Buddhism in India

The Dhamma 81

care for horses, carpenters and medical healers among the degraded

castes, Buddhism gives a dignified place to it. In many Jatakas the

Boddhisattva is a farmer or an artisan or a poor wage-worker; and

often shown as a skilled ironsmith, or carpenter, or engineer. And,

as we shall see in Chapter 4, ‘pollution’ and ‘untouchability’ are

categories that Buddhism simply rejects.

Women, Desire and Homelessness

Vedic society was a male-dominated one, like most nomadic pastoral

societies. However, ‘patriarchy’ (or the patriarchal household) as

such began only with the rise of the state and the beginning of

class-based exploitation, and this happened most clearly in India

around the middle of the first millennium BC. (The Indus civilisation

is yet too unknown to be clearly characterised with regard to either

its political forms or its patriarchal tendencies). Women are associated

with the household, and as childbirth begins to weigh them down

they become tied to it, increasingly subordinated to the dominant

patriarch in the emerging household-based kin system. This clearly

was happening in India of that period. As part of this, in the

samana tradition, which focused on the ‘homeless’, as well as

among Brahmanic wandering philosopher-priests, women were

under-represented, regardless of traditions which indicate that in

early periods women were gurus and philosophers.

In the Indian cosmological traditions, both Brahmanic and samanic,

the female principle (prakriti) was generally conceived of as active,

as opposed to the contemplative and passive male principle (purusha).

With the growth of patriarchal social relations, the passive and con-

templative became the valued and ‘higher’ goal. The activity, energy

and sexuality of women was interpreted as part of ‘maya’ and was

seen as leading to bondage to the world. In spite of Tantric trends

focusing on shakti symbolised by the ‘power’ of women, the dom-

inant religious goal was one of the achieving release from such

bondage. From this point of view women, because of their sexual-

ity and activism, were considered less able to achieve liberation

themselves and were, in addition, viewed as a source of temptation

to men.

However, while both Buddhism (and the samana tradition in

general) and Brahmanism as the main ideological-philosophical

begetting children only with servant women, by farming the land,
by serving a king...families who are bereft of Vedic verses quickly
perish’ (3, 49). Similarly, farmers were excluded from offers to
the dead, along with a weird collection of categories ranging from
slanderers and lepers to ‘anyone who diverts streams, or who
amuses himself by damming them up’ (3, 165). ‘Farming the land
is traditionally known as the “deadly” mode of life’ and is forbidden
to the Brahman, though he can subsist by merely gleaning corn and
gathering grains’ (4, 5). The justification given is non-violence.

A priest or ruler who makes a living by the livelihood of a commoner

should try hard to avoid farming, which generally causes violence and

is dependent on others. Some people think, ‘Farming is a virtuous

trade’ but as a livelihood it is despised by good people, for the wooden

(plough) with the iron mouth injures the earth and the creatures that

live in the earth’ (10, 84).

In Buddhism, in ironic contrast to Brahmanic tendencies to
justify its disdain for agriculture by stressing the ‘violence’ in farming,
the cultivator of land was seen in respectable terms. The category
of ‘gahapati’ indicates this as do other word derivations: shreshti
(the world for guild head) related to the word for superior, shresth,
or sethiin Prakrit, gives us surnames found today among non-
Brahmans like Shetty (in Karnataka) and Shete (in Maharashtra)—
and the common word for ‘farmer/peasant’ in Marathi, shetkari.
Similarly, the Tamil word for ‘farmer’ or vyavasayi, derives from a
term used otherwise for ‘professional’ or ‘occupational’. It is an
inherently respectable term, and the Kuralaccords respect to the
agriculturalist:

Howe’er they roam, the world must follow still the plougher’s team;

though toilsome, culture of the ground as noblest toil esteem.

The ploughers are the linch-pin of the world; they bear

them up who other works perform, too weak its toils to share.

Who ploughing eat their food, they truly live;

the rest to others bend subservient, eating what they give...

They ask nothing from others but to askers give,

who raise with their own hands the food on which they live (#104).

In contrast to the Brahmanical tendency to downgrade physical
labour, considering agriculture low, classifying herders, those who

80 Buddhism in India