Abstract

Using an example of a transgenerational project from Theravada Buddhism,  the Buddha's Sasana,  this chapter traces one aspect of the place of time in religions, namely "onwardness." The idea of onwardness is derived from Stanley Cavell and this chapter uses the idea to explore how knowledge about a transgenerational project in the past includes an acknowledgement that what was done to care for that project in the past was an act of care also for the person who is receiving it as an inheritance in the present.  The chapter argues that the motive for caring for a transgenerational project in the present, that it should be available to men and women in the future, comes from a fold of onwardness within the pastness of the Sasana itself. 

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