Buddhism in India

The Dhamma 77

Another sutta in the Sutta Nipata, the Vasalasutta, makes the same

point that whether a person is a ‘wastrel’ is also determined by

action, not birth; and in doing so it uses the example of Matanga, the

son of a Chandala, who wins glory, fame and paradise by his actions

and in the process draws masses of Brahmans and Khattiyas to

serve him.

The Buddha’s most important adversaries were the Brahmans,

the most powerful social group of his time and the aspiring builders

of a very different kind of civilisation and religious tradition. His

handling of them reflects his awareness of this. Brahmans are

treated with respect; they are depicted as coming to the Buddha for

advice and support; they are described as being converted and

recognising his greatness—just as the main Brahmanic gods are

described. At the same time, the major characteristics of their social

power—the ritual, the sacrifice, and the ascription of human beings

to categories according to their birth—are strongly contested.

Typical of his handling of Brahmans is another sutta in the Sutta

Nipata, ‘Brahmanism’s Golden Age’ (Brahmanadhammika Sutta).

Here the Buddha describes the original state of Brahmans as one of

rectitude and simple living; sacrifices were indeed held, but only

ghee, rice and other goods were used, not living beings. Brahmans

lived as celibates for 48 years before they marry and then living

faithfully with one wife in love-marriages, not with purchased

brides. After this, the Buddha tells us, corruption came and Brahmans

become desirous of wealth and tempt kings into spending huge

amounts on brutal sacrifices of animal and human beings. This

results in an overwhelming degradation. Here respect is proclaimed

for the Brahman ideal while showing in detail how this ideal is

divorced from the actuality of Brahman practices in his day. The

same appropriation of the ideal, interpreted as a life of simplicity and

rectitude, is seen in the way in which he sometimes uses the term

‘Brahman’ along with ‘samana’ to describe the bhikku as an ideal

human being.

Many examples of Brahmans converting are shown, the most

famous example being that of Bavari. He is depicted as a wealthy

and powerful householder, living on the banks of the Godavari in

what is now Maharashtra, who sends a group of his followers to

meet the Buddha and seek his help in dealing with a threat made by

a rogue against him. (This is taken as evidence for the early pene-

tration of Buddhism into Maharashtra). The followers ask many

Jataka (#528) in which five evil doctrines are refuted. These are the
denial of karma, the assertion about the existence of a supreme
being, the ‘doctrine of previous actions’ (determinism), the belief
that a person is annihilated at death, and the ‘Kshatriya doctrine’
that ‘a man must serve his own interests, even should he have to kill
his own father’ or other kinsmen. This is evidently a reference to the
swadharmaof the Kshatriya which was being taught in concrete
form in the Bhagawad Gitaand the Mahabharata: a warrior’s duty
is to carry out war, even kill kinsmen as elaborated in the lessons
of the Arthashastrain which a ruler pays little heed to the normal
moral commitments of human society. The state in Buddhist society,
though far removed from the communistic, democratic non-violence
of the Sangha, should be an ethical one.

The Brahmans and Caste

In regard to the emerging social system of birth-determined caste,
Buddhism most clearly shows its rejection of Brahmanism. In his
reply in the Vasetthasuttaof the Sutta Nipatato the question of
whether it is birth (jati) or moral conduct (kamma) that makes a
Brahman, the Buddha points out that whereas grass and trees,
insects, snakes, fish and birds have diverse species—he uses the term
jati—among humans this is not so: ‘men alone show not that nature
stamps them as different jatis. They differ not in hair, head, ears or
eyes, in mouth or nostrils, not in eyebrows, lips, throat, shoulders,
belly, buttocks, back or chest.’ He goes on to say that one who lives
by keeping cows is a farmer or kassako; one who lives by handicrafts
is a sippiko; one who lives by selling merchandise is a vanijjo, one
who lives by services done for hire is a pessikoor wage-worker; one
who lives by taking things not his is a coroor robber; one who lives
by warfare is a yodhajivaoor soldier; one who lives by sacrificial
rites is a yajakoor priest; one who rules is a monarch or raja(Sutta
Nipata#596, 600–619). Interestingly, the Buddha does not here
use the common terms for the four varnas, including shudra or
kshatriya; rather it is terms that today still survive as roots for func-
tional occupations. The term for kshatriya or ‘Khattiya’ appears in
the Pali texts as the equivalent of noble, primarily for the ruling clans
of thegana-sanghas, and the term shudra never appears except when
the four varnas are explicitly referred to.

76 Buddhism in India