Dhammapada och Bergspredikan. En jämförande studie av två levnadsläror

Abstract

In this thesis I am comparing the Sermon on the Mount in the Gospel of Matthew with the Buddhist text Dhammapada. My purpose is to call attention to the similarities and differences between those prescriptive texts. I also want to investigate if there are esoteric thoughts to be found in the two religious works from separate time and culture. My investigation starts by presenting the purpose and questions for my task, before I give details about recent research on esotericism in order to put the esoteric question in focus concerning the Sermon on the Mount and Dhammapada. My main question being if there are esoteric connections to be found in those texts – a matter that has not been researched before. After a presentation of the limits for my investigation and the material I am using, I give a short survey of theory and method before I give an exposition of the Sermon on the Mount and the Dhammapada, The method is partly an analytical comparison in order to show similarities and differences in the texts. Partly also a search for esoteric thoughts by applying theories on esoteric knowledge and hidden secrets to the investigated texts. The result of my examination of the texts shows that there are considerable similarities in the wordings of the Sermon on the Mount and Dhammapada. Regarding esoteric thoughts I can present a few examples indicating esoteric knowledge and assumed secret knowledge in the two written works. In Dhammapada I seem to find a passage of esoteric gnosis, and the Sermon on the Mount shows some examples of hidden esoteric messages My conclusion is that, despite the difference in time and culture, the two investigated religious works contain messages that are very similar and partly almost identical. I also conclude that esoteric thinking can have been a reality in the contextual situation of the Sermon on the Mount but hardly in the Dhammapada. I finally regard my purpose of showing the similarities and differences in the investigated texts as achieved. But regarding the question of esoteric thoughts I must admit that I have found few indications of esoteric content in the Sermon on the Mount, and even fewer in the Dhammapada.