Buddhism And Equality Of Four Castes

Author(s): J W De Jong
Publisher: J W De Jong
Catalog link: https://jainqq.org/explore/269513/1

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J. W. DE JONG
BUDDHISM AND THE EQUALITY OF THE FOUR CASTES
In his History of the Dharmaśāstra P.V. Kane devotes a long chapter to the caste system'. He explains that the system of the four varṇas had taken deep root in the period when the Brāhmaṇa works were composed. According to Kane, “by the time of the Brāhmaṇa Literature, brāhmaṇas (men supposed to be devoted to learning and priesthood), ksatriyas (kings, noblemen and some warriors) and vaiśyas (the artisans and common people) had become separated into groups more or less dependent on birth and ... the brāhmaṇa had come to be regarded as superior to the ksatriya by the fact of birth"2. As to the fourth varņa; the śūdras, Kane remarks that a clear line of demarcation was kept between the āryas (the first three varņas) and the sūdras in the period of the Brāhmana works.
The four varņas are often mentioned in early Buddhist texts. In his introduction to the Ambattha suttanta (the third of the 34 suttantas of the Dīghanikāya), T. W. Rhys Davids states that the four varņas were not castes because there was neither connubium nor commensality between all the members of one varņa, nor was there a governing council for each. The fourth was distinguished from the others by race. The remaining three were distinguished from each other by social position. According to Rhys Davids, in the Buddha's time caste was in the making. The great mass of the people were distinguished quite roughly into four classes — social strata — the boundary lines of which were vague and uncertain. If one restricts the meaning caste to the word jāti, then, of course, it is not possible to define the varņas as castes, but Rhys Davids is certainly wrong in stating that the varņas were nothing more than social classes. Already in the time of the Brāhmaṇa works the brahmans considered themselves superior by birth to the other varņas. Undoubtedly, the idea of an exclusive class of people entitled to special rights was already in existence long before the time of the Buddha. The later caste system developed in the course of
· History of Dharmaśāsira, 'Varna', Vol. II, Part I, Poona 1941, 19-164. 2 Op. cit., 48. 3 Op. cit., 35. * Dialogues of the Buddha, Part I, London 1899, 99 and 101.

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centuries, and gradually the word jāti acquired the meaning of caste' as it is used nowadays. In many Dharmaśāstras the words varņa and jāti are still confounded. The canonical Pāli texts use both the words kula and vanna to indicate the four varņas. According to Richard Fick, the word jāti is used more often than vaņņa to indicate the four varņas?. However, his work is based mainly upon the jātakas, which date from a much later period than the canonical suttas. A detailed study of the use and meaning of the word jāti in Pāli texts is yet to be undertaken.
The claims of the brahmans to superiority are put forward in a passage which is found repeatedly in the Pāli canon and which Miss Horner translated as follows: "Only brahmans form the best caste, all other castes are low; only brahmans form the fair caste, all other castes are dark; only brahmans are pure, not non-brahmans; brahman's are own sons of Brahmā, born of his mouth, born of Brahmā, formed by Brahmā, heirs to Brahmā”8. In another often quoted passage, a brahman claims to be “well-born on both the mother's and father's side, ... of pure descent for seven generations, uncriticised and irreproachable with reference to birth").
In the Dhammapada and the Suttanipāta, texts which comprise some of the oldest parts of the Pāli canon, many verses deal with the claims of the brahmans. In the Vāsetthasutta 10 the Buddha explains that the distinguishing mark (linga) of grasses, trees, beetles, moths, quadrupeds, etc. arises from their species (jāti) and manifold indeed are their species, but that among men there is no distinguishing mark: "Not by hair, nor head, nor ears, nor eyes, nor mouth, etc., is there a distinguishing mark arising from their species, as in other species. This (difference) is not found individually among men in respect of their own bodies, but among men difference is spoken of as a matter of designation
s Cf. Kane, op. cit., 55; N. Ju. Lubockaja, "Nekotorye osobennosti upotreblenija terminov varņa i jāti v Dxarmasastrax (Some peculiarities in the use of the terms varna and jāti in the Dharmaśāstras)”, in: Kasty v Indii Moskva 1965, 97-108.
6 Four kulas, Vinayapitaka, led. H. Oldenberg, vol. III, 184-185; vol. IV, 272. Four vannas, Vinayapițaka,/vol. II, 239, MN, ed. R. Chalmers, vol. II, 128-129.
7 Die soziale Gliederung im nordöstlichen Indien zu Buddha's Zeit. Mit besonderer Berücksichtigung der Kastenfrage, vornehmlich auf Grund der Jātaka dargestellt, Kiel 1897, 22, cf. Lubockaja, op. cit., 108 n. 34.
8 The Middle Length Sayings, vol. II, London 1957, 273. Miss Horner translated vanna by 'caste'. T. W. Rhys Davids renders it with 'social grade' (cf. Dialogues of the Buddha, Part III, 78). Most scholars use the word 'caste', cf. Ulrich Schneider, Zur Textgeschichte des Aggañña-suttanta, IIJ 1, 1957, 255, n. 11.
9 Translation K. R. Norman, The Group of Discourses, London 1984, 103. 10 The following quotations are all taken from Norman's translation, 104-108.

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(samaññā)". The Buddha explains that differences among men are due to their occupations: "Whoever among men makes his living by keeping cows, thus know, Vaseṭṭha, he is a farmer, not a brahman. Whoever among men lives by means of various crafts, thus know, Väsettha, he is a craftsman, not a brahman". In the following twenty-seven verses the Buddha explains that a man is a brahman on the strength of his qualities and spiritual achievements: "Him I call a brahman if he has nothing and is without grasping ... Whoever in this very world understands the end of his own misery, with burden laid aside, unfettered, him I call a brahman ... In whom no attachments are found, who is without doubt because of knowledge, him, arrived at the plunge into the undying, I call a brahman". Name and clan (gotta) are mere names (samaññā): "For what has been designated name and clan in this world. is indeed a (mere) name ... Not by birth does one become a brahman; not by birth does one become a non-brahman. By action one becomes a brahman; by action one becomes a non-brahman. By action one becomes a farmer; by action one becomes a craftsman, etc. By austerity, by the holy life, by self-restraint, and self-taming, by this one becomes a brahman. This is the supreme state of being a brahman".
T. W. Rhys Davids remarks that "it is sufficiently evident from the comparative frequency of the discussions on the matter of Brahman pretensions that this was a burning question at the time when the Dialogues [i.e. DN and MN] were composed"11. This is also proven by the fact that the canonical Jain texts contain verses very similar to the ones found in the Suttanipāta. For instance, Lecture XXV of the Uttarajjhāyā explains in a series of verses the nature of the true brahman: "He who is exempt from love, hatred, and fear, (and who shines forth) like burnished gold, purified in fire, him we call a brahman ... He who is not defiled by pleasures as a lotus growing in the water is not wetted by it, him we call a brahman" 12. P. V. Kane quotes similar passages even from the Mahabharata. He writes: "Though in the Mahābhārata it is often said that a brāhmaṇa is so by birth alone and that he deserves respect from all, still we meet several times with passages wherein there is a revolt against the caste system dependent on birth alone and where it is severely condemned and great emphasis is laid on the moral worth of a man. In the Vanaparva (181,42-43) we are told: 'Truthfulness, restraint, tapas, generosity, non-injury to sentient
11 Dialogues of the Buddha, Part 1, 96.
12 Jaina Sutras, Part II. Translated by Hermann Jacobi, Oxford 1895, 138-139.

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beings, constant adherence to dharma - these always lead men to the fruition (of their goal) and not caste nor family""13. Even a śūdra can become a brahman: "Vanaparva (216,14-15) 'that südra who is always. struggling for self-restraint, truthfulness and dharma is a brahmana in my opinion, for a brähmaṇa is so by his character"" (ibid.).
It is, however, without doubt in the canonical Pāli texts that the theory of the four varpas is discussed most frequently. It is said repeatedly that the four varņas are only designations (samaññā) and that, for instance, if a noble acts like a thief, he is reckoned simply as 'thief 14. The constant refrain is that the four varnas are exactly the same (ime cattāro vannā samasama honti) 15. Most of the Pāli texts dealing with the four varṇas have been quoted in several articles in which other references are to be found 16. A detailed study of the attitude towards the four varņas in the Upaniṣads and in early Buddhism has been made by Hajime Nakamura 17.
It is interesting to see that in later times only a few Buddhist texts pay attention to the problem of caste. One of the most famous ones is the Vajrasuci, which B. H. Hodgson published in translation in 1829, and with text and translation in 1839 18. The text begins with a verse in which Aśvaghosa is mentioned as the author of the work, but Burnouf had already questioned the authorship: "Açvaghôcha est-il le célèbre Religieux dont le nom est traduit en chinois par Ma ming (voix de cheval), et qui, suivant la liste de l'Encyclopédie japonaise, fut le douzième patriarche buddhiste depuis la mort de Çâkyamuni?19" In 1908 Sylvain Lévi pointed out that the Chinese translation is ascribed to Dharmakirti, and suggested that perhaps Dharmakirti had composed a
13 Op. cit., 100-101.
14 The Middle Length Sayings, vol. II, 276.
15 Ibid.
16 B. C. Law, Concepts of Buddhism, Amsterdam 1937, 11-26; P. L. Barua, "The Doctrine of Caste in Early Buddhism", in: Journal of Asiatic Society of Pakistan 4, 1959, 134-156; Encyclopaedia of Buddhism, "Caste", Vol. III, Fasc. 4, Colombo 1977, 691-694.
17 Genshi bukkyō no seikatsu rinri, Tokyo 1972, Chapter VII: Ningen no hyödō [The equality of man], 408-447.
18 "Disputation respecting Caste by a Buddhist", in: Transactions of the Royal Asiatic Society 3, 160-169; The Wujra Soochi, or Refutation of the Argument upon which the Brahmanical Institution of Caste is founded, by the learned Boodhist Ashwa Ghoshu, n.p. 1839. Also edited and translated by A. Weber and S. Mukhopadhyaya: A. Weber, "Die Vajrasûcî des Açvaghosha", in: Abh., d. Königl. Ak. d. Wiss. zu Berlin, 1859, 205-264; Sujitkumar Mukhopadhyaya, The Vajrasuci of Asvaghosa, Santiniketan 1950, Revised edition 1960.
19 Histoire du buddhisme indien I, Paris 1844, 215.

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new revised edition of the work originally written by Asvaghosa 20. This hypothesis is defended to this day by Japanese scholars11. Most scholars, however, believe that the Vajrasūcī was not written by Aśvaghosa. By 1918 Sylvain Lévi was less inclined to attribute the Vajrasūcī to him 22. In the introduction to his translation of the Buddhacarita, Johnston excluded the Vajrasūcī from the corpus of Asvaghosa's works but saw no reason for doubting the correctness of the ascription of a work to Dharmakirti 23. However, just as in India Asvaghosa's name was so famous that many texts were attributed to him, in the same way in a much later period the name Dharmakirti became famous in China, and not only the Vajrasūcī but also the Sikṣāsamuccaya were attributed to him. Biswanath Bhattacharya is quite right in stating that "it is therefore nothing beyond a mere idle conjecture to say that the Vajra-sūcī was originally composed by Asvaghosa and its later redaction was made by Dharmakirti" 24. Much has been written on this opuscule in which the author proves by means of quotations from Hindu texts that the claims of the brahmans are spurious 25. He refers several times to the Manavadharma, but only two verses are identical with verses from the extant Manusmrti: X,92 and III, 1926, The Vajrasuci must have enjoyed a great degree of popularity in Buddhist circles because many of its verses have been quoted in the tenth story of the Kalpadrumāvadānamālā, i.e. verses 18, 19, 4, 5, 21-26, 29, 17, 14-16, 20, 10, 11, 30-5127. This does not seem to have been noticed by Sujitkumar Mukhopadhyaya 28. However, the fact that the Kalpadrumāvadānamālā is later than the Vajrasūcī does not help us much in fixing a terminus ante quem for the Vajrasüci. The Kalpadrumāvadānamālā is certainly a late text and cannot have been composed in the third century A.D. as
20 "Açvaghosa, le Sûtrâlamkâra et ses sources", in: JA 1908, II, 70-71 note 1.
21 Cf. Hajime Nakamura, Indian Buddhism. A Survey with bibliographical notes, Ogura 1980, 291 note 10.
22 "Pour l'histoire du Rāmāyaṇa", in: JA 1918, I, 11: “la Vajrasūcī, attribuée plus ou moins légitimement à Aśvaghosa".
23 The Buddhacarita, Part II, Calcutta 1936, XXII.
24 Asvaghosa: a critical study, Santiniketan 1976, 132, note 1.
25 For bibliographical information see Nakamura, Indian Buddhism, 291, notes 8-10; Naoshirō Tsuji, Sansukuritto bungakushi, Tokyo 1973, 12 and 192-193, notes 40-45; Minoru Hara, "Vajrasūcī 3-4", in: Nakagawa Zenkyō sensei shōtoku kinenronshū: Bukkyō to bunka, Kyoto 1983, 221-241.
26 P. V. Kane, History of Dharmasastra, Vol. I, Part 1, Poona 1968, 330.
27 Cf. J. S. Speyer, ed., Avadānaçataka, St.-Petersbourg 1902-1909, Preface, XLIXLXVII.
28 I have not been able to examine the second revised edition of his edition of the Vajrasūcī published in Santiniketan in 1960.

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has been assumed by Yutaka Iwamoto 29. The Vajrasūcī was translated into Chinese in 986-987 A.D. 30. Quotations from Vedic texts, the Mahābhārata and the Harivamsa are the only indications for a terminus a quo.
Also difficult to date is another text in which the claims of the brahmans are attacked, namely the Sārdulakarṇāvadāna, the thirty-third story of the Divyavadana, which was first studied by Burnouf 30. Cowell and Neil published a part of this avadāna: the full text was published only in 1954, by Sujitkumar Mukhopadhyaya 32. It is interesting to see that one finds almost the same arguments used in this text as in the Vasetthasutta of the Suttanipäta: cf. Suttanipata 608-610:
na kesehi na sisena na kannehi na akkhihi
na mukhena na nāsāya na oṭṭhehi bhamūhi vā 608 na gīvāya na amsehi na udarena na pitthiya na soniyā na urasă na sambādhe na methune 609 na hatthehi na pädehi na angulihi nakhehi vā na jamghāhi na ūrūhi na vaṇṇena saṛena vā lingam jātimayam n'eva, yatha aññāsu jātisu. 610 Divyavadana p. 626.18-23:
na kešena na karṇābhyam na śīrṣeṇa na cakṣuṣā / na mukhena na nāsayā na grīvayā na bāhunā || norasă 'py atha pārkvabhyam na pṛṣṭhenodareṇa vā norubhyām atha janghābhyām pāṇipādanakhena ca || na svarena na varnena na sarvāmśair na maithunaiḥ / nānāviseṣaḥ sarveșu manuṣyeșu na vidyate ||
The Chinese Tripitaka contains two translations (T, nos 1300, 1301) which correspond rather closely with the Sanskrit text. In his study on the Chinese translations of the Śārdulakarṇāvadāna, W. Zinkgräf tried to show that they cannot have been translated before the sixth century 33. However, a detailed study of the terminology of these two Chinese
29 Cf. IIJ 12, 1969-1970, 58-59.
30 Cf. Nakamura, op. cit., 291, n. 9.
31 Op. cit., 205-210.
32 The Divyâvadâna., ed. E. B. Cowell and R. A. Neil, Cambridge 1886, 611-659; The Sārdulakarṇāvadāna, edited by Sujitkumar Mukhopadhyaya, Santiniketan 1954.
33 W. Zinkgräf, Vom Divyâvadâna zur Avadâna-Kalpalatâ, Heidelberg 1940. Important is F. Weller's review, OLZ 45, 1942, Sp. 67-79. According to Tomojiro Hayashiya, T. no. 1301 was translated by Chu Fa-hu who translated texts in the period 265-313, and T. no. 1300 was translated after the Sung and Ch'i dynasties (420-502) by an unknown translator, cf. Iyaku kyōrui no kenkyu, Tokyo 1945, 524-541.

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translations will be necessary in order to determine their dates, and, in the absence of such a study, it is not possible to venture an opinion about the probable date of the Sanskrit original.
Easier to date is another text in which the brahmanical institutions are condemned 34. Sanskrit fragments discovered in Central Asia show that the author of this version was Kumāralāta and the title of the work Kalpanamanditikās. According to Kato, Kumāralāta lived in the period immediately preceding that of Harivarman, Śrīlāta, Vasubandhu and Samghabhadra 36. Probably one is not very wrong in stating that Kumāralāta lived in the first half of the fourth century. The seventyseventh story deals with the refutation of the Hindu caste system, and in his translation Huber refers to the Vajrasuci and Manusmrti".
The Buddhist texts which deal with the caste system can be divided into two groups. First the canonical Pāli texts in which no reference is made to Hindu texts at all, and secondly the Vajrasuci, the Sardulakarṇāvadāna and the Kalpanamanditikā, the authors of which seem to have been well versed in the Hindu scriptures. In all these texts, however, the opposition to the caste system is absolute. It is therefore a great surprise to discover that in another Buddhist text, the Manusmrti, is quoted not with a polemical intention but with approval. In the first chapter of Bhāvaviveka's commentary on Nägärjuna's Mulamadhyamakakārikās, the Prajñāpradipa, one finds the following passage: "Er [i.c. Bhagavat] hat... den Nektar der Wahrheit über alle Gegebenheiten gewonnen, der vom Netz der Vielfalt vollkommen frei, durch fremde Hilfe nicht zu erkennen und dem begrifflichen Denken nicht zugänglich ist, und hat auf die beschränkte und höchste Wahrheit (samvṛti-, paramärthasatyam) gestützt mit Worten wie Entstehen und Nichtentstehen denen, welche im vorzüglichsten Fahrzeug (des Mahāyāna) fahren, den herrlichen Edelstein des abhängigen Entstehens (pratityasamutpādaḥ) mitgeteilt, welcher (des Hörers) Geburt, Alter, Geschlecht, Ort und Zeit nicht unberücksichtigt lasst, und den alle fremden Lehrer (tirthikāḥ), Jünger
34 Translated by Edouard Huber: Açvaghosa, Sûtrâlamkâra, traduit en français sur la version chinoise de Kumârajîva, Paris 1908.
35 Heinrich Lüders, Bruchstücke der Kalpanamanḍitikā des Kumāraläta, Leipzig 1926. See further Yamada Ryujō, Bongo butten no shobunken, Kyoto 1959, 72 and IIJ 12, 19691970, 270.
36 J. Kato, "Notes sur les deux maîtres bouddhiques Kumāralāta et Śrīlāta", in: Indianisme et Bouddhisme. Mélanges offerts à Mgr Etienne Lamotte, Louvain-la-Neuve 1980, 213.
37 Cf. Huber, op. cit., 437-441.

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(śrāvakāh) und Einzelbuddhas (pratyekabuddhāh) nicht besitzen"38. In a note Kajiyama refers to Avalokitavrata's commentary on Bhāvaviveka's work and remarks: "Was die Kaste betrifft, so ist es z. B. einem Brahmānaḥ oder Ksatriyaḥ zu verkündigen, aber nicht einem Vaisyah oder Śūdrah"39. In this connection Avalokitavrata quotes a verse from a work of the heretics:
phyi-rol-pa rnams-kyi gzun-las / dmars-rigs la ni blo-gros dan // Ihag-ma bsreg-bya sbyin mi-bya //
de-la chos-bstan mi bya-zin || de-la brtul-zugs Ostan mi-bya // This verse is a literal translation of Manusmrti IV.80:
na śūdrāya matim dadyān nocchistam na havişkrtam/
na cāsyopadiśed dharmam na cāsya vratam ādiśet // . Bühler translated this verse as follows: "Let him not give to a Śūdra advice, nor the remnants (of his meal), nor food offered to the gods; nor let him explain the sacred law (to such a man), nor impose (upon him), a penance" 40.
It is difficult to find a verse more contrary to the spirit of Buddhism than the one quoted above. Kajiyama points out that according to the Chinese tradition, Bhāvaviveka lived in the middle of the sixth century. With regard to Avalokitavrata, Kajiyama remarks that he is unable to say anything about his date apart from the fact that Avalokitavrata knew both Dharmakīrti and Candrakīrti. Avalokitavrata's Prajñāpradīpațīkā was translated by Jñānagarbha and Cog-ro Klu'i rgyal-mtshan who translated texts in the beginning of the ninth century41, and Avalokitavrata must therefore have lived between 625 and 800.
In his review of Lüders's Philologica Indica, Renou uses the term “brâhmanisation bouddhique"42. However, that Buddhist brahmanisation would go to such lengths as to approve of the Hindu caste system is something one would not have expected. It would be too hazardous to build a theory on the strength of a single quotation, but one wonders whether we do not have here an indication of a tendency among Buddhist scholars, authors of learned philosophical śāstras, to assimilate tenets found in brahmanical learning.
38 Y. Kajiyama, “Bhāvaviveka's Prajñāpradīpah (1. Kapitel)", in: WZKS 7, 1963, 40-41. The word translated by Kajiyama as 'Geschlecht' is Tibetan rigs which here probably renders Sanskrit varna.
39 Op. cit., 41 n. 3. 40 G. Bühler, The Laws of Manu, Oxford 1886, 141. 41 Cf. “Notes à propos des colophons du Kanjur", in: ZAS 6, 1972, 524. 42 Cf. OLZ 45, 1942, Sp. 191.

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BUDDHISM AND THE EQUALITY OF THE FOUR CASTES 431 ABBREVIATIONS DN Dighanikaya IIJ Indo-Iranian Journal JA Journal asiatique MN Majjhimanikaya OLZ Orientalistische Literaturzeitung WZKS Wiener Zeitschrift fur die Kunde Sud- und Ostasiens ZAS Zentralasiatische Studien