Cross Currents in Early Buddhism

The book is organized into three main sections and eleven chapters. Section A, “Genesis and Growth of Controversies,” studies the Kathāvatthu, its place in the Buddhist canon, its compilation, date, and the growth of early Buddhist schools. Chapter 1 examines the Kathāvatthu and its controversies, while Chapter 2 discusses the emergence and development of early Buddhist sects and schools. Section B, “Controversies Reflecting Religious Ideals of the Mahāsāṃghikas,” analyzes doctrinal positions associated with the Mahāsāṃghikas and related currents, including the ideal of the arhat, the challenge to that ideal, the apotheosis of the Buddha, spiritual stages and attainments, and the Buddhist doctrine of spiritual inefficiency. Section C, “Controversies Reflecting Philosophical Development and the Beginning of New Schools,” turns to more technical doctrinal debates. It discusses the soul theory or Pudgalavāda, the Sarvāstivāda-Saṃkrāntivāda doctrine of “everything exists,” impermanence and other modes of conditioned reality, the problem of the unconditioned, and psycho-ethical controversies preserved in the Kathāvatthu. Through this structure, the work reconstructs the intellectual climate of early Buddhism and shows how doctrinal debate became a major engine of Buddhist philosophical development.