Early Doctrines and Concepts of Indian Materialism Preserved in the Chinese Buddhist Canon

This article tries to show how early elements of the Chinese Buddhist Canon can expand our understanding of the concepts and tenets of ancient Indian materialism. To assist in this understanding, the doctrines of the five ancient, renowned heretical teachers as preserved in the Shamenguo Jing, the closest Chinese parallel of the Samaññaphala Sutta, are juxtaposed with the latter and philosophically analyzed. For the study of early concepts, the current works are first critically analyzed and substantiated by relevant materials surviving only in the Chinese Buddhist Canon. The four-fold categories of practitioners, Śramaṇas, Brāhmaṇas, Carakas, and Parivrājakas, appear in an Āgama sūtra as well as some early Mahāyāna sūtras preserved in Chinese, and this contrasts with the Śramaṇas-Brāhmaṇas classification found in the Pāli Canon as well as with other Indic sources. The presence of the term caraka—itinerant practitioner of medicine—in the older strata of the Chinese Buddhist Canon also merits scholarly attention, especially since this term is entirely absent from the Pāli Buddhist Canon.