibil-
ities, the Mahavamsamixes myth and history, religious
doctrine and political motive. Its genealogies and
arrangement of recognizable events make it historical,
but it is didactic history with an agenda: to promote the
welfare of the san ̇gha through the centuries by legit-
imizing the Buddhist state.
The motif of a perfect order in the Sri Lankan
chronicles contrasts with the motif of decline in Indian
and East Asian Buddhist literature. According to some
early Indian literature, the dharma will vanish after five
hundred years, a doctrine that has been called DECLINE
OF THE DHARMA. Later texts say that it was the true
dharmathat disappeared. East Asian texts tell of three
ages. In the first, the true dharma flourished and awak-
ening was attainable. The following age of the sem-
blance dharmameant that practice, but no attainment,
was possible. In the third or current era of the final
dharma,lasting some ten thousand years or virtually
all countable time, not even practice is efficacious.
Deleterious events, harmful deeds, and political cir-
cumstances are the cause of this deterioration; even the
Buddhadharma is impermanent. Some texts place this
scheme in a larger cycle where a period of ascent be-
gins after the three ages of decline and culminates in
the coming of MAITREYA, the future Buddha. Karmic
conditions governing an entire people, indeed all hu-
mankind, must be right for Buddhism to thrive.
Modern scholarship finds that a substantial body of
Buddhist literature demonstrates a sense of progres-
sion (or decline) through time, and of distinct histor-
ical period and the causes for their difference. Jan
Nattier argues that the variety of schemes and time-
tables were in part an attempt to resolve discrepancies,
evident to the writers, between previous predictions
and current historical conditions, and between the dif-
fering teachings of Buddhist schools. In this literature,
human actions are significant for changing the world;
the future is not the repetition of the past, and the era
in which one lives matters greatly, especially when the
march of time is toward decline. Instead of encour-
aging an attitude of hopelessness and inevitability, in
medieval East Asia the doctrines of decline generated
new teachings, interpretations, and even schools that
proclaimed themselves necessary to address an age ofHISTORY