現地調査の概要

Since this lecture is associated with the festival of Vesak, which celebrates the Buddha's birth, enlightenment and death on the one day, I have taken as my topic why the traditions about these days are different in Theravada Buddhism and Japanese Buddhism. And as my subtheme, "Did Sakyamuni's Saṃgha actually exist?" shows, I suggest that what we should call "Sakyamuni's Saṃgha," a group comprising all ordained Buddhist practitioners of the Saṃgha and all ordained followers in various places, did exist, and I discuss what form it may have taken, and through this, consider the characteristics of Theravada Buddhism.