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The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c9: Chapter III. The Homeless Ascetics

The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c9

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Chapter III. The Homeless Ascetics

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Before we attempt to analyse the structure of the social body and to look more closely to its separate parts, we must point to a circumstance which is of great importance for the whole condition of culture in the East and especially, for the position of the dominant classes and peoples with regard to the Brâhmaṇa, the circumstance, namely, that the Khattiya, no less than the Brâhmaṇa, nay, even the people belonging to the middle class, renounced the world and lived as hermits in the forest. And indeed, we meet with this view not as an exception, not as a chance occurrence, of which we can speak as we do of an unusual, extraordinary thing. No, the practice seems to be as common with the king, with the householder as it is with the pious Brâhmaṇa. We have, in my opinion, to see here the key to what is often called the social reform of Buddhism, what, however, in reality, is only a further development of prevailing conditions—I mean the admission of all to the Buddhistic fold irrespective of their caste.

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When later, as the followers of Buddha formed an organised body and introduced special rules, the admission of people of the Buddhist faith into the order was effected through the act of initiation and this was characterised as pabbajjâ as going out, no new thing was created; and nothing that was not known to Brahmanical law—the entrance of a Brâhmaṇa into the state of a hermit (vânaprastha) was extremely well-known—was introduced into the life of the Buddhistic order. Even before Buddha's time, the custom of escaping from the worldly state and retiring from home into the isolation of the forest, was not confined to the Brâhmaṇas. As he himself, a Khattiya of the proud family of Sâkya princes, exchanged the glitter and pomp of worldly life for the homeless condition of the ascetic, so other sons "of aristocratic families" followed the tendency of that time and renounced their home in order to obtain possession of "the highest perfection of a holy striving."¹ Among the disciples who followed his doctrine we find, along with young Brâhmaṇas, people belonging to his own station and sons of rich tradesmen and high officials. They are all to be looked upon by us not as members of a well-organised order of monks—such an order was created centuries later—but rather as nothing else than Tāpasas on Samaṇas, whom we come across so often in the Jātakas who group round the person of a teacher (gaṇasatthā) and listen to his word. It will perhaps be stated against me that precisely at this point the Jātakas do not exhibit the actual conditions of the pre-Buddhistic period but that their authors have put the later rules of the Buddhistic order back into earlier times. For this supposition, however, there is no sufficient ground, for in the first place, the possibility that all Aryan Indians in ancient times could embrace the homeless condition appears from the Brahmanical law books themselves.¹ Then again—and this in my opinion places the correctness of the accounts in the Jātakas beyond question—we find this very thing in the report of Megasthenes who was sent about the year 300 B.C., as a messenger of Seleukas to the court of Candragupta in Pātaliputra—and thus in eastern India, the heart of Buddhism. He places at the head of the Indian society which he divides into 7 γένη as first γενος the σοφισταί and says of these that they again fall into two γενη, namely, the βραχμαναι and the Σαρμαναί. Whilst he understands by the first Brâhmaṇas in general—whom he, probably impelled by the fact that they, like the Samaṇas led the life of a hermit, puts with these in the same class—he makes the description which he gives of the Σαρμαναι applicable to the Samaṇas or ascetics of our text¹; above all—and this concerns us here—he applies to them the proposition which is used wrongly in Greek reports with regard to the σοφισταί in general, the proposition, namely, that whereas marriages between the separate castes are not allowed, nor is any change from one profession to another permissible, every man can adopt this condition.²

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¹ See Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 158.

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¹ A limitation of this to Brāhmaṇas only follows, when in a passage of Manu in which he speaks of the homeless condition of a dvija, one understands by the word only a Brāhmaṇa.

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¹ Strabo, Geographica, Lib XV., Cap. I, 60.

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² Arriani, Indica, Cap XII. 8. 9. Departing from this Strabo says (XV. 1. 49) that every class is assigned its special profession which cannot be exchanged for any other, that, however, the φιλοσοφοι were an exception, that is, they could adopt any profession. Whilst that which Arrian has said of the σοφισταί in general is true of the Samaṇas and not of Brâhmaṇas, what Strabo says is true of the Brâhmaṇas and not of the ascetics. These sources supplement each other and give us the result to which the Jâtakas lead, namely, that on the one hand, ascetics were recruited from all classes and on the other, the most divergent professions were followed by the Brâhmaṇas.

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Also in Sanskrit literature we find instances of a non-Brâhmaṇa entering into the ascetic state and especially, of a râjarshi, king, abdicating and becoming an ascetic. The story in the Râmâyaṇa of the quarrel between Vaśiṣṭha and Viśvâmitra is well-known. In order to obtain the cow of the holy Vasisṭha, king Viśvāmitra retires into the solitude of a forest, after handing over the reins of government to his son, where by means of severe austerities he tries to acquire mastery over his opponent. He obtains through his asceticism the weapon of the gods and attacks Vasisṭha *de novo* but the latter survives this attack by reason of his rank as Brâhmaṇa. Then the king resolves, as only a Brâhmaṇa can defeat a Brâhmaṇa, to attain the rank of a Brahmaṇa. After a thousand years of severe austerities, he receives from Brahmâ the title of a “kingly seer (râjarshi)” ; not satisfied with this, he practises further penance till he frightens the gods and at the request of these, Brahmâ raises him to the rank of a Brâhmaṇa.

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Now one cannot here properly speak of the entrance of the king into the state of an ascetic, as Viśvāmitra practises austerities for the sake of a special, transitory object ; but here in the Râmâyaṇa the practice is repeatedly mentioned, by which kings when in advanced age exchanged the crown for the solitude of the forest ; thus, for example, we notice it when Lakshmaṇa points out to his brother Râma (II. 23, 26) that according to the custom of the old kingly seers (pûrvarâjarshivṛittyâ) residence in the forest takes place after one has left the subjects to the care of the sons, so that they protect them like children, as well as in Râma's words (II. 94.19), "This the kingly seers (râjarshayaḥ), my ancestors, named nectar, this residence in a forest for the sake of the life after death."

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Very often we meet with the form *râjarshi* in the Mahâbhârata. In the celebrated Sâvitrî episode in the third book, Sâvitrî chooses as his consort Satyavâna, the son of the blind Dyumatsena who was robbed of his kingdom and practises austerities in the forest with his wife and his son.¹ In the ninth book it is narrated how Duryodhana voluntarily offered Yudhishṭhira of his own free will an uncontested kingdom, explaining that he wanted to go into the forest, clad in two animal skins (vanam eva gamishyâmi vasâno mṛigacarmaṇi IX.31.52). Yudhishṭhira declines the offer and challenges him to a duel; but after Duryodhana is defeated and his kingdom falls to Yudhishṭhira, the latter resolves, being himself tired of sovereignty, to practise austerities in the forest. "The wrong that has happened," so he explains to his brother Arjuna (XII. 7.37 sq.) "is expiated by virtue, by open confession, repentance, begging alms or by castigation, world-renunciation, pilgrimage to sacred places or recitation of sacred verse. He who has renounced the world cannot sin any more, so goes the revelation. When, as the revelation teaches, a man renounces the world, he has neither birth nor death, then he is merged, after he has found the right path by conscious striving, in Brahma. So will I alone, a seer in possession of knowledge, go into the forest and take leave of you all.”

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¹ III. 294.9 : sa bâlavatsayâ sârddham bhâryayâ prasthito vanam mahâraṇyam gataś câpi tapas tepe mahâvrataḥ.

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In the later classical Sanskrit poetry, many imitations of these old stories are found, among other places, in the Raghuvamśa when it is said of Raghu that “withdrawing his heart from the sensuous world he gave the young son as a token of kingly dignity the white umbrella and went with the queen to the shades of the trees of the ascetic’s forest: This was what the custom of the Ikshvâku family demanded when a man’s youth was over” (III. 70). “For,” so it is said in another place (VIII. 11), “the descendants of Dilîpa led in their old age, after handing over the reins of government to their virtuous sons, through extreme self-discipline the life of an ascetic, clad in the bark of trees.”

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Consequently, the phenomenon, although in Brahmanical literature it is treated as an unusual phenomenon¹ and as the custom of a legendary king of ancient times, and although more frequently—as in the later chapters of the Mahâbhârata—the rightness of such an act is doubted,¹ the phenomenon of a king abdicating in favour of his grown-up son and himself retiring into the solitude of the forest was not at all unknown in Brahmanical lands. What was characteristic, however, of the culture of the East, as it was reflected in the Jâtakas, was the universality which attached to the phenomenon of homeless asceticism.

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¹ One should consider that Visvâmitra seeks to attain by his penance a special object, that Dyumatsena is robbed of his kingdom,

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¹ Cf. E. W. Hopkins, *The social and military position of the ruling caste in ancient India, as represented by the Sanskrit Epic.* In the "Journal of the American Oriental Society," Vol. 13, p. 179 sq., Hopkins speaks of the entrance of a king into the ascetic state as a change of caste. A change of caste, however, this action does not itself produce, especially, when, as is related of Viśvamitra, a king tries through austerities to reach the rank of a Brâhmaṇa. The priestly compilers of the epics wanted to see in the resignation of the kingdom and acceptance of the homeless condition, as they looked upon the last as a privilege of the Brâhmaṇas, an inadmissible change of caste.

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Not only did world-sick old people renounce the world but even kings who were in undisputed possession of sovereignty and in the fulness of their power; young princes preferred the severe life of the ascetic to the glitter of sovereign power; rich tradesmen gave away their riches

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that Duryodhana has before his eyes the enjoyment of sovereign power and that Yudhishṭhira is stricken with grief at the death of his brother Karṇa.

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and heads of families their wives and children in order to build a hut in the forests of the Himâlaya and to live on roots and fruits or to eke out an existence by begging alms. The thought of the transitoriness of earthly goods, of the unworthiness of human existence supplies generally the impulse to renounce the world. Similar narratives to those we find in the holy texts of the Buddhists about Buddha himself and his taking leave of his home,¹ we meet with even in the Jâtakas and are to some extent like these of great poetical beauty.

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¹ Cf. Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 105 sq.

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Thus, in Yuvañjaya Jâtaka (IV. 119 sq.) it is narrated how the heir-presumptive one day drives early in his carriage and goes with a brilliant following to a delightful spot in the park. And as he sees dew-drops sparkling like pearls in a necklace on the leaves of the trees, on blades of grass and in the webs of the spiders he asks the driver of the carriage what they are. "They are dew-drops, O King, which arise in cold weather," the latter replies. In the evening, when the heir to the throne comes again, the dew has disappeared; he asks the driver, "Friend, where are the dew-drops, I don't see them any more?" "O King, when the sun rises they vanish and disappear in the earth." When the prince hears this, he cries out in grief, " Even this life,¹ this being is like the dew-drop which hangs from the top of the blade of grass; I will take leave of my parents and become an ascetic before disease, age and death overcome me." Thus, a dew-drop produces in him the thought of the non-reality of existence;² he goes home to his father who sits in great pomp in the Council Hall, accosts him with reverence and requests to be allowed to adopt the homeless condition:

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¹ Jīvitasaṃkhārāpi, properly, "the phenomena of life, what seems real is life."

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² "Iti ussāvabindum eva ārammaṇaṃ katvā āditte viya tayo bhave passanto," lit. "whilst he, starting from the dew-drops, looks upon the three states (disease, age, death) as flames."

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"The lord of the chariot-driver surrounded by friends and ministers, I adore; I will go into solitude, O great king, may the Lord permit me to do this."

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The king, however, wants him to desist and recites the second verse:

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"If you lack pleasure, I will create this for you. I will crush him who gives you pain, don't go away, O Yuvañjaya."

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To this the prince replies:

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"I don't lack pleasures nor do I know anybody who hurts me; but I want to light a light which age cannot extinguish."

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Repeated requests of his father do not succeed in dissuading him from his resolve and even to the imploring mother he replies:

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“Like a dew-drop on the blade of grass at sunrise is the life of man (i.e., as transitory as this); don’t try to dissuade me, dear mother.”

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When finally the king gives him permission, he leaves the city with his younger brother Yudhiṭṭhila; the great mass of people who accompanies them, they send back and both go to the Himâlaya and after building a hermitage at a charming place, they lead the life of a homeless ascetic; they feed upon the roots and fruits of the forest and reach, after acquiring the highest knowledge with the help of meditation, the world of Brahma after death.

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As in this narrative, a dew-drop, so in other cases (I. 138; III. 393) a grey hair, is the ârammaṇam, the cause which gives the king the thought of renouncing the sovereign power and going into the forest. In the Cullasutasoma Jâtaka (V. 177 sq.), the father of king Sutasoma whose barber has plucked a grey hair, tries to dissuade him from his resolve and points to his minor children. “If you, O dear Sutasoma, do not have so much love for your parents, see, you have sons and daughters of tender age who cannot live without you; when they are grown up you may go into the homeless condition.” These representations, however, succeed as little in dissuading Sutasoma as the earnest prayers of his pregnant wife and his seven-year-old son who clings to his neck.

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In another case, the signs of the heavens show the king the transitoriness of his worldly pomp. In the Gandhara Jataka (III. 364) the minister informs the king that the moon is seized by Rahu.¹ The king looks at the moon and reflects, "This moon is soiled by accidental dirt, and rendered lustreless; my filth is this kingly pomp; it is not, however, proper that I should become lustreless like this which is seized by Rahu. Therefore I will, like the disc of the moon in a clear sky, renounce my kingdom and lead the life of a hermit. What do I care for other people's opinion? Released from my family and my followers, I will consult only myself and move about from place to place; this is proper for me." With the words, "Act according to your wishes," he gives the reins of Government to the ministers.

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¹ Name of the Demon who attacks the moon and the sun, thereby causing their eclipses.

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We should not be surprised at the fact that the prescription which among the Brahmanas the law makes concerning residence in the forest as the third stage (asrama) of life, is found also in the Jatakas. Less obvious is the fact that even among worldly Brahmanas who, as we shall see, have often nothing in common with the proper representatives of their caste except the name, the adoption of the homeless condition is mentioned. So far as these Brâhmaṇas were in the service of the king, they had probably to get the permission of their lord before they could exchange their worldly state for the homeless condition; for the king did not always agree in this way to lose his servants. Kassapa, the son of the king's house priest, reflects in the Lomasakassapa Jâtaka, "My friend has become a king and will lend me powerful help. But what should I require help for? I will take leave of my parents and the king (or "ask their permission," mátápitaro ca rájánañ ca ápucchitvá. III. 515) and adopt the homeless condition."

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When a rich Brâhmaṇa on an inspection of his jewel-room reads on a gold tablet the name of his ancestor by whom the properties were acquired, the thought occurs to him, "Those by whom the riches were accumulated are no more; the treasures are still there, not a single person has taken them with him during his departure. Verily, one cannot put money into a bag and take it with him to the other world." He goes to the king, begs his permission, gives away his entire wealth and goes as an ascetic to the Himâlaya (IV. 7).

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That even a whole Brâhmaṇa family, including the parents and two sons, renounces worldly life is mentioned (V. 313). As the eldest son is not willing to lead the life of the householder and as the younger brother also wishes to adopt with him the homeless condition, the parents reflect, “These treat with contempt the enjoyment of the senses, though they are so young; how much more contemptuously should we then treat it; we will all together renounce the householder’s life.” They inform the king of their resolve, give away their entire wealth (eight hundred millions!) from which they keep only a legitimate portion for their kinsmen, set their slaves free and move out of the city to the Himâlaya.¹

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¹ That women, either alone or along with their own people, retire into the solitude of the forest is very often mentioned in the Jâtakas, e.g., III. 382; IV. 23, 484. According to the law books, the dvija is free when he renounces worldly life to leave his wife to the care of his sons or to take her with him into the forest. Manu VI. 3. Cf. Apastamba II. 9, 22, 8-9; Viṣṇu LXXXXIV. 3; Yâjñavalkya III. 45.

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Often an insight into the efforts and activities of people in one’s own station, the knowledge of the deceits practised by them through greediness, makes homelessness appear to a virtuous Brâhmaṇa more worthy than honour and wealth in worldly life. The young Brâhmaṇa scholar (II. 422) who receives from his teacher, in answer to the question, How can one succeed in the world? the reply that he can do so only by intrigue and bad practices, chooses *pabbajjá* with the words:

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Even when a man wanders homeless, dish in hand, this is better than this immorality.

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Whilst we meet with instances in Sanskrit literature of Kshatriyas embracing the ascetic life, the preference among people for this practice of world-renunciation seems to be confined to eastern countries; here, however, it seems to prevail very much. Thus, we are told of members of aristocratic families who were fitted by their education to take part in the spiritual life, that even they follow this practice which owes its origin principally to spiritual causes. The rich *seṭṭhi* makes over, as soon as his son can walk, all his possessions, along with his wife and child, to his younger brother, in the consciousness of the worthlessness of worldly enjoyments and the bliss of world-renunciation, and goes as an ascetic to the Himâlaya (III. 300). The same thing is narrated in the Veluka Jâtaka of the members of a very rich family (*mahábhogakula* I. 245). As is natural, in these circles of householders, difficulties arise in the way of their carrying out their resolve; the relations who have to suffer in consequence of their supporter going away, try to dissuade him in every way. Many of the Jâtakas relate the opposition between the wish of the family head to renounce the world and the claims of the family remaining at home.¹ Thus, for instance, we read in the Bandhanâgâra Jâtaka (II. 139 sq.) “Once upon a time, when Brahmadatta ruled in Benares, the Bodhisatta was re-born in the family of a poor gahapati. When he grew up, his father died and he supported his mother by working for a salary. His mother, however, quite against his will brought for him as his wife a girl of good family and died soon after. Now, his wife became pregnant; he, however, knew nothing of her condition and said to her one day, “My wife, you must see to it that you can maintain yourself by work, for I will renounce the world.” “O Lord, I am pregnant; wait till the child is born and you have seen it, and then become an ascetic.” He was pleased with this and as soon as she was confined, he said. “Now, my dear, as you are happily confined, I will go into the homeless condition.” “Wait till the child is weaned.” And she became pregnant for the second time.

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¹ Of an inner conflict between one's conviction of the worthlessness of the world and the duties towards one's dependents which in our view must arise when, on account of the bread-winner going away, the family is thrown into poverty, no trace is found; such duties don't exist for the Buddhists or are subordinate to the strong desire for emancipation. In this respect Buddhism comes in contact with the views of the older Christian Church. Hieronymus writes a letter to Heliodor, urging him to leave his family and become a monk. “Even if your little nephew throws his arms round your neck, if your mother tears her hair and cloth and beats her breast which sucked you, even if your father throws himself upon the ground before you — move even the body of your father, flee with tearless eyes to the sign of the cross. In this case, cruelty is the only virtue.” “For,” says the same Hieronymus in another letter, “how many monks have lost their souls, because they had pity for their father and mother!” Cf. Eicken, Geschichte und System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887, p. 125.

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“If I wait for her word,” reflected the man, “I shall never be able to come away. I will flee and become an ascetic without saying a word to her.” So he said nothing to her, got up one night and fled. The city guards arrested him. “I have to support a mother,” he cried, “let me go.” In this way, he got his release and went straight to the Himâlaya, when the main gate was opened. Here he lived as a hermit, became possessed of supernatural powers and enjoyed the pleasures of meditation. “The fetters of wife and child, the fetters of passion, so difficult to break, I have broken,” so he shouted triumphantly and recited the verses:

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“The wise have not named the fetters which are made of iron, wood or rope, but the love of precious stones and ear-rings, of wife and child.

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These fetters they have called strong, rooted to the ground, broad,¹ difficult to break; when they have broken these, the wise men wander, free from passion, desire and earthly happiness.”

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¹ Sithila, properly, “loose”; the meaning is, the fetters sit comfortably but are difficult to loosen.

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After the Bodhisatta in this way gives vent to his feelings without disturbing his meditation, he entered the world of Brahma.

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Similar domestic difficulties a potter encounters who wants to exchange his profession for the life of an ascetic (III. 381). It appears in all these stories where the question is of the retirement of people of a lower class into the ascetic life, that there is some irony which rests upon this, that in the later Buddhistic society such *pabbajitás*, although no doubt they had the right to be initiated, were not considered to have attained full asceticism. Only rarely in the Pali texts are people of a lower caste spoken of as members of the Buddhistic order,² and as this represents according to its external organisation only a development of pre-Buddhistic asceticism, it is probable that even among ascetics the lower castes were only represented in exceptional cases. No doubt in the Jâtakas we come across even Caṇḍâlas who adopt the homeless condition (IV. 392);

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² See Oldenberg, Buddha, p. 159.

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but it seems to me, judging from their isolated and low position which excludes them from all communion with the Aryan people and as a consequence of this, from all participation in spiritual life that the actual existence of such holy men is extremely doubtful.

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For it is in the spiritual region that we have to seek the cause of this asceticism; the practice of world-renunciation, the retirement into the homeless condition is only the outward expression of that striving for knowledge and for emancipation which dominated large circles of society of eastern India in Buddha’s time. Neither the study of the holy scripture nor occupation with religious things in general was in that time restricted to the learned Brahmanas; other classes and professions took part in this search for truth, in the solution of the highest questions of metaphysics; among these we have in the front line the Khattiyas.

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