karma and fate. The Buddha developed this conception into a system-ground-
ing category of dependent origination, drawing out the connection between
universal causality and the transitoriness and ultimate unreality of a world
composed of aggregations. The philosophical creativity of the Buddha is in
raising these ingredients from his surrounding network into a rationalized
position on a higher level of abstraction and coherence.
- Organizationally, the new monastic movements were a sharp departure
from the usual life of the shramanas. The Buddhists were the first organization
with formal rules and a collective identity. They met in local communities and
sometimes in pan-community councils, and subordinated individual members
to the sangha, the body as a whole. (Chakravarti, 1987: 46–64; Hirakawa,
1990). Although the Buddha is a charismatic leader, he pushes his organization
away from personal followership. Instead of naming a successor, he admon-
ishes the monks to be “lamps unto themselves,” focused on the teachings and
collective practices. It is indicative that the first teachings which his followers
collected were not the philosophical doctrines but the Vinaya, the disciplinary
rules of the monks. The Jainas (and apparently the Ajivikas; see Basham, 1951)
also formulated similar rules centered on monastic community government. In
contrast, the other shramanas had consisted of personal followings of particu-
lar teachers; they were purely charismatic movements, unable to outlive their
leaders.
This tendency toward an autonomous collective identity was reinforced as
the Buddhists and Jainas acquired property. Property-holding was contrary to
the basic stance of shramana lifestyle, the rejection of householding; neverthe-
less, there was already a custom of kings and pious laypeople providing groves
or buildings for the wandering ascetics to use for their meetings and rainy
season retreats. Wandering seekers often moved from one teacher to another,
and the shramana stratum as a whole seems to have mingled rather promis-
cuously in such places. The Buddhists now pulled apart, acquiring retreats
set aside for themselves alone, and formulated rules as to how the members
of their communities were to comport themselves (Dutt, 1962: 53–57; Wi-
jayaratna, 1990). Although the Buddhists stressed the renunciation of individ-
ual property, they also formed organized settlements, and from a very early
period—the Buddha’s own lifetime—acquired considerable collective property
in the important kingdoms. The early Jainas were rivals of the Buddhists in
the same locations, such as Nalanda in Magadha, and in Vesali, capital of a
nearby rival kingdom to whose royal house Mahavira was related; and this
institutional competition must have been part of the engine of growth in both
movements.^22 - The Buddhists became the most successful movement because they were
oriented toward acquiring the largest social base. Buddhism calls itself the
External and Internal Politics: India • 203