Buddhist Classical Inclusivism and Its Two Varieties

Abstract

Different sorts of deflection concerning the initial and early Buddhism in its attitude to other religious and philosophical Indian traditions interpreted as opened pluralism are identified in this article. In the optics of John Hick, Hans Küng and their followers this attitude has been consciously treated as the univocal antipode to the narrow exclusivism of the Abra­hamic religions, firstly of Christianity, while some other scholars of religion rather sincerely confuse pluralism with inclusivism, which is a missionary incorporation of foreign elements into one’s own. The author offers to differentiate two varieties of the Buddhist inclusivism, one being doctrinal. i.e. interpretation of foreign outlooks as in reality Buddhist but not re­cognized as such, and the other, narrative-mythological. i.e. enlisting of the “top persons” of the Brahmanical pantheon into servants of the Buddha and his disciples. Through exam­ple of a section of the Saṃyutta-Nikāya in the Pāli Canon (this collection of the Buddha’s sermons being translated into Russian for the first time) implementation of Indra, the king of the Vedic gods (together with his retinue) as a preacher of Buddhism (who had prepared himself for this role even in his previous lives) is demonstrated, and description of this com­mitment is characterized as a check sample of the offensive inclusivism adopted success­fully later by Hinduism in competition just with Buddhism in the first place. The author is sure that it can be opposed on the typological level to the “political correct inclusivism” de­veloped by Catholic theologians on the eve and after the Second Vatican council.