Early Indian and Theravada Buddhism: Soteriological Controversy a ...

indebted to their studies for my own understanding in this area. What will be provided here is further evidence for the position that in the early tradition there was not just one path to nibbāna but a small yet significant variety of options available to the practitioner pursuing the final goal. The purpose here is to “deconstruct” the tradition in the sense of revealing it in its essential multiplicity. In this sense, I will not endeavor here to engage in yet another exercise in reconstructing some essential “original Buddhism.” Whereas I agree with the current consensus that says, given the available materials, such a reconstruction is impossible, I also believe the textual evidence can lead us to a reasonably clear picture of the character and shape of early Buddhism. This end will be worked toward by examining a relatively unexplored but important aspect of Buddhist soteriological schemes: the categorization of advanced adepts into various classes of ideal spiritual types, known in the tradition as “noble persons” (ariya-puggala). As Buswell and Gimello pointed out, it is clear in the earliest phases of Buddhist soteriological inquiry and throughout the history of the tradition that for all their tendencies toward impersonal discourse (in the Abhidhamma traditions, for example), Buddhists have had difficulty conceiving of mārga, or the “path” to nibbāna’s liberation, in purely theoretical and generic terms apart from ideal images of persons who either had traversed it or were thought capable of doing so.⁵ Early Buddhists often defined both the path and the goal explicitly in terms of ideal persons, and when such personalized accounts were challenged by impersonal alternative definitions, the personalized accounts often prevailed.⁶ It is also worth noting here, as this study examines the highly schematized descriptions of the different ideal types and their corresponding stages of spiritual progress, that it is possible they may not have always had direct connections with real problems or experiences in the lives of actual persons.⁷ They may apply only analogically and normatively, prompting practitioners to mold their own life experiences according to the ideals of their religious heritage.⁸ Buswell and Gimello further pointed out that both practical and ideal versions of the path serve important purposes in Buddhist traditions. On