Buddhism in India

The Dhamma 75

particular he provides protection but does not bestow wealth, and

so poverty becomes widespread. A theft takes place. The first time,

when the king learns that it has happened because the man cannot

support his family, he tries to ease the situation by giving wealth to

the thief to maintain himself and his family, but on hearing this

some people decide that stealing is profitable. Theft continues. The

king then concludes that he cannot resolve the problem this way

and turns to punishment. But, in contrast to the tendency in the

Brahmanic stories to emphasise punishment, punishment in the

Buddhist story only leads to the thieves taking up arms, and thus

to violence, disorder, murder, and the continuous diminution

of life-span, along with evil speaking, lying, adultery, immorality,

incest, all forms of human wickedness. The very taste of good food

disappears; human relationships vanish and the world falls into

promiscuity.

The obvious message of the story is that the Buddhist state

should be a welfare state, that is, it must bestow wealth upon the

destitute. However, there is a subterranean message that illustrates

the inadequacy of simple subsidies: giving money to the thief leads

to more theft because people see it doubly in their self-interest to

steal! Ambedkar, who tells this story in his ‘The Buddha and Karl

Marx’, emphasizes another aspect still, the necessity for a moral

code covering not just the king but all citizens of the state:

This is probably the finest picture of what happens when moral force

fails and brutal force takes its place. What the Buddha wanted was

that each man should be morally trained that he may himself become

a sentinel for the kingdom of righteousness (Ambedkar 1987: 459).

While the Buddhist tradition can be said to be grappling with the

problem of individual and public responsibility in crime and the

way in which society could deal with it, there is, notably, no simi-

lar text in Brahmanical literature that even considers ‘bestowing

wealth on the destitute’.

The propagators of the Buddhist Dhamma were quite conscious

that in contrast with that of Brahmanism they were offering an ethics

for the state. This is seen in two Jatakas. In the long one dealing

with the ideological contestation with Brahmanism, the reference is

to ‘The Brahman’s Veda, Khattiya’s polity’ which victimise society

(#543). What this ‘Khattiya polity’ means is defined in another

renouncing his throne, in the Buddhist literature the Boddhisattva
is often shown as an ideal cakkavatti king ruling over a golden age.
There is a parallelism between the world of the householders and
the world leading to nirvana. The cakkavatti is conceived of as
protecting dhamma, as holding power (he has a ‘four-fold army’)
but he rules without requiring this use of force. The problem of
order in society is recognised, and is the central responsibility of
the king—but again, is to be primarily solved without force and
punishment. As the Kutadanata Suttahas it,

Now there is one method to adopt to put a thorough end to this

disorder. Whosoever there may be in the king’s realm who devote

themselves to keeping cattle and the farm, to them let his majesty the

king give food and seed-corn. Whosoever there may be in the king’s

realm who devote themselves to trade, to them let his majesty the king

give capital. Whoever there may be in the king’s realm who devote

themselves to government service, to them let his majesty the king give

wages and food. Then those men, following each his own business,

will no longer harass the realm; the king’s revenue will go up; the

country will be quiet and at peace; and the populace, pleased with one

another and happy, dancing their children in their arms, will dwell

with open doors (Digha Nikaya I, 11).

This depicts a society without much servitude, one of traders, farmers
and government employees. Except for the absence of factories, it
has a very ‘modern’ ring to it.
The ideal Buddhist ruler is called upon to actively intervene to
prevent impoverishment, to help the destitute. This is the theme of
the Cakkavatti Suttantaof the Digha Nikayain which poverty
comes to exist in a kingdom because wealth has not been given to
the destitute. The full story begins with an ideal king, who finds
after many thousand years of rule that the celestial wheel has
slipped a little. He sees this as an indication that his time is up, and
becomes a renouncer, giving the throne to his eldest son. Then the
wheel disappears. The son seeks advice of a ‘royal hermit’, and is
urged to carry out the duties of the monarch, that is, to be a moral
example himself, to provide protection for all in the kingdom, to
prevent wrong-doing, and to give wealth to whoever is poor. This
is done, the kingdom goes on, the wheel returns. But, after many
repetitions of this there comes a time when the king does not
inquire about his duty but rather ‘governs by his own ideas’; in

74 Buddhism in India