Is Dependent Origination a parody of Vedic cosmology?

Bhikkhu Sunyo

In an influential article published in the Journal of the Pali Text Society in 2000, Joanna Jurewicz suggests that the Buddha’s teaching of Dependent Origination is a polemic response to Vedic myths about the creation of the universe.‍‍[1] Various scholars have voiced their acceptance of this idea: most notably Richard Gombrich and more recently, though much more tangentially, Venerable Anālayo.‍‍[2] Having had a closer look myself, I am not convinced. I think Jurewicz’ conclusions are based on evidence too inferential to support them. When the Buddha parodied Vedic creation myths, he did so much more directly, and not in Dependent Origination.

I agree there are some Brahmanic influences on Dependent Origination, most prominently in the factor of nāma­rūpa and its relation to viññāṇa. However, I think Jurewicz overreaches when she suggests that the Buddha formed the whole teaching specifically as a reply to Vedic cosmogenesis. She suggests that the underlying concepts of the two are similar, the only meaningful difference being that the Buddha didn’t suppose a self. As she paraphrases him: “That’s right, this is how the whole process develops [as the Vedic texts supposedly teach]. However, the only problem is that no one undergoes a transformation here.”

In her introduction Jurewicz says that the interpretation of Dependent Origination should remain within the scope of Buddhology. The domain of the Buddhists apparently only goes so far, for the very next paragraph claims that Dependent Origination is about subject-object cognition. Later it is also stated that the factor of craving “is the craving for continued subject-object acts”. Venerable Anālayo already critiqued such views (although without reference to Jurewicz): “The subject-object duality is not problematized in early Buddhist thought.”‍‍[3] It also is not how Dependent Origination is generally understood, certainly not in the most widely accepted interpretation: the so-called three-lifetime model, which understands Dependent Origination to focus on rebirth. Its most relative craving is that for existence, not that for “subject-object acts” (whatever they may be). Whether the Vedic creation myths are metaphors for subject-object cognition, I am not the right person to judge, but at present I am unconvinced by this as well. The myths certainly can be interpreted more literally, as describing the origination of the universe and life within it. As far as I am aware, this is how Vedic scholars generally interpret them. Be that as it may, differing with Buddhist tradition on the fundamentals, the parallels drawn by Jurewicz already don’t start off very persuasively.

But we encounter a much bigger problem: Occam’s Razor has been left forgotten in its case. As Occam and many others before him told us, the preferred conclusion is the one with the simplest assumptions based on the available data. This is not what is happening in this article, where minor similarities between texts are taken as significant confirmations of the hypothesis. The connections are all deemed “too evident to be pure coincidence”, supposed to have been deliberately made by the Buddha. Yet no other possible mechanisms are even considered.

There is a much less weighty explanation for most apparent connections between Buddhist Dependent Origination and Vedic cosmogenesis. The two religions shared an identical social milieu and language, so they naturally used similar words in a similar context; this context being the creation of life. For example, the term saṅkhāra is also used in an everyday sense in the suttas, such as for the creation of a medicine or raft.‍‍[4] According to Monier-Williams the Sanskrit saṃskāra has similar uses.‍‍[5] So it is very possible that the Buddhists and Brahmins independently decided to use this term to describe the creation of life. Then there are words like existence, birth, and death, which are commonplace when speaking about life. Their shared usage also cannot evidence a direct doctrinal connection between the two religions.

Setting aside the supposed doctrinal connection, the link between ignorance and saṅkhāra suggested to be present in the Vedic texts is already highly inferential by itself. A metaphorical description of the Creator god Prajāpati eating cooked animals is taken to represent him uniting with fire, which is taken to refer to the loss of subject-object duality, which is taken to stand for ignorance. Since Jurewicz does not reference others, I would like to know if other Vedic scholars have even taken the step of linking the story to subject-object duality, let alone linking it to ignorance.

The term saṅkhāra is also very rare in this context in the Vedic texts, which for ‘create’ usually use words from the root sṛj.‍‍[6] The Buddha never uses such words when teaching Dependent Origination. This is not what we should expect if he was indeed parodying Vedic creation myths and was aware of their specific terminology.

Likewise for the word nidāna, which Jurewicz thinks is “surely significant”. It is also used in a phrases which have no link with Dependent Origination, such as ‘from Sāvatthī’ (Sāvatthi-nidānaṃ).‍‍[7] The word just seems a natural pick if you want to talk about the origin of something. I fail to see how it would be of such significance, even more so because Jurewicz only finds one direct reference in the entire Vedic corpus and only two loose connections with somewhat synonymous terms.

It also begs the question. Did Buddha the even know all these specific Vedic passages? It appears to be assumed, but to me it seems improbable, given that no Vedic text is ever quoted verbatim in the Buddhist discourses. Having a general knowledge of these texts—which most scholars agree the Buddha did have—is very different from knowing the exact terminology they employed in rare occasions in their creation myths.

Some of the connections made are even looser. Sometimes they are almost solely based on encountering the same grammatical root of a word in both corpuses, as with vid for vedāna. In other instances the word isn’t even found in the Vedic text at all, as with ignorance (avidyā). It’s only an assumption that the Buddha used it to refer to certain Vedic ideas.

Here the article further shows its confirmation bias. It’s true, the Nāsadīya Sukta of the Rig Veda may describe the Creator to have no knowledge (although it actually just wonders whether he didn’t). However, the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad says he did have knowledge before creation. And unlike the Nāsadīya it actually uses the word vidya (Pali vijjā).‍‍[8] Jurewicz mentions this text but concludes it instead implies a-vidyā, because the Creator only knew himself and not the objects. This is inferring things that aren’t actually said.

If the Buddha was replying to Brahmanism with the term avijjā, he more likely parodied the textual knowledge of the priests—an important concept found all throughout the Vedic texts—not a supposed cognitive inability of the Creator that is at best only hinted at here and there. The suttas repeatedly and directly mock knowledge of the three Vedas by contrasting it with the Buddha’s threefold knowledge (te-vijjā = “three-veda”).‍‍[9] In one such case the Brahmin being mocked is even called Three Ears: an obvious pun. The discourses don’t tend to hide the irony when it’s intended, is what I’m saying. Dependent Origination, on the other hand, is never presented in such a way.

The connection Jurewicz suggest for the factor of craving is especially indirect. This I consider especially problematic for her overall argument, since craving has a central place in the Buddha’s second truth, of which Dependent Origination is an expansion.‍‍[10] Jurewicz supposes that the rays the Vedic poets send forth at creation stand for semen, which implies a sexual act, which implies craving…. With this kind of reasoning we can connect just about any passage together. Now, this may be fine for us to do. But the supposition here is that the Buddha made the exact same connections.

That both traditions use fire as a metaphor also does not mean they refer to the same concepts. It just shows that fire was an important part of society, where most food, warmth, and light depended on it. It was something all listeners could directly relate to, whether they were Brahmins or Buddhists. The Buddha supposedly picked this metaphor to refer to the “fiery activity of the [Vedic] poets burning the world in the cosmogenic act of cognition”. This is not a “distinct” reference. It’s searching for parallels where none exist.

The factor of phassa (contact) is not discussed at all.

So, while Jurewicz makes a few pertinent points, on the whole these are not particularly “striking similarities”. Imagine a society similar to 500 BC India, one the Buddha never lived in or heard about. It also had a variety of authors composing religious texts in Sanskrit, leaving us a similarly huge body of works where “creation is described in metaphors which have many semantic layers”, as Jurewicz says. I would be very surprised if someone set to discover them wouldn’t find parallels with Dependent Origination that appear just as striking. Case in point, back in 1971 Alex Wayman already suggested Dependent Origination to be a parody of Brahmanic cosmology. However, most connections he made are very different from those of Jurewicz.‍‍[11]

I also can’t accept that such a central principle—one which the Buddha is said to have discovered at the night of his awakening and which he said others could also discover afterwards—would be little more than a parody of cosmological ideas. It would have made these teachings largely meaningless for all but the most well-educated Brahmins. Jurewicz says the Buddha addressed “educated people well versed in Brāhmaṇic thought”‍‍[12] who presumably were able to recognize the exact Vedic ideas being satirized with a mere sequence of twelve words (ignorance and so on). I disagree. Dependent Origination never was a parody of Vedic creation myths.

A passage in the Brahmajāla Sutta, however, does parody such creation myths. Jurewicz surprisingly doesn’t mention it, so let me discuss it briefly. For comparison, below are first two passages from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad. Both anthropomorphize the panpsychic essence of brahman into a personal god, much like the Brahmā of the Buddhist texts, which may or may not be allegorical.‍‍[13]

In the beginning this world was only brahman, and it knew only itself (ātman), thinking: “I am brahman.” […] In the beginning this world was only the self (ātman), only one. He had this desire: “I wish I had a wife so I could father offspring.”‍‍[14]

In the beginning this world was just a single body (ātman) shaped like a man. He looked around and saw nothing but himself. The first thing he said was, “Here I am!” […] That first being became afraid […]. He found no pleasure at all; so [therefore now too] one finds no pleasure when one is alone. He wanted to have a companion.‍‍[15]

Out of his wish for company brahman then created other beings.

The thought “I am Brahmā”, the anxiety of loneliness, the wish for company, the creation of other beings—we find all these ideas in the Buddha’s parody:

Because his life-span or merit runs out, a certain being passes on from the company of radiant gods and is reborn in the empty mansion of Brahmā. There he is mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the sky, ever glorious. He exists there for a very long period of time. But after staying there alone for a long time, he becomes dissatisfied and anxious, thinking: “Oh, if only other beings would come to exist here too!” Then, because their life-span or merit runs out, other beings pass on from the company of radiant gods and are reborn in the mansion of Brahmā too, in the company of that being. They too are mind-made, feeding on delight, self-luminous, moving through the sky, ever glorious. They exist there for a very long period of time.

Then that being who was reborn there first thinks: “I am Brahmā, the Great Brahmā, the Champion, the Undefeated, the Universal Seer, the Wielder of Power, the Lord, the Maker, the Creator, the Best, the Emanator, the Almighty, the Father of all who are and will be. These beings were created by me. Why? Because I first had the wish, ‘Oh, if only other beings would come to exist here too!’ And then these beings came to exist here.’”‍‍[16]

Just imagine being a Brahmin listening to this! The satire is hard to miss,‍‍[17] which illustrates what I mentioned before: when the Buddha lampooned other ideas, he didn’t tend to hide it. The concepts being addressed are also much more apparent than those suggested by Jurewicz. They can be understood by a wider public, not just educated Brahmins.

To point out some of the ideas behind the actual parody:

Many of these ideas are also central tenets of Dependent Origination: the inevitability of death, the endless cyclical nature of life, the inability to find a state of everlasting existence, the being’s own responsibility for rebirth, etc.

The parody also gives us an idea of how the Buddha’s soteriology (his ideas on liberation) differed from the Upaniṣads. To Upaniṣadic Brahmins, a state of nāmarūpa-less consciousness in union with brahman was the end goal. To the Buddha, there was no such state. I believe this difference is actually responsible, at least partly, for the inclusion of nāmarūpa in Dependent Origination.‍‍[19] This connection between the two traditions has been suggested by others before, and the evidence for it is quite persuasive.

However, the connections made in Jurewicz’ article are of a different nature, being too loose.

Notes

  1. Jurewicz ↩︎

  2. Gombrich 2009 p.127; Anālayo 2018. Also Jones p.252. ↩︎

  3. Anālayo 2021 p.108 ↩︎

  4. Snp 1.2 ↩︎

  5. Monier-Williams ↩︎

  6. E.g. in BU 1.4.5, BU 1.4.12, BU 1.5.21, BU 5.8.1, and TU 1.1. ↩︎

  7. E.g. SN 1.2 ↩︎

  8. RV 10.129; BU 1.4.9 ↩︎

  9. For example SN 7.8, AN 3.58 (on Three Ears), AN 3.59, Iti 99, MN 91, Snp 3.9, and Thag 3.1. See also Gombrich 1980 p.29. ↩︎

  10. See AN 3.61 ↩︎

  11. Wayman p.198 ↩︎

  12. Jurewicz p.179 ↩︎

  13. See also Gombrich 1980 p.21 and Ellis p.220. ↩︎

  14. BU 1.4.14–‍17, translation Olivelle ↩︎

  15. BU 1.4.1, translation Olivelle ↩︎

  16. DN 1 at I 18, DN 24 at III 29 ↩︎

  17. See also Gombrich 2009 p.183 ↩︎

  18. E.g. Keith p.415, Jayatilleke, Joshi p.18, Warder p.22, Reat p.163, Doniger p.3, Jaini in Doniger p.218, Flood p.86, Masih 2000a p.37, Bronkhorst p.75, and Dhammika p.6. ↩︎

  19. See also Sunyo. ↩︎

References

Anālayo 2018
Rebirth in Early Buddhism and Current Research (pdf edition), Bhikkhu Anālayo, 2018.
Anālayo 2021
‘Clearing the Path Continues: Notes on Ñāṇavīra Thera’s ‘Notes of Dhamma’’ in Journal of Journal of Buddhist Studies vol.18, Bhikkhu Anālayo, 2021.
Bronkhorst
Greater Magadha: studies in the culture of early India, Johannes Bronkhorst, 2007.
Dhammika
Good Karma! Bad Karma! What Exactly is Karma?, S. Dhammika, 2015.
Doniger
Karma and Rebirth in Classical Indian Traditions, Wendy Doniger O'Flaherty (ed.), 1980.
Ellis
Early Buddhism and its Relation to Brahmanism: a comparative and doctrinal investigation, Gabriel Ellis, 2021.
Flood
An Introduction to Hinduism, Gavin D. Flood, 1996.
Gombrich 1980
How Buddhism Began: the conditioned genesis of the early teachings, R.F. Gombrich, 1980.
Gombrich 2009
What the Buddha Thought, R.F. Gombrich, 2009.
Jayatilleke
‘Survival and Karma in Buddhist Perspective’ in The Wheel vol.141–‍143, K.N. Jayatilleke, 1969.
Jones
‘New Light on the Twelve Nidānas’ in Contemporary Buddhism vol.10.2, Dhivan Thomas Jones, 2009.
Joshi
‘Brahmanism, Buddhism, and Hinduism: An Essay on Their Origins and Interactions’ in The Wheel vol.150–‍151, Lal Mani Joshi, 1970.
Jurewicz
‘Playing with Fire: the pratītyasamutpāda from the perspective of Vedic thought’ in Journal of the Pali Text Society vol.26 pp.77–‍103, Joanna Jurewicz, 2000.
Keith
The Religion and Philosophy of the Veda and Upanishads, Arthur Berriedale Keith, 1925.
Masih 2000a
‘A Comparative Study of Religions’ in Buddhist Studies in Honour Of I.B. Horner, Masih, 2000a.
Masih 2000b
A Comparative Study of Religions, Masih, 2000b.
Monier-Williams
A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (New Edition), Monier Monier-Williams, 1899-1986.
Olivelle
The Early Upaniṣads, Patrick Olivelle, 1998.
Reat
‘Karma and Rebirth in the Upaniṣads and Buddhism’ in Numen vol.24.3 pp.163–‍185, Noble Ross Reat, 1977.
Sunyo
Seeds, Paintings and a Beam of Light: similes for Dependent Arising, Bhikkhu Sunyo, 2024.
Warder
Indian Buddhism, A.K. Warder, 1970.
Wayman
‘Buddhist Dependent Origination’ in History of Religions vol.10.3 pp.185–‍203, Alex Wayman, 1971.

Abbreviations

AN 
Aṅguttara Nikāya
BU 
Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad
DN 
Dīgha Nikāya
Iti 
Itivuttaka
Kd 
Pali Khandhaka
MN 
Majjhima Nikāya
SN 
Saṃyutta Nikāya
Snp 
Sutta Nipāta
Thag 
Theragāthā
TU 
Taittirīya Upaniṣad

Colophon

First published in 2023 on SuttaCentral. Updated and published here in 2026.

To the extent possible under law, Bhikkhu Sunyo has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to this work. You may copy, modify, and distribute this work in any shape or form, without asking permission. Full license at creativecommons.org.