Buddhism: The Transformed Body in Buddhism

Abstract

Buddhism arose in a historical period that also saw the emergence of both a world-denying asceticism and a well-developed system of yoga. Indic religions during the Upaniṣadic period (tenth to fourth century BCE) were grappling with an array of questions concerned with how the body should be regarded: Is there some form of continuing existence after the body dies? Does liberation lie along a path of renunciation that eschews the physical and mortifies the bodily form? Is the deepest identity, the self (ātman), physical (the Jain view) or does it exist only beyond the body (a dominant Hindu view)? Does the religious path require celibacy or a full embrace of the family life?