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| Michael Hahn and Karla Poewe |
Remembered by Karla Poewe
In light of Michael Hahn’s recent death, just a few words about a publication – a popular one as he called it – that he sent us in 2004. The paper deals with handwritten (on palm leaf) Buddhist manuscripts from Nepal, Japan, and Tibet that had previously been thought lost. The manuscripts, which are a work of early classical Sanskrit literature, are a collection of 34 Buddhist legends composed by a largely unknown poet called Haribhaţţa from around 400 years after Christ. Haribhaţţa wrote it in the language of scholars, namely, Sanskrit. Apparently it was translated into Tibetan around the middle of the 12th Century A. D.
What interests me is that the legends deal with 34 incidents of the former existences of Buddha that describe how, with each (new) rebirth, the Buddha’s morality improved further until, by worldly calculation, perfect enlightenment was achieved. The structure of this moral illumination consisted of six cardinal virtues, namely, charity, morality, tolerance, energy, inner composure, and wisdom.
Not being a scholar of Buddhism, what fascinates me is, first, the optimistic idea of moral improvement and, second, the fact that the latter sits on the structural foundation of six very familiar cardinal virtues. In light of the fact that one of the “cardinal virtues” of Islam seems to be the jihad – which was understood as holy war until 1857 – one cannot, as atheists tend to do, relativize all religions as being the same. They clearly are not and the evidence of their difference should be respected.
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| Michael Hahn and Irving Hexham |
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| Michael Hahn |
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