< Issue No. 19 (2024)Article
Self-reflexivity in Early Buddhism
Levman, Bryan G., University of Toronto
Abstract
This study explores the roots of sva-saṃvedana ("the self observing the self") in the Mahāsāṃghika sect which broke away from the Theravādins about one hundred years after the Buddha's parinibbāna. It was one of the many doctrines in which they differed from the Theravādins and an important support to their understanding of the nature of the Buddha's omniscience. Along with many of the other Mahāsāṃghika tenets, the doctrine was rejected by the Theravādin community, who characterized the highest meditative states of absorption as non-dual and unified, without self-awareness, reflexivity or reflectivity.