Eschatology and World Order in Buddhist Formations

Abstract

At the core of Buddhist eschatological tradition is the concept of dharma -an ordering principle of an unending and beginningless universe, oscillating in a “cyclic existence” of creation and dissolution. But how does this cosmological principle shape Buddhist understanding and interpretation of the contemporary world order? This article relates Buddha’s dharma, with its primary themes of suffering and impermanence, to sociopolitical conditions in the realm of human affairs. Pointing out the dichotomy between the mundane (societal) and the super-mundane (cosmological), the article argues that world order is a process of dissolution and re-emergence based on the differentiation of environmental conditions and human dispositions. It concludes that although Buddhist tradition departs from the normal “end of things” eschatology, relative eschatologies have developed within the varied conditions in which Buddhism has flourished.

Millennialism, Charisma and Utopia: Revolutionary Potentialities in Pre-modern Lao and Thai Theravāda Buddhism

“…67 Taking into account that Buddhist eschatologies differ from those of monotheistic religions, James Apple also points to the repetitive processes in which past and future Buddhas appear and suggests that in the case of Buddhism we deal with 'relative eschatologies'. 68 Important for understanding the connection of millennialism, dystopia and utopia is the fact that Buddhist views of history conceptualize these cycles also as a decline of the dhamma. Timothy Barrett writes that 'from very early times, it now seems, Buddhism incorporated into its outlook not simply conceptions of cycles of time vast enough to relativize radically all human strivings, but also pessimistic notions of the ultimate fate of Buddhist belief in the wake of the Buddha's disappearance from our world'.…”