ABSTRACT
At the very beginning of this chapter, a short note of apology seems to be appropriate. When the editor confirmed my positive answer to the invitation to write this contribution, I felt flattered by his words ‘I am glad that you approach the area of Buddhist philosophy not only with a philological and historical interest, but also with a philosophical one – this, after all, makes it really interesting.’ I felt flattered, because in my youth philosophy appeared to me to be the peak of human activities. Throughout my working life, I nonetheless never even came near these high ranges, and while facing the task of preparing this paper I had to admit to myself that my philosophical interest is actually quite minimal by now, and more and more my hopes focus rather on philology strictly speaking, especially when the questions to be addressed are within the framework of ‘Buddhist-Christian Dialogue’. For ‘philology’, as I would like to understand it, is an area of exercise in the never-ending social process of understanding information which originates from human sources with the intention to be understood by another human being, thus providing a basis for a dialogue which aims at mutual understanding rather than at preparing for nonverbal application of sticks or bombs.
