Abstract:

The Brahmajāla Sutta includes a list of ‘views’ that are wrong in some sense. The present paper turns the focus away from the content of the views to ask in what sense they are problematic, by what criteria they are here found to be so, and, indeed, just what kinds of things the views are. The frameword in which the views are set suggests that what the Buddha finds problematic is not the content so much as the epistemological standpoint, or, more properly, the mode-of-being of which the views are a part: it is the samaṇa-brāmaṇas who proclaim the views rather than the views per se that are wrong.

Author: Stephen A. Evans