Harvey, Peter. An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics: Foundations,
Values and Issues.Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University
Press, 2000.
Heinemann, Robert K. Der Weg des Übens im ostasiatischen Ma-
hayana.Wiesbaden, Germany: Harrassowitz, 1979.
Lang, Karen C. “Aryadeva and Candrakrti on the Dharma of
Kings.” Asiatische Studien46, no. 1 (1992): 232–243.
Schmidt-Leukel, Perry. “Das Problem von Gewalt und Krieg in
der Buddhistischen Ethik.” Dialog der Religionen6, no. 2
(1996): 122–140.
Schmithausen, Lambert. “Aspects of the Buddhist Attitude to-
wards War.” In Violence Denied: Violence, Non-Violence and
the Rationalization of Violence in South Asian Cultural His-
tory,ed. Jan E. M. Houben and Karel R. Van Kooij. Boston,
Leiden, and Cologne: Brill, 1999.
Tatz, Mark, trans. Asanga’s Chapter on Ethics with the Com-
mentary of Tsong-Kha-Pa, the Basic Path to Awakening, the
Complete Bodhisattva.Lewiston, NY: Mellen Press, 1986.
Victoria, Brian. Zen at War.New York and Tokyo: Weatherhill,
1997.
Woodward, Frank L., trans. The Book of the Kindred Sayings or
Grouped Suttas: Samyutta-Nikaya,5 vols. London: Pali Text
Society, 1917–1930.
Zimmermann, Michael. “A Mahayanist Criticism of Artha-
s ́astra: The Chapter on Royal Ethics in the Bodhisattva-
gocaropaya-vinaya-vikurvana-nirdes ́a-sutra.” Annual Report
of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhol-
ogy at Soka University for the Academic Year 1999(2000):
177–211.
MICHAELZIMMERMANN
WILDERNESS MONKS
Wilderness plays three roles in early Buddhist texts: a
place, a mode of livelihood, and an attitude toward
practice. First, the wilderness is a place whose solitude,
dangers, and rugged beauty provide an ideal environ-
ment for practice. The Buddha himself is said to have
gained BODHI(AWAKENING) in the wilderness and to
have encouraged his disciples to practice there as well.
Monks could wander there during the dry season and
settle there any time of the year. Nuns, though for-
bidden from settling or wandering alone in the wilder-
ness, were required to go on a brief group wilderness
tour annually after the Rains Retreat.
In addition to its role as a place, the wilderness func-
tioned as a mode of livelihood. Monks and nuns, wher-
ever they lived, were forbidden from engaging in the
activities—farming, herding, and mercantile trade—
that historically have set domestic civilization apart
from the wilderness life of hunters and gatherers. Third
and most important, monks and nuns were enjoined
to cultivate wilderness as an attitude, an inner solitude
and non-complacency transcending all external envi-
ronments. Combined, this attitude and mode of liveli-
hood provided the means by which Buddhist
monastics were taught to straddle the line between civ-
ilization and the wilds.
Nevertheless, early texts show a division between
monks who specialized in living either in the cities or
in the wilderness. Although the portrayal of each type
mixes criticism with praise, wilderness or forest monks
on the whole enjoy the better press. MAHAKAS ́YAPA, one
of the Buddha’s strictest and most respected disciples,
is their model and ideal type, whereas city monks can
claim no similar exemplar. Wherever the two types are
directly compared—as in the accounts of the contro-
versy at Kaus ́amband of the Second Council—city
monks are portrayed as intent on comfort and politi-
cal power, contentious, unscrupulous, and undisci-
plined. The monks in Vais ́al, whose behavior sparks
the Second Council, are lax in their observance of the
VINAYA(monastic rules). The Kaus ́ambmonks, hav-
ing split over a minor infraction, abuse the Vinaya to
create an escalating war of accusations. Wilderness
monks, in contrast, are portrayed as harmonious and
unassuming, earnest meditators, strict and wise in their
discipline.
The first praise for city monks appears in early MA-
HAYANAtexts. Whereas conservative versions of the
bodhisattva path, derived from the early canons, take
the wilderness monk living strictly by the Vinaya as
their exemplar, more radical versions extol the city
monk living in luxury as one who is not to be judged
by outside appearances.
There are also reports, beginning with the early
canons, of wilderness monks gone bad, using the psy-
chic powers developed in their meditation for their in-
dividual fame and fortune to the detriment of the
SAN ̇GHA(monastic community) as a whole. Although
jealous city monks may have concocted these reports,
they speak to a fear that has repeatedly been borne out
in Buddhist history: that the respect shown for wilder-
ness monks could create an opening for abuse. This
possibility, combined with a general mistrust for the
wilderness and the misfits who tended to settle there,
led to an ambivalent attitude toward wilderness monks,
which vacillated between reverence and wariness. Dur-
ing periods of relative stability, the uncertainty as to
whether wilderness monks were charlatans, saints, or
insane tended to discourage contact with them.WILDERNESSMONKS