MONKS AND LAYMEN
1
The great practical achievement of the Buddha was to found a religious
order which has lasted to the present day. It is known as the Sangha and
its members are called Bhikkhus[526]. It is chiefly to this institution
that the permanence of his religion is due.
Corporations or confraternities formed for the purpose of leading a
particular form of life are among the most widespread manifestations, if
not of primitive worship, at any rate of that stage in which it passes
into something which can be called personal religion and at least three
causes contribute to their formation. First, early institutions were
narrower and more personal than those of to-day. In politics as well as
religion such relatively broad designations as Englishman or Frenchman,
Buddhist or Christian, imply a slowly widening horizon gained by
centuries of cooperation and thought. In the time of the Buddha such
national and religious names did not exist. People belonged to a clan or
served some local prince. Similarly in religious matters they followed
some teacher or worshipped some god, and in either case if they were in
earnest they tended to become members of a society. Societies such as
the Pythagorean and Orphic brotherhoods were also common in Greece from
the sixth century B.C. onwards but the result was small, for the genius
of the Greeks turned towards politics and philosophy. But in India,
where politics had strangely little attraction for the cultured classes,
energy and intelligence found an outlet in the religious life and
created a multitude of religious societies. Even to-day Hinduism has no
one creed or code and those who take a serious interest in religion are
not merely Hindus but follow some sect which, without damning what it
does not adopt, selects its own dogmas and observances. This is not
sectarianism in the sense of schism. It is merely the desire to have for
oneself some personal, intimate religious life. Even in so
uncompromising and levelling a creed as Islam the devout often follow
special _tariqs_, that is, roads or methods of the devotional life, and
these _tariqs_, though differing more than the various orders of the
Roman Catholic Church, are not regarded as sects distinct from ordinary
orthodoxy. When Christ died, Christianity was not much more than such a
_tariq_. It was an incipient religious order which had not yet broken
with Judaism.
This idea of the private, even secret religious body is closely allied
to another, namely, that family life and worldly business are
incompatible with the quest for higher things. In early ages only
priests and consecrated persons are expected to fast and practise
chastity but when once the impression prevails that such observances not
only achieve particular ends but produce wiser, happier, or more
powerful lives, then they are likely to be followed by considerable
numbers of the more intelligent, emotional and credulous sections of the
population. The early Christian Church was influenced by the idea that
the world is given over to Satan and that he who would save himself must
disown it. The gentler Hindus were actuated by two motives. First, more
than other races, they felt the worry and futility of worldly life.
Secondly, they had a deep-rooted belief that miraculous powers could be
acquired by self-mortification and the sensations experienced by those
who practised fasting and trances confirmed this belief.
The third cause for the foundation and increase of religious orders is a
perception of the influence which they can exercise. The disciples of a
master or the priests of a god, if numerous and organized, clearly
possess a power analogous to that of an army. To use such institutions
for the service and protection of the true faith is an obvious expedient
of the zealot: ecclesiastical statecraft and ambition soon make their
appearance in most orders founded for the assistance of the Church
militant. But of this spirit Buddhism has little to show; except in
Tibet and Japan it is almost absent. The ideal of the Buddha lay within
his order and was to be realized in the life of the members. They had no
need to strive after any extraneous goal.
The Sangha, as this order was called, arose naturally out of the social
conditions of India in the time of Gotama. It was considered proper that
an earnest-minded man should renounce the world and become a wanderer.
In doing this and in collecting round him a band of disciples who had a
common mode of life Gotama created nothing new. He merely did with
conspicuous success what every contemporary teacher was doing. The
confraternity which he founded differed from others chiefly in being
broader and more human, less prone to extravagances and better
organized. As we read the accounts in the Pitakas, its growth seems so
simple and spontaneous that no explanation is necessary. Disciples
gather round the master and as their numbers increase he makes a few
salutary regulations. It is almost with surprise that we find the result
to be an organization which became one of the great forces of the world.
The Buddha said that he taught a middle path equally distant from luxury
and from self-mortification, but Europeans are apt to be struck by his
condemnation of pleasure and to be repelled by a system which suppresses
so many harmless activities. But contemporary opinion in India
criticized his discipline as easy-going and lax. We frequently hear in
the Vinaya that the people murmured and said his disciples behaved like
those who still enjoy the good things of the world. Some, we are told,
tried to enter the order merely to secure a comfortable existence[527].
It is clear that he went to the extreme limits which public opinion
allowed in dispensing with the rigours considered necessary to the
religious life, and we shall best understand his spirit if we fix our
attention not so much on the regime, to our way of thinking austere,
which he prescribed—the single meal a day and so on—as on his insistence
that what is necessary is emancipation of heart and mind and the
cultivation of love and knowledge, all else being a matter of
indifference. Thus he says to the ascetic Kassapa[528] that though a man
perform all manner of penances, yet if he has not attained the bliss
which comes of good conduct, a good heart and good mind, he is far from
being a true monk. But when he has the heart of love that knows no anger
nor ill-will, when he has destroyed lust and become emancipated even
before death, then he deserves the name of monk. It is a common thing to
say, he goes on, that it is hard to lead the life of a monk. But
asceticism is comparatively easy; what is really hard is the conversion
and emancipation of the heart.
In India, where the proclivity to asceticism and self-torture is
endemic, it was only natural that penance should in very truth seem
easier and more satisfactory than this spiritual discipline. It won more
respect and doubtless seemed more tangible and definite, more like what
the world expected from a holy man. Accordingly we find that efforts
were made by Devadatta and others to induce the Buddha to increase the
severity of his discipline. But he refused[529]. The more ascetic form
of life, which he declined to make obligatory, is described in the rules
known as Dhutângas, of which twelve or thirteen are enumerated. They are
partly a stricter form of the ordinary rules about food and dress and
partly refer to the life of a hermit who lives in the woods or in a
cemetery.
In the Pitakas[530] Kassapa's disciples are described as _dhutavâdâ_ and
the advantages arising from the observance of the Dhutângas are
enumerated in the Questions of Milinda. It is probable that the Buddha
himself had little sympathy with them. He was at any rate anxious that
they should not degenerate into excesses. Thus he forbade[531] his
disciples to spend the season of the rains in a hollow tree, or in a
place where dead bodies are kept, or to use an alms bowl made out of a
skull. Now Kassapa had been a Brahman ascetic and it is probable that in
tolerating the Dhutângas the Buddha merely intended to allow him and his
followers to continue the practices to which they were accustomed. They
were an influential body and he doubtless desired their adhesion, for he
was sensitive to public opinion[532] and anxious to conform to it when
conformity involved no sacrifice of principle. We hear repeatedly that
the laity complained of some practice of his Bhikkhus and that when the
complaint was brought to his ears he ordered the objectionable practice
to cease. Once the king of Magadha asked the congregation to postpone
the period of retreat during the rains until the next full moon day.
They referred the matter to the Buddha: "I prescribe that you obey
kings," was his reply.
One obvious distinction between the Buddha's disciples and other
confraternities was that they were completely clad, whereas the
Âjîvikas, Jains and others went about naked. The motive for this rule
was no doubt decency and a similar thought made Gotama insist on the use
of a begging bowl, whereas some sectaries collected scraps of food in
their hands. Such extravagances led to abuses resembling the degradation
of some modern fakirs. Even the Jain scriptures admit that pious
householders were disgusted by the ascetics who asked for a lodging in
their houses—naked, unwashed men, foul to smell and loathsome to
behold[533]. This was the sort of life which the Buddha called anariyam,
ignoble or barbaric. With such degradation of humanity he would have
nothing to do. He forbade nakedness, as well as garments of hair and
other uncomfortable costumes. The raiment which he prescribed consisted
of three pieces of cloth of the colour called kâsâva. This was probably
dull orange, selected as being unornamental. It would appear that in
mediæval India the colour in use was reddish: at present a rather bright
and not unpleasing yellow is worn in Burma, Ceylon, Siam and Camboja.
Originally the robes were made of rags collected and sewed together but
it soon became the practice for pious laymen to supply the Order with
raiment.
2
In the Mahâ and Culla-vaggas of the Vinaya Pitaka we possess a large
collection of regulations purporting to be issued by the Buddha for the
guidance of the Order on such subjects as ceremonial, discipline,
clothes, food, furniture and medicine. The arrangement is roughly
chronological. Gotama starts as a new teacher, without either followers
or a code. As disciples multiply the need for regulations and uniformity
of life is felt. Each incident and difficulty that arises is reported to
him and he defines the correct practice. One may suspect that many
usages represented as originating in the injunctions of the master
really grew up gradually. But the documents are ancient; they date from
the generations immediately following the Buddha's death, and their
account of his activity as an organizer is probably correct in
substance. One of the first reasons which rendered regulations necessary
was the popularity of the order and the respect which it enjoyed. King
Bimbisâra of Magadha is represented as proclaiming that "It is not
permitted to do anything to those who join the order of the
Sakyaputtiya[534]." Hence robbers[535], debtors, slaves, soldiers
anxious to escape service and others who wished for protection against
the law or merely to lead an idle life, desired to avail themselves of
these immunities. This resulted in the gradual elaboration of a code of
discipline which did much to secure that only those actuated by proper
motives could enter the order and only those who conducted themselves
properly could stay within it.
We find traces of a distinction between those Bhikkhus who were hermits
and lived solitary lives in the woods and those who moved about in
bands, frequenting rest houses. In the time of the Buddha the wandering
life was a reality but later most monks became residents in monasteries.
Already in the Vinaya we seem to breathe the atmosphere of large
conventual establishments where busy superintendents see to the lodging
and discipline of crowds of monks, and to the distribution of the gifts
made by pious laymen. But the Buddha himself knew the value of forests
and plant life for calming and quickening the mind. "Here are trees," he
would say to his disciples at the end of a lecture, "go and think it
out[536]."
In the poetical books of the Tripitaka, especially the collections known
as the Songs of the Monks and Nuns, this feeling is still stronger: we
are among anchorites who pass their time in solitary meditation in the
depths of forests or on mountain tops and have a sense of freedom and a
joy in the life of wild things not found in cloisters. These old monkish
poems are somewhat wearisome as continuous reading, but their monotonous
enthusiasm about the conquest of desire is leavened by a sincere and
observant love of nature. They sing of the scenes in which meditation is
pleasant, the flowery banks of streams that flow through reeds and
grasses of many colours as well as the mysterious midnight forest when
the dew falls and wild beasts howl; they note the plumage of the blue
peacock, the flight of the yellow crane and the gliding movements of the
water snake. It does not appear that these amiable hermits arrogated any
superiority to themselves or that there was any opposition between them
and the rest of the brethren. They preferred a form of the religious
life which the Buddha would not make compulsory, but it is older than
Buddhism and not yet dead in India. The Sangha exercised no hierarchical
authority over them and they accepted such simple symbols of union as
the observance of Uposatha days.
The character of the Sangha has not materially changed since its
constitution took definite shape towards the end of the master's life.
It was and is simply a body of people who believe that the higher life
cannot be lived in any existing form of society and therefore combine to
form a confraternity where they are relieved of care for food and
raiment, where they can really take no thought for the morrow and turn
the cheek to the smiter. They were not a corporation of priests and they
had no political aims. Any free man, unless his parents or the state had
a claim on him and unless he suffered from certain diseases, was
admitted; he took no vows of obedience and was at any time at liberty to
return to the world.
Though the Sangha as founded by the Buddha did not claim, still less
exact, anything from the laity, yet it was their duty, their most
obvious and easy method of acquiring merit, to honour and support monks,
to provide them with food, clothes and lodging and with everything which
they might lawfully possess. Strictly speaking a monk does not beg for
food nor thank for what he receives. He gives the layman a chance of
doing a good deed and the donor, not the recipient, should be thankful.
At first the Buddha admitted converts to the order himself, but he
subsequently prescribed two simple ceremonies for admission to the
novitiate and to full privileges respectively. They are often described
as ordinations but are rather applications from postulants which are
granted by a Chapter consisting of at least ten members. The first,
called pabbajjâ or going forth—that is leaving the world—is effected
when the would-be novice, duly shorn and robed in yellow, recites the
three refuges and the ten precepts[537]. Full membership is obtained by
the further ceremony called upasampadâ. The postulant, who must be at
least twenty years old, is examined in order to ascertain that he is
_sui juris_ and has no disqualifying disease or other impediment. Then
he is introduced to the Chapter by "a learned and competent monk" who
asks those who are in favour of his admission to signify the same by
their silence and those who are not, to speak. If this formula is
repeated three times without calling forth objection, the upasampadâ is
complete. The newly admitted Bhikkhu must have an Upajjhâya or preceptor
on whom he waits as a servant, seeing to his clothes, bath, bed, etc. In
return the preceptor gives him spiritual instruction, supervises his
conduct and tends him when sick.
The Chapter which had power to accept new monks and regulate discipline
consisted of the monks inhabiting a parish or district, whose extent was
fixed by the Sangha itself. Its reality as a corporate body was secured
by stringent regulations that under no excuse must the Bhikkhus resident
in a parish omit to assemble on Uposatha days[538]. The Vinaya[539]
represents the initiative for these simple observances as coming not
from the Buddha but from King Bimbisâra, who pointed out that the
adherents of other schools met on fixed days and that it would be well
if his disciples did the same. He assented and ordered that when they
met they should recite a formula called Pâtimokkha which is still in
use. It is a confessional service, in which a list of offences is read
out and the brethren are asked three times after each item "Are you pure
in this matter?" Silence indicates a good conscience. Only if a monk has
anything to confess does he speak. It is then in the power of the
assembly to prescribe some form of expiation. The offender may be
rebuked, suspended or even expelled. But he must admit his guilt.
Otherwise disciplinary measures are forbidden.
What has been said above[540] about the daily life of the Buddha applies
equally to the life of his disciples. Like him they rose early,
journeyed or went to beg their only meal until about half-past eleven
and spent the heat of the day in retirement and meditation. In the
evening followed discussion and instruction. It was forbidden to accept
gold and silver but the order might possess parks and monasteries and
receive offerings of food and clothes. The personal possessions allowed
to a monk were only the three robes, a girdle, an alms bowl, a razor, a
needle and a water strainer[541]. Everything else which might be given
to an individual had to be handed over to the confraternity and held in
common and the Vinaya shows clearly how a band of wandering monks
following their teacher from place to place speedily grew into an
influential corporation possessing parks and monasteries near the
principal cities. The life in these establishments attained a high level
of comfort according to the standard of the times and the number of
restrictive precepts suggests a tendency towards luxury. This was
natural, for the laity were taught that their duty was to give and the
Order had to decide how much it could properly receive from those pious
souls who were only too happy to acquire merit. In the larger Vihâras,
for instance at Sâvatthî, there were halls for exercise (that is walking
up and down), halls with fires in them, warm baths and store rooms.
The year of the Bhikkhus was divided into two parts. During nine months
they might wander about, live in the woods or reside in a monastery.
During the remaining three months, known as Vassa[542] or rainy season,
residence in a monastery was obligatory. This custom, as mentioned,
existed in India before the Buddha's time and the Pitakas represent him
as adopting it, chiefly out of deference to public opinion. He did not
prescribe any special observances for the period of Vassa, but this was
the time when people had most leisure, since it was hard to move about,
and also when the monks were brought into continual contact with the
inhabitants of a special locality. So it naturally became regarded as
the appropriate season for giving instruction to the laity. The end of
the rainy season was marked by a ceremony called Pavâraṇâ, at which the
monks asked one another to pardon any offences that might have been
committed, and immediately after it came the Kathiṇa ceremony or
distribution of robes. Kathiṇa signifies the store of raw cotton cloth
presented by the laity and held as common property until distributed to
individuals.
It would be tedious to give even an abstract of the regulations
contained in the Vinaya. They are almost exclusively concerned with
matters of daily life, dwellings, furniture, medicine and so forth, and
if we compare them with the statutes of other religious orders, we are
struck by the fact that the Buddha makes no provision for work,
obedience or worship. In the western branches of the Christian
Church—and to some extent, though less markedly, in the eastern—the
theory prevails that "Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to
do" and manual labour is a recognized part of the monastic life. But in
India conditions and ideals were different. The resident monk grew out
of the wandering teacher or disputant, who was not likely to practise
any trade; it was a maxim that religious persons lived on alms, and
occupations which we consider harmless, such as agriculture, were held
to be unsuitable because such acts as ploughing may destroy animal life.
Probably the Buddha would not have admitted the value of manual labour
as a distraction and defence against evil thoughts. No one was more
earnestly bent on the conquest of such thoughts, but he wished to
extirpate them, not merely to crowd them out. Energy and activity are
insisted on again and again, and there is no attempt to discourage
mental activity. Reading formed no part of the culture of the time, but
a life of travel and new impressions, continual discussion and the war
of wits, must have given the Bhikkhus a more stimulating training than
was to be had in the contemporary Brahmanic schools.
The Buddha's regulations contain no vow of obedience or recognition of
rank other than simple seniority or the relation of teacher to pupil. As
time went on various hierarchical expedients were invented in different
countries, since the management of large bodies of men necessitates
authority in some form, but except in Lamaism this authority has rarely
taken the form familiar to us in the Roman and Oriental Churches, where
the Bishops and higher clergy assume the right to direct both the belief
and conduct of others. In the Sangha, no monk could give orders to
another: he who disobeyed the precepts of the order ceased to be a
member of it either _ipso facto_, or if he refused to comply with the
expiation prescribed. Also there was no compulsion, no suppression of
discussion, no delegated power to explain or supplement the truth. Hence
differences of opinion in the Buddhist Church have largely taken the
shape of schools of thought rather than of separate and polemical sects.
Dissension indeed has not been absent but of persecution, such as stains
the annals of the Christian Church, there is hardly any record. The fact
that the Sangha, though nearly five hundred years older than any
Christian institution, is still vigorous shows that this noble freedom
is not unsuccessful as a practical policy.
The absence of anything that can be called worship or cultus in Gotama's
regulations is remarkable. He not merely sets aside the older religious
rites, such as prayer and sacrifice; he does not prescribe anything
whatever which is in ordinary language a religious act. For the
Pâtimokkha, Pavâraṇâ, etc., are not religious ceremonies, but chapters
of the order held with an ethical object, and the procedure (the
proposal of a resolution and the request for an expression of opinion)
is that adopted in modern public meetings, except that assent is
signified by silence. It is true that the ceremonial of a religion is
not likely to develop during the life of the founder, for pious
recollection and recitation of his utterances in the form of scripture
are as yet impossible. Still, if the Buddha had had any belief whatever
in the edifying effect of ritual, he would not have failed to institute
some ceremony, appealing if not to supernatural beings at least to human
emotions. Even the few observances which he did prescribe seem to be the
result of suggestion from others and the only inference to be drawn is
that he regarded every form of religious observance as entirely
superfluous.
At first the Sangha consisted exclusively of men. It was not until about
five years after its establishment that the entreaties of the Buddha's
fostermother, who had become a widow, and of Ânanda prevailed on him to
throw it open to women as well[543] but it would seem that the
permission was wrung from him against his judgment. His reluctance was
not due to a low estimate of female ability, for he recognized and made
use of the influence of women in social and domestic life and he
admitted that they were as capable as men of attaining the highest
stages of spiritual and intellectual progress. This is also attested by
the Pitakas, for some of the most important and subtle arguments and
expositions are put into the mouths of nuns[544]. Indeed the objections
raised by the Buddha, though emphatic, are as arguments singularly vague
and the eight rules for nuns which he laid down and compared to an
embankment built to prevent a flood seem dictated not by the danger of
immorality but by the fear that women might aspire to the management of
the order and to be the equals or superiors of monks.
So far as we can tell, his fears were not realized. The female branch of
the order showed little vigour after its first institution but it does
not appear that it was a cause of weakness or corruption. Women were
influential in the infancy of Buddhism, but we hear little of the nuns
when this first ardour was over. We may surmise that it was partly due
to personal devotion to Gotama and also that there was a growing
tendency to curtail the independence allowed to women by earlier Aryan
usage. The daughters of Asoka play some part in the narratives of the
conversion of Ceylon and Nepal but after the early days of the Church
female names are not prominent: subsequently the succession became
interrupted and, as nuns can receive ordination only from other nuns and
not from monks, it could not be restored. The so-called nuns of the
present day are merely religious women corresponding to the sisters of
Protestant Churches, but are not ordained members of an order. But the
right of women to enjoy the same spiritual privileges as men is not
denied in theory and in practice Buddhism has done nothing to support or
commend the system of the harem or zenana. In some Buddhist countries
such as Burma and Siam women enjoy almost the same independence as in
Europe. In China and Japan their status is not so high, but one period
when Buddhism was powerful in Japan (800-1100 A.D.) was marked by the
number of female writers and among the Manchus and Tibetans women enjoy
considerable freedom and authority.
Those who follow the law of the Buddha but are not members of the Sangha
are called Upâsakas[545], that is worshippers or adherents. The word may
be conveniently rendered by laymen although the distinction between
clergy and laity, as understood in most parts of Europe, does not quite
correspond to the distinction between Bhikkhus and Upâsakas. European
clergy are often thought of as interpreters of the Deity, and whenever
they have had the power they have usually claimed the right to supervise
and control the moral or even the political administration of their
country. Something similar may be found in Lamaism, but it forms no part
of Gotama's original institution nor of the Buddhist Church as seen
to-day in Burma, Siam and Ceylon. The members of the Sangha are not
priests or mediators. They have joined a confraternity in order to lead
a higher life for which ordinary society has no place. They will teach
others, not as those whose duty it is to make the laity conform to their
standard but as those who desire to make known the truth. And easy as is
the transition from this attitude to the other, it must be admitted that
Buddhism has rarely laid itself open to the charge of interfering in
politics or of seeking temporal authority. Rather may it be accused of a
tendency to indolence. In some cases elementary education is in the
hands of the monks and their monasteries serve the purpose of village
schools. Elsewhere they are harmless recluses whom the unsympathetic
critic may pity as useless but can hardly condemn as ambitious or
interfering. This is not however altogether true of Tibet and the Far
East.
It is sometimes said that the only real Buddhists are the members of the
Sangha and there is some truth in this, particularly in China, where one
cannot count as a Buddhist every one who occasionally attends a Buddhist
service. But on the other hand Gotama accorded to the laity a definite
and honourable position and in the Pitakas they notify their conversion
by a special formula. They cannot indeed lead the perfect life but they
can ensure birth in happy states and a good layman may even attain
nirvana on his death-bed. But though the pious householder "takes his
refuge in the law and in the order of monks" from whom he learns the
law, yet these monks make no attempt to supervise or even to judge his
life. The only punishment which the Order inflicts, to turn down the
bowl and refuse to accept alms from guilty hands, is reserved for those
who have tried to injure it and is not inflicted on notorious evil
livers. It is the business of a monk to spread true knowledge and good
feeling around him without enquiring into the thoughts and deeds of
those who do not spontaneously seek his counsel. Indeed it may be said
that in Burma it is the laity who supervise the monks rather than _vice
versa_. Those Bhikkhus who fall short of the accepted standard,
especially in chastity, are compelled by popular opinion to leave the
monastery or village where they have misbehaved. This reminds us of the
criticisms of laymen reported in the Vinaya and the deference which the
Buddha paid to them.
The ethical character of Buddhism and its superiority to other Indian
systems are shown in the precepts which it lays down for laymen.
Ceremony and doctrine have hardly any place in this code, but it enjoins
good conduct and morality: moderation in pleasures and consideration for
others. Only five commandments are essential for a good life but they
are perhaps more comprehensive and harder to keep than the Decalogue,
for they prescribe abstinence from the five sins of taking life,
drinking intoxicants, lying, stealing and unchastity. It is meritorious
to observe in addition three other precepts, namely, to use no garlands
or perfumes: to sleep on a mat spread on the ground and not to eat after
midday. Pious laymen keep all these eight precepts, at least on Uposatha
days, and often make a vow to observe them for some special period. The
nearer a layman can approximate to the life of a monk the better for his
spiritual health, but still the aims and ideals, and consequently the
methods, of the lay and religious life are different. The Bhikkhu is not
of this world, he has cut himself loose from its ties, pleasures and
passions; he strives not for heaven but for arhatship. But the layman,
though he may profitably think of nirvana and final happiness, may also
rightly aspire to be born in some temporary heaven. The law merely bids
him be a kind, temperate, prudent man of the world. It is only when he
speaks to the monks that the Buddha really speaks to his own and gives
his own thoughts: only for them are the high selfless aspirations, the
austere counsels of perfection and the promises of bliss and something
beyond bliss. But the lay morality is excellent in its own sphere—the
good respectable life—and its teaching is most earnest and natural in
those departments where the hard unsentimental precepts of the higher
code jar on western minds. Whereas the monk severs all family ties and
is fettered by no domestic affection, this is the field which the layman
can cultivate with most profit. It was against his judgment that the
Buddha admitted women to his order and in bidding his monks beware of
them he said many hard things. But for women in the household life the
Pitakas show an appreciation and respect which is illustrated by the
position held by women in Buddhist countries from the devout and capable
matron Visâkhâ down to the women of Burma in the present day. The Buddha
even praised the ancients because they married for love and did not buy
their wives[546].
The right life of a layman is described in several suttas[547] and in
all of them, though almsgiving, religious conversation and hearing the
law are commended, the main emphasis is on such social virtues as
pleasant speech, kindness, temperance, consideration for others and
affection. The most complete of these discourses, the
Sigâlovâda-sutta[548], relates how the Buddha when starting one morning
to beg alms in Râjagaha saw the householder Sigâla bowing down with
clasped hands and saluting the four quarters, the nadir and the zenith.
The object of the ceremony was to avert any evil which might come from
these six points. The Buddha told him that this was not the right way to
protect oneself: a man should regard his parents as the east, his
teachers as the south, his wife and children as the west, his friends as
the north, his servants as the nadir and monks and Brahmans as the
zenith. By fulfilling his duty to these six classes a man protects
himself from all evil which may come from the six points. Then he
expounded in order the mutual duties of (1) parents and children, (2)
pupils and teachers, (3) husband and wife, (4) friends, (5) master and
servant, (6) laity and clergy. The precepts which follow show how much
common sense and good feeling Gotama could bring to bear on the affairs
of every-day life when he gave them his attention and the whole
classification of reciprocal obligations recalls the five relationships
of Chinese morality, three of which are identical with Gotama's
divisions, namely parents and children, husband and wife, and friends.
But national characteristics make themselves obvious in the differences.
Gotama says nothing about politics or loyalty; the Chinese list, which
opens with the mutual duties of sovereigns and subjects, is silent
respecting the church and clergy.
The Sangha is an Indian institution and invites comparison with that
remarkable feature of Indian social life, the Brahman caste. At first
sight the two seem mutually opposed, for the one is a hereditary though
intellectual aristocracy, claiming the possession of incommunicable
knowledge and power, the other a corporation open to all who choose to
renounce the world and lead a good life. And this antithesis contains
historical truth: the Sangha, like the similar orders of the Jains and
other Kshatriya sects, was in its origin a protest against the
exclusiveness and ritualism of the Brahmans. Yet compared with anything
to be found in other countries the two bodies have something in common.
For instance it is a meritorious act to feed either Brahmans or
Bhikkhus. Europeans are inclined to call both of them priests, but this
is inaccurate for a Bhikkhu rarely deserves the title [549] and nowadays
Brahmans are not necessarily priests nor priests Brahmans. But in India
there is an old and widespread idea that he who devotes himself to a
religious and intellectual life (and the two spheres, though they do not
coincide, overlap more than in Europe) should be not only respected but
supported by the rest of the world. He is not a professional man in the
sense that lawyers, doctors and clergymen are, but rather an aristocrat.
Though from the earliest times the nobles of India have had a full share
of pride and self-confidence, the average Hindu has always believed in
another kind of upper class, entered in some sects by birth, in others
by merit, but in general a well-defined body, the conduct of whose
members does not fail to command respect. The _do ut des_ principle is
certainly not wanting, but the holy man is honoured not so much because
he will make an immediate return by imparting some instruction or
performing some ceremony but because to honour him is a good act which,
like other good acts, will sooner or later find its reward. The Buddha
is not represented as blaming the respect paid to Brahmans but as saying
that Brahmans must deserve it. Birth and plaited hair do not make a true
Brahman any more than a shaven head makes a Bhikkhu, but he who has
renounced the world, who is pure in thought, word and deed, who follows
the eight-fold path, and perfects himself in knowledge, he is the true
Brahman[550]. Men of such aspirations are commoner in India than
elsewhere and more than elsewhere they form a class, which is defined by
each sect for itself. But in all sects it is an essential part of piety
to offer respect and gifts to this religious aristocracy.