Issues in the History of Indian Buddhism - 龍谷大学アジア仏教文化

52 Pages·2014·5.57 MB·English

年
度
2013
年度
Issues in the History of Indian Buddhism
龍
谷
ジ
仏
教
文
化
龍谷大学アジア仏教文化研究センター

IIssues in the History of Indian Buddhism

Giovanni Verardi

(cid:2)
(cid:2)

Giovanni Verardi

Issues in the History of Indian Buddhism

In December 2011, I was invited by the Ry(cid:460)koku University in Kyoto to present Hard-
ships and Downfall of Buddhism in India, a book of mine that had been published some
months before (Verardi 2011b). In the course of the lecture, I first illustrated the contents
of the book, and then I focused on a few issues that seemed to me particularly worthy of
attention. The assumptions of the discussion are the following:
a) In ancient India there was not a single model of society but, rather, two oppos-
ing models of social and economic relations that coexisted for a long time in conflict. In-
clusive paradigms should be rejected (cid:3013) in particular, the idea, created by western scholars
and Indian historians who felt the need to provide their country with a national ideology,
of a unified India where Brahmanism and Buddhism are almost interchangeable.
b) One of these models, Buddhism, kept its initial antinomial character to the
end.1 Only if we understand Buddhism as a system opposing the nómos established by
the Brahmanical tradition, we can overcome the difficulty of connecting the Vajray(cid:407)na to
the earlier traditions. The Vajray(cid:407)na recovered, in a changed situation, the most radical
antinomian positions of the beginning.
c) The history of ancient India involved a high rate of violence, much of which
caused by the imposition of the var(cid:1772)a state. Violence found a tenuous disguise in myth
and iconographies. We still lack a methodology allowing us to use all the un-Rankean
sources, though the latter tell us a lot about violence, keeping memory of otherwise for-
gotten events. Orthodox Brahmans wrote history by resorting to metaphors and allegories,

1 This is the reason why I prefer to limit the discussion to Buddhism, initially less radical than Jainism,
without addressing the complex discourse of the segmented “(cid:286)rama(cid:1772)a model”.
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refusing to adopt the logic of chronologies and positive data, whose documentary power
they knew but which they judged counterproductive to their purposes.
Buddhism is a religious system, interpretable as an antinomial model, that in the
historical process was obliged, by ideology and violence, to dramatically and continu-
ously reposition itself. This resulted in being suppressed or being cornered into subaltern
positions. For example, a part of the (cid:286)rama(cid:1772)as started rather early to organize themselves
according to a community model paralleling the Brahmanical priesthood.
Early Buddhism had interpreted the needs of the merchant class and of the urban
manufacturing classes that had come to the fore in the third century BC when India came
into contact and became part of the Hellenistic world.2 At first, the Buddhists found sup-
port in the anti-establishment, “enlightened” despotism of an A(cid:286)oka, and then boomed
between the late second century BC and the early third century AD. Later on, when the
var(cid:1772)a state became a fait accompli, Buddhism continued to give voice to the social and
ethnic sectors opposing the agricultural, self-referential model of the t(cid:431)rthikas. The idea
of state and society that the Buddhists had in mind was compatible with the varied
peoples inhabiting the subcontinent, whereas the Brahmanical model implied their forced
incorporation into the boundaries of an agrarian society organized according to the rules
of var(cid:1772)(cid:407)(cid:286)ramadharma. The latter was opposed not only by the trading classes, to which
operational freedom was necessary, and by the natives who saw themselves downgraded
to the lower peasantry ranks, but also by the Brahmans who had joined Buddhism. There
was a dramatic split in the br(cid:407)hma(cid:1772)avar(cid:1772)a that was never healed: that a part of the
Brahmans opposed the fundamentals of their own var(cid:1772)a could not be accepted.

1. The Guptas, and the Buddhists in Checkmate
The first question we address is the break represented in Indian history by the Gupta state
and that sort of re-nationalization of the Indian world which meant the expulsion of the
Buddhists from political power and economic initiative. The Artha(cid:286)(cid:407)stra, now better at-

2 This may seem a position derived from outdated paradigms that read the history of India through Greco-
Roman (more Greek than Roman) glasses. Not so; the fact remains that the opening of ancient India to the
outside, with the predictable internal reactions, coincided with, and largely depended on the breakout to-
wards the east first by Alexander and his successors and then by the Roman republic and empire. At a
macro-historical level, Toynbee’s view, which includes India in the Hellenized world, is founded, except
for matters of detail (see e.g. Toynbee 1967: esp. 114, 178(cid:3013)79, 180(cid:3013)81 and passim).
2
tributed to the fourth century AD (cf. Willis 2009: 62) helps clarifying the policy fol-
lowed by the dynasty. The government of the rightful, namely orthodox king is based on
da(cid:1772)(cid:1714)an(cid:431)ti (policy exercised through coercion) and r(cid:407)jadharma (the king’s duty to pre-
serve the four var(cid:1772)as). It was in the Gupta period and its aftermath that the “Kali Age lit-
erature” was produced, whose targets are the merchants and artisans, responsible for so-
cial disorder. The vai(cid:286)yas refused to offer sacrifices, depriving the Brahmans of their fees,
and whole regions were under the control of the p(cid:407)sa(cid:1772)(cid:1714)as, the heretics. In connection
with this, many Brahmans had apostatized.3 Some scholars have acknowledged the upris-
ing of the subject castes and the intense hostility between Brahmans and (cid:286)(cid:460)dras in this
period4 but have not recognized that these two facts are one and the same thing with the
Buddhist hegemony over society and the reaction against the religion of Dharma, respec-
tively. Between the late third and the fifth century, Buddhism was not the only dissident
voice, but was held responsible for having exercised hegemony over change and was
identified with it.
The Guptas were a(cid:286)vamedhin kings, but around AD 400 a crucial readjustment
took place. At Udayagiri (Vidisa), the ritual capital of the dynasty, we observe the emer-
gence of Bh(cid:407)gavatism not only as the state religion but as a theistic system capable of
uniting forces with the other major system, Sivaism (as we call it now), while keeping a
strategic tie with the Veda. The audacity of the operation is measured by the fact that
even lower cults based on magic and black magic, represented by the Atharvaveda, were
included into the synthesis: the purohita of the Guptas was a K(cid:407)p(cid:407)lika (Willis 2009: 169
ff.). The great Brahmanical myths were created or reshaped in this period as a function of
the colonization of lands and the strengthening of the new powers that found representa-
tion in the theistic systems. Hence the myth of Tripura, the three towns of the asuras
(identified with the Buddhists) destroyed by (cid:285)iva; hence King Bali, of Asuric descent,
obliged to give all his lands to Vi(cid:2530)(cid:2502)u-V(cid:407)mana, who fools him presenting himself, in the
iconographies, as the Buddha (fig. 1); etc.5

3 Cf. e.g. V(cid:407)yu Pur(cid:407)(cid:1772)a (I.58.38, 49; vol. 1, pp. 412(cid:3013)13), where we read that in the Kali age “[t]he
Br(cid:407)hma(cid:2502)as do not perform Yajñas” and “perform obeisance to S(cid:460)dras” (for the whole passage on the Kali
Yuga see I.58. 31(cid:3013)70).
4 Notably R.C. Sharma in his study on the Kali Age literature (Sharma 1982).
5 Some of these myths are analyzed in this perspective in Verardi (2011b:162ff., 265ff. and passim). Re-
garding the story of Vi(cid:2530)(cid:2502)u Trivikrama, there is an earlier representation of V(cid:407)mana as Buddha in Cave II at
3
The international crisis of the third century had greatly favoured the agrarian pol-
icy of the Brahmans. We observe a rapid decline in Indian urbanization (Sharma 1987)
and the replacement of manufacturing and trading towns with t(cid:431)rthas. Rural India was
largely colonized by the P(cid:407)(cid:286)upatas, who acted as priests or puj(cid:407)ris, as shown by a very
large set of archaeological finds from all over northern India. They unmistakably depict
either Sivaite ascetics or (cid:285)iva himself, as is shown by their j(cid:407)(cid:1810)as and, in many a case, by
the third eye (fig. 2).6 There were groups of P(cid:407)(cid:286)upatas who identified with (cid:285)iva’s bull
(van Troy 1990: 7), and clay images of bulls are particularly numerous among the many
thousands of small cultic objects that we find throughout the Ganges Valley in the early
centuries AD (Verardi 2011b: 145(cid:3013)46).
A few Buddhist sources provide us with some information on the state of the reli-
gion in the fourth century. In Asa(cid:2500)ga’s Bodhisattvabh(cid:460)mi, cruel kings and ministers are
mentioned along with the accusation of the property of the sa(cid:1768)gha or a st(cid:460)pa being taken
away;7 in the fourth-fifth century Sanskrit redaction of the Lotus S(cid:460)tra, monks are re-
ported to be expelled from vih(cid:407)ras, to be imprisoned and punished.8 We also have the
story of the Si(cid:2498)hala monks Mah(cid:407)n(cid:407)man and Upasena who reported that, at the time of
Samudragupta, in such a large country as Jambudv(cid:431)pa there was no place for them to live
(cf. Law 1967: 29, 97b, 2; p. 15). According to the later testimony of the
Mañju(cid:286)r(cid:431)m(cid:460)lakalpa, Samudragupta, sacrificing animals and surrounded by bad counci-
lors, greatly committed sin, his kingdom being inundated by “carping logicians, vile
Brahmins” (cf. Jayaswal 1937: 48).
The Guptas took upon themselves the task to remedy the confusion of castes (i.e.
the dynamics of a not exclusively agrarian economy), repeatedly condemned in Brah-
manical texts, that had occurred in the previous centuries. The need to compromise under
the increasingly strong Brahmanical pressure meant for the Buddhists the acceptance of
caste rules, despite the fact that they rejected them in principle and, when possible, in the

Badami, where the Dwarf is shown with elongated ears and u(cid:1800)(cid:1772)(cid:431)(cid:1800)(cid:407) (cf. ibidem: 164, fig. 2). This and the
example in fig. 1 disclose the extent to which iconographies can contextualize myths.
6 A terracotta head which can be identified with that of (cid:285)iva was found in the excavations at Sringa-
verapura (Allahabad District). B.B. Lal has dated it to the first century AD and has described it in the detail
(Lal 1993: 111(cid:3013)15).
7 Cf. McFarlane (1995: 194), quoting from Unrai Wogihara’s edition of the text (T(cid:448)ky(cid:448) 1930(cid:3013)36, 165(cid:3013)7).
8 Saddharmapu(cid:1772)(cid:1714)ar(cid:431)ka S(cid:460)tra (12.3(cid:3013)21; pp. 259(cid:3013)61); Nattier (2008: esp. 20 ff.; 2003: esp. 48 ff.) has shown
that the Sanskrit text we have is a post-third century redaction. It can arguably be dated to Gupta times.
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reality.9 Faxian has a story set in P(cid:407)(cid:2540)aliputra regarding the Buddhist master Raivata, a
Brahman by caste, who “led a pure and solitary life”. The king of the country revered
him as his guru, but whenever he went to visit him, he did not dare to sit beside him. “If
the king, from a feeling of love and veneration, grasped his hand … the Brahman would
immediately wash it” (Giles 1923: 46).10 Raivata considered the contact with who was
arguably a petty king of lower birth polluting, but the people of his country revered the
guru because he “diffuse[d] widely the Faith in Buddha, so that the heretics were unable
to persecute the priesthood” (ibidem). They considered Raivata one of them on the basis
of his social conduct, not of his ideas (a minor, resorbable factor), leaving the monastic
community in peace. A perfect trap, for the Buddhists.
Society could not be controlled without the performance of rituals (the rites of
passage, in particular), and a part of the Buddhists realized that they could not leave them
in the hands of the orthodox. Rituals could not be celebrated in disagreement with the
rules established in the dharma(cid:286)(cid:407)stras, and only Brahmans were entitled to perform them.
This is the reason why the early bodhisattvas are said to be born in upper castes and be,
quite often, Brahmans. It remains to be determined with accuracy what were the milieus
in which this important shift (which does not necessarily mean surrender to the estab-
lishment) took place: as already mentioned, the fracture within the first var(cid:1772)a was very
serious and fraught with dramatic consequences.
In the context of the rapid dissolution of the Buddhist hegemony between the late
second and the third century, we also observe an emerging polarity between the ara(cid:1772)ya
and gr(cid:407)ma monks. The ara(cid:1772)ya bodhisattvas accused the gr(cid:407)ma monks to be involved in
agriculture and trade and settle in villages. The Questions of R(cid:407)(cid:1800)trap(cid:407)la depicts a situa-
tion where not only gr(cid:407)ma bodhisattvas but also “corrupt” monks had established them-
selves on an independent or semi-independent basis. They would not pay homage to the
teachers and saints (cf. R(cid:407)(cid:1800)trap(cid:407)laparip(cid:1792)cch(cid:407) S(cid:460)tra: 99; p. 130), and regarding their
functions as performers of rites, they performed services for people in the household
“[t]aking up the banner of the Buddha” (ibidem: 179; p. 138). The “corrupt monks” kept
cows, horses, asses, livestock, male and female slaves, and did not distinguish between
their own property and what belonged to the st(cid:460)pa and the sa(cid:1768)gha. Moreover, “they

9 The reader is referred to Eltschinger (2000) for a close examination of the issue.
10 For the travelogue of Faxian, see now Max Deeg’s edition, translation and comment of the text (for the
Raivata episode, Deeg 2005: 548).
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would have wives, sons, and daughters just like a householder” (ibidem: 180(cid:3013)81, 183; p.
138). Thus family-based institutions run by Buddhist priests seem to have been already in
existence at a rather early age. Many monasteries had been forcibly abandoned, and the
guiding capacity of the leading monasteries was severely reduced. There were no coun-
cils entitled to impose, at least to an extent, a set of doctrines and social behaviours in
line with the country’s re-ruralisation. It is not a question of Hinay(cid:407)na/Mah(cid:407)y(cid:407)na dichot-
omy. Xuanzang provides us with surprising testimony on the state of the clergy. In Sind,
he noted a group of adherents to the Little Vehicle who shaved their heads and wore the
ka(cid:1800)(cid:407)ya robes of the bhik(cid:1800)us, but were engaged in the ordinary affairs of lay life. In the
past, they had followed the monastic rules, but the “changed times” had brought them to
live as worldly people, “with sons and grandsons” (Beal 1884, II: 273(cid:3013)74). Xuanzang
was a staunch supporter of the Mah(cid:407)y(cid:407)na, which was a better strategy (y(cid:407)na) to re-assert
Buddhist hegemony after that the strategy of earlier Buddhism (Hinay(cid:407)na, as it was la-
beled) in countering the comeback of the t(cid:431)rthikas had failed. To his eyes, the Mah(cid:407)y(cid:407)na
also meant reasserting the rules of the Vinaya after a long period of decline and compro-
mise.11
It was only from the mid-fifth century that the Buddhists started regaining part of
their lost power. At Mathura and Sarnath new images of the Buddha started being again
produced (see e.g. Gottfried Williams 1982: figs. 60 ff., 85 ff.), after that image making
had come to a halt or had been severely reduced in the fourth century; the sa(cid:1768)gha reor-
ganized itself at Ajanta in the second half of the fifth century,12 etc. The Gupta dynasty
was near its end, and new perspectives opened for the Buddhists in northern India even
though the H(cid:460)(cid:2502)as, entering in the subcontinent, espoused the religious policy of the Gup-

11 This, I now believe, is the correct view. Previously it had seemed to me, influenced as I was by the dec-
ades-long debate about the origins of the Mah(cid:407)y(cid:407)na, that within the latter two trends could be distin-
guished: the subaltern and compromising one and the rigorist one (à la Xuanzang). Now I prefer to think
that the Mah(cid:407)y(cid:407)na reacted as a whole to what were considered the inadequacies and degenerations of the
ancient y(cid:407)na, unable to meet the challenges of the time and often ready to compromise.
12 Walter Spink has devoted a number of works on the Buddhist revival at Ajanta in the second half of the
fifth century (cf. especially Spink 2005(cid:3013)7), maintaining that it was due to the patronage of the V(cid:407)k(cid:407)(cid:2540)aka
king Hari(cid:2530)e(cid:2502)a. But Hari(cid:2530)e(cid:2502)a, like the other rulers of the dynasty, was an orthodox, a(cid:286)vamedhin king who, if
that was the case, might have acted by proxy through his wives to protect Buddhism, according to a well-
documented procedure. Spink’s construction of Ajanta as a royal V(cid:407)k(cid:407)(cid:2540)aka site has been questioned, for
different reasons, by Bakker (1997: 37 ff.).
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