Buddhism in India

The Dhamma 65

for the ‘brothers and sisters of the order’. It is declared that the

Dhamma is not for a small spiritual elite but for the people, in

words that still resound in Indian vernacular languages today:

bahujan hitaya, bahujan sukhaya. The approach was to be broad

and the access universal. As another sutta puts it, ‘just as the river

Ganges slopes, slants and proceeds towards the ocean, so the con-

gregation of the Gotama, the laity as well as the religious, slopes,

slants and proceeds towards nibbana’ (Anguttara NikayaIV). The

Dhamma was also not just a ‘religious’ teaching which outlined the

way to Enlightenment for the seeking individual: it was in effect (if

not in the intention of most of the historical forms of Buddhism) a

prescription for the remodeling of society.

The society of the first millennium BCE as experienced by Gotama

was dual; it consisted of ‘householders’, who lived in the world as

they found it, and the ‘homeless’ samanas, who sought answers to

the meaning of life. The world of householders was one of bondage

to social responsibility and the inevitable responsibility for ‘sorrow’

that involved; the world of the samanas was free from these but at

the same time was characterised by extreme turmoil and normless-

ness, anomie, and the conflict of ‘views’, i.e., esoteric philosophical

wrangling with each leader proclaiming to be in possession of the

truth. They represented, in other words, the ‘extremes’ which the

middle path sought to avoid. In prescribing the middle path,

the Buddha offered a reconstruction both for world of householders,

kings, nobles and workers and for the life of the samanas, in the

shape of the Bhikku Sangha.

What was taught by the Buddha to every individual or group

varied according to the ability of the individual or group to com-

prehend. For instance, in the Mahaparinibbana Sutta, the Buddha

teaches the Pataligama householders simply that ‘rectitude’ (right-

eousness) will have its worldly and otherworldly rewards (great

wealth, good repute, ability to stand up in society, lack of anxiety

at death, and a good rebirth), while the lack of rectitude will have

the opposite effect. This was not an outline of the full path to

liberation but a fairly simple summary of a social ethics outlined in

terms of the kind of rewards that householders steeped in the

demands of mundane life might consider important. While there

were other teachings for householders which emphasise morality

much more; teachings for Brahmans sometimes emphasised a

goal of ‘union with Brahma’. It appears that the Buddha left no

framework of his time, the karma–rebirth frame, and ethicised it. In
calling this ethicisation ‘a turning point in the history of civilisation’,
Gombrich (1997: 51) has pointed to the unique contribution of
Buddhism.

The Sangha and Society

In the long and important Mahaparinibbana Sutta, there is a
detailed account of the many actions and words of the Buddha in
the last three months leading up to his death. He addressed the
householders (apparently mostly farmers) of Pataligama; he
responded to the question of Vassakara, prime minister of Magadha,
about the strength of the Vajjian oligarchical confederation, describ-
ing in the process their collective decision-making which in some
ways served as a model for the Sangha itself. He accepted the dinner
invitation of the courtesan Ambapalli in spite of the competitive
claims of the Licchavis; he had many discussions with Anand; and
gave many final discourses to sets of bhikkus; and finally he ate the
fatal meal given by the artisan, Cunda.
This itself illustrates the range of people and the range of concerns
the Buddha dealt with. In the course the three months, after the most
momentous conversation with Ananda, when the evil being Mara
tries to bring about his death, the Buddha says,

I shall not die, O Evil One! Until the brethren and sisters of the order,

and until the lay-disciples of either sex shall have become true hearers,

wise and well-trained, ready and learned, versed in the Scriptures,

fulfilling all the greater and lesser duties, correct in life, walking according

to the precepts – until they, having thus themselves learned the doctrine,

shall be able to tell others of it, preach it, make it known, establish it,

open it, minutely explain it and make it clear – until they, when others

start vain doctrine, shall be able by the truth to vanquish and refute it,

and so to spread the wonder-working truth abroad! (II, 3).

This reiterates what the Buddha is supposed to have said at the
beginnings of his teaching career, when the bhikkus are sent forth:
‘Go ye now, O Bhikkus, and wander for the gain of many, for the
welfare of many, out of compassion for the world....’ (Mahavagga,
I, 11, 1). Thus, the Dhamma is not simply for those who leave the
life of the householder, but for all, for the lay disciples as well as

64 Buddhism in India