intellectual “investigation of things” (Neo-Confucians), or analysis of concepts into
emptiness (Buddhists); koan paradoxes, sometimes together with receiving shouts
and blows from one’s teacher (Ch’an); enlightenment during preaching (T’ien-t’ai
and Amida Buddhism, Sufism, enthusiastic sectarian Christianity). The resulting
experiences range from tranquillity to weeping and emotional enthusiasm, from
“bright light” to “divine dark” to “clear glass consciousness,” from floating
detachment (zazen) to deep trance (samadhi) to sudden enlightenment (satori).
- Results of meditation have been conceived to involve both detachment from the
world and action in it. Detachment may be interpreted as an end in itself, or an
end to individual suffering (Buddhism); as contact with God or salvation from sins
(Sufism, Christianity, Mahayana); as individual psychotherapy (post-1950 Western
secularism). Worldly results aimed at include health and longevity (Taoism); magi-
cal powers such as clairvoyance, levitation, and spells over other living beings
(shamanistic and folk beliefs, incorporated in most mystical traditions as lesser side
effects); political power to regulate the state (Taoism); shelter from political per-
secution (medieval Jewish Kabbalism); motivation of millennial political move-
ments, ranging from nationalist particularism (Sufism, Imamism, Kabbalism) to
universalistic trans-sectarianism (Rosicrucianism, Masonism).
- In later historical cases, monasteries become organizational vehicles for settling
frontier areas or introducing capitalist accumulation, especially in a rural economy.
This is most notable in China ca. 400–800 c.e., and again in Christian Europe
1050–1300 and in Japan 1200–1600. The key advantage of the monastic mode of
organization is its ability to free up and reinvest resources in a society otherwise
dominated by kinship organization of production.
- Nakamura (1973: 77–79). The Mandukya Upanishad, which Gaudapada (ca.
500–600) used as a basis for developing Advaita, is not attached to a Vedic school
and does not exist independently of Gaudapada’s commentary (Isayeva, 1993: 50).
A good many Upanishads may have originated in this independent fashion before
acquiring a connection with a Brahmanical lineage and canonical status from later
scholars. Some Upanishads became attached to more than one Veda (e.g., the
Katha, attached to Black Yajur, Sama, and Atharva; the Kena, attached to both
Sama and Atharva; Muller, [1879–1884] 1962: 1:xci; 2:xxi). This implies that at
some period the schools competed over possession of this new high-prestige intel-
lectual property.
- The Manu Smriti collected earlier ritual duties and prohibitions, beginning after
200 b.c.e., reaching its final form about 100 c.e. The Yajñavalkya Smriti shows a
more systematic treatment of law, ca. 100–200 c.e. Its attribution to the sage
implies that the Upanishads were being taken into Brahmanical orthodoxy at this
time. Still other rival law books were created around this time by the Vishnu sect
and others. There was an outpouring of law texts in the medieval period, 700–
1200, when Hinduism definitively triumphed over Buddhism (Basham, 1989:
101–103). Manu became regarded as the definitive book of Hindu caste law only
during the British Empire in the 1800s; before that time other works were more
widely used in Hindu legal circles (Doniger, 1991: lx–lxi).
Notes to Pages 206–209^ •^965
