What anomosity? (On Mr. Malaiya's comments)

[Guest guest]

Yashwant Malaiya wrote:

 

<<It is very widely believed that there was animosity between

Buddhist monks and brahmins. It would be interesting to investigate

the origin of this view.>>

 

V.C.Vijayaraghavan wrote:

 

<<It is curious that monks are drawn from 'nanagotta' which is

translated as 'many clans'. It is naturally 'many gotras' ...With

monks drawn from different gotras, opposition to sanskrit or

exclusion of sanskrit looks out of place. Also, what is much ado

about many names? if you have many people, naturally you have many

names. Why should anyone object to it?>>

 

I venture to assert that this apparent animosity comes from a

sentiment of "caste-exclusionism" among the "High-Caste Bhikkhus."

But, indeed, when and where might this first have arisen?

 

This topic needs some breathing space. If my years of ethnographic

studies in Thailand bare relevance, several observations stand out in

my mind concerning what I would call "The Brâhmanization of the

Bhikkhu Sangha."

 

As a prefatory note, I would briefly remark that prior to the

thirteenth-century arrival of Sinhalese "Theravâda" Buddhism to the

area that is known today as Thailand, manifold 'Hindu,' Brâhmanic,

Mahâyânic, Vajrayânic, and Tantrayânic sects flourished side by side,

throughout the diverse and overlapping early kingdoms. Nevertheless,

the dominant religious force of the region could only be described as

Brâhmanism. Brâhmanism, per se, is a product of Ancient India and not

equivalent to Hinduism. Brahmanism is a cultural child of the Pre-

Hindu Vedic period in India. It may also be referred to as Vedic

culture. Such Vedic culture was widely dispersed throughout the

greater Southeast Asian region as early as the 1st century CE.

 

Re. Thailand. Though obscured by centuries of chauvinistic

disinheritance, a fundamental Vedic cultural-matrix continues to

sustain Thai national culture. Such heritage reveals itself in many

unexpected ways. Perhaps the most striking is revealed by the fact

that the Thai state religion, known as Theravâda Buddhism, is

culturally derived from Brâhmanism.

 

>From a certain perspective, this naturally calls into serious

question the doctrinal supposition that Gautama crusaded on an anti-

caste, anti-Brâhmanist platform. For what we see in "so-called"

Theravâdin Buddhist culture is the virtual re-installment of high-

caste priests in the form of Bhikkhus, or Buddhist clergy, but with

one very considerable differentiation. In vivid contrast to the

divinely sanctioned caste of brâhmins, the exalted class-status

conferred on the Bhikkhu is perpetuated not by ancestral purity, but

by a state-sanctioned system of monastic ordination.

 

Related note: In _Hinduism in Thai Life_ (1980), Santosh Desai writes

to this very issue: "The Buddhists of ancient India rejected

untouchability, brâhman claims to superiority and ritual pollution.

But this applied only to monks and monasteries. A lay Buddhist

continued to live in the Hindu cultural milieu, as do Jains of

present India. Moreover, some of the most well known Buddhist

scholars like Ashvaghosha, Nâgârjuna, Asanga and Vasubandhu were

brâhmans. Although they adopted and interpreted the teaching of

Buddha, culturally they were a part of the Hindu tradition."

 

I do not wholly agree with this observation.

 

Further points could illustrate the Thai example, but material more

pertinent to the present subject should surely be sought among the

much earlier Sinhalese period where, in particular, the Pali cannon

was essentially constructed; or even earlier, to India.

 

_______

 

Troy Harris