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Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c5.s2: Ancient Brāhmaṇas as depicted in the Pāli Texts

Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c5.s2

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Ancient Brāhmaṇas as depicted in the Pāli Texts

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An interesting picture of the ancient *Brāhmaṇas*¹ is furnished by the one of the latest Pāli texts, *Sutta Nipāta* (*Brāhmaṇa-dhammika-sutta*). It runs as follows:—

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¹ *Sutta Nipāta*, p. 50: Na kho brāhmaṇa sandissanti etarahi brāhmaṇā porāṇānam brāhmaṇānam brāhmaṇadhamme ti.

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"The ancient sages (*ṛṣis*) were ascetics (*tapassino*) and lived in self-control avoiding the five pleasures of sense. Their wealth

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consisted not of cattle, gold or grains but of learning and purity. They lived on food left at the door by the faithful and used the bed and clothes offered to them reverentially by the well-to-do. They were never harmed nor dominated, protected as they were by the *dhamma*, and their access to any house was never barred. They spent 48 years of their lives as *brahmacārins* in quest of knowledge and good conduct. Even when they married they lived a life of restraint. They held austerities, rectitude, tenderness, love and forbearance in high esteem. They performed sacrifices with rice, beds, clothes, ghee or oil, which they could collect by begging and never killed cows in sacrifices.

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"They possessed a noble stature and a tender and bright mien, and remained always engaged in their own pursuits. In course of time, however, they began to covet king's riches and splendour and objects of pleasure such as women with ornaments, chariots yoked with stately horses. With an eye to these gains they approached king Okkāka (Ikṣvāku), persuaded him to celebrate *aśvamedha*, *puruṣamedha*, *samyāprāsa*, *vājapeyya*,¹ and received as fees from him wealth, women and chariots, horses and cows, beds and clothes. Coveting more and more they again persuaded king Okkāka to celebrate sacrifices by the offering of cows, which, they said, constituted also wealth of men as are land, gold or grains, and as such were equally fit objects for offering. This slaughter of cows enraged the gods Brahmā, Indra, and even the Asuras and Rākṣasas and multiplied the diseases which were originally three, *viz.*, desires, hunger and decrepitude to ninety-eight and further caused to appear discord among the people and within the household, and to acts, improper and impious, among the various classes of men."

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¹ Cf. *Samyutta*, I, 76.

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It is stated in the *Subhasutta*¹ that the Brāhmaṇas are expected to observe five *dhammas*, namely, *saccam* (truthfulness), *tapam* (austerity), *brahmacariyam* (pure moral life), *ajjhenam* (study), and *cāgam* (gifts). In the *Sundaṅika-Bhāradvāja-sutta*² there is a reference to the Brāhmaṇas learning *Sāvitti* (*Sāvitrī*) consisting of three *padas* and twenty-four *akkhaṛas*, and in the *Dīgha Nikāya*, to the Vedic *Sākhās*, in these words:

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¹ *Majjhima*, II, p. 199. ² *Sutta Nipāta*, p. 79. ³ *Dīgha*, I, p. 237 (The Burmese reading is preferred here). ⁴ *Ibid.*, mantānam kattāro mantānam pavattāro; also *Dīgha*, I, p. 104; *Majjhima*, II, p 200. ⁵ *Dīgha*, I, p. 241.

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“All paths lead to *Brahma-sahavyatā* but the paths are different according to the different Brāhmaṇic schools, *viz.*, Addhariyā (= Sk. adhvaryu or White Yajurvedic), Tittiriyā (= Sk. Taittirīya or Black Yajurvedic), Chandokā (= Sāmavedic), Bavharija (= Bahvṛca or Ṛgvedic).”³

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Incidentally the names of *ṛṣis* or hymn-composers⁴ are referred to as Aṭṭhako, Vāmako, Vāmadevo, Vessāmitto, Yamataggi, Aṅgiraso, Bhāradvājo, Vāseṭṭho, Kassapo, and Bhagu. It is then pointed out that the Brāhmaṇas of Buddha’s time were merely repeaters of the hymns composed by these ancient sages.⁵

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According to the statements mentioned above as also according to the *Mahāgovinda* and other *suttas*, the goal of the Brāhmaṇas of the 6th century B.C. was mainly the attainment of Brahmaloka by acquisition of merit either through sacrifices or austere practices (*tapasya*).

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The ideal ancient Brāhmaṇas as envisaged in the *Brāhmaṇa-dhammika-sutta* must have been the ancient seers to whom the authorship of the Ṛgvedic hymns is attributed. They were, however, not conversant with the sacrificial system which we notice in the Ṛgveda. They, it seems, were given to intellectual culture alone and depended for their necessaries of life on the charity of the village-folk and towns-people. They belonged to the ancient families of priests like Aṅgirasas, Atharvans and Bhṛgus, who, according to Weber, were Indo-Iranian priests, and were, as Macdonell says, accorded a place intermediate between men and gods.¹ These ancient priests are treated in the Ṛgveda as semi-divine beings and are spoken of as ṛṣis, the exact term by which they are referred to in the Sutta-Nipāta.² They practised self-control and performed sacrifices with honey only.³ According to the Ṛgvedic tradition, Manu was the first of sacrificers, and he was followed by Aṅgiras, Bhṛgu, Atharvan and others.

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¹ See Keith, *Religion and Philosophy of the Veda*, p. 224.

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² Isayo pubbakā āsum saññatattā tapassino—*Sutta Nipāta*, p. 28.

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³ Keith, *op. cit.*, p. 224-225. Cf. *Kūṭadantasutta* in the *Dīgha*.

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The time when Brāhmaṇas began to approach for sacrifice to the kings, the first of whom was Okkāka (Ikṣvāku), the eldest son of Manu, must have been the time when the Ṛgveda was about to take its present shape; for, in it are found already the various classes of priests required for a sacrifice, e.g., Hotṛ, Adhvaryu, Brahman, and the system of taking the aid of a priest by the yajamāna for performing a sacrifice, a custom not prevalent in the pre-Ṛgvedic period. The practice of the yajamāna giving rich rewards to the priests had already become current at the time of the completion of the Ṛgveda, while by the time of the Yajurvedas, it became an indispensable religious necessity.

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It is in the period of the Brāhmaṇas and the Śrauta-sūtras, that we notice an abnormal increase in the avarice of the priests officiating at the sacrificial ceremonies. The references in the Pāli texts are to the state of things as found in the Yajur *Vedas* and the *Brāhmaṇas*. The different *śākhās* viz., *Adhvaryū*, *Tittirīyā*, *Chandokā* and *Bavhṛjā* evidently refer to *Śuklayajurveda*, *Kṛṣṇa-yajurveda*, *Sāmaveda* and *Ṛgveda* respectively. In a sacrifice, the presence of priests of these four classes was compulsory, each being in charge of a particular function.¹

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¹ For details, see Law, *Ancient Indian Polity*, ch. IX.

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In the early *Ṛgvedic* days, according to the *Sutta Nipāta*, the objects of offering consisted of rice, ghee, beds and clothes which the *Brāhmaṇas*, who were generally *brahmacārins* engaged in study and meditation, had to collect by begging. Later on, the offering of animals in a sacrifice came into vogue and it was certainly a fine reasoning, as we find it in the account of the *Sutta Nipāta*, that in the days when cows were treated as wealth like gold, they came to be included among the objects of offering, and perhaps it was this idea that prompted the *Brāhmaṇas* of a very early period to introduce the system of offering cows in a sacrifice. With the lapse of time the original idea passed out of people's minds but cows continued to be sacrificed, bringing in its train the system of killing all sorts of beings in a sacrifice. The *Pāli* texts abound in references to such prevalence of animal sacrifices, against which Buddha raised his voice of protest,² but it is a matter of note that Buddha was not alone or the first in suggesting the various objects of offering in a sacrifice in an descending scale from animals to barley³ but that a similar suggestion is also to be found in the *Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa*, one of the late works of the *Brāhmaṇa* period. It runs thus: "At first the gods offered up a man as the victim. When he was offered up, the sacrificial essence went out of him. It entered into a horse; they offered up the horse.” In this way the horse was replaced by the ox, the ox by the goat, and the goat by barley and rice.¹

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² Dutt, *Early History of the Spread of Buddhism*, pp. 5, 6.

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³ *Ibid.*

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¹ “The sacrificial essence then entered into this earth . . . They found it in . . . rice and barley. Therefore . . . as much efficacy as those sacrificed victims would have for him, so much efficacy has this oblation of rice . . .” See Dalal’s *History of India*, pp. 128-9 quoting from Eggeling’s translation of *Ś. Br.*

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This shows that about the sixth century B.C., the practice of offering animals in a sacrifice had already become repugnant to a section of the Brāhmaṇic society, and this feeling found the strongest expression in Buddhism. In this connexion, we have also to take into consideration the appearance of the Āraṇyakas and the method of sacrifice prescribed in them. Among the Brāhmaṇas there was a section who favoured the ancient Brāhmaṇic ideal of living the life of a recluse and earning merit by the performance of sacrifices by means of meditation, and repetition of Vedic hymns,² and disliked offering of animals. From the Pāli texts it is apparent that at the time of the rise of Buddhism, the system of killing animals in a sacrifice was as much in vogue as that of meditation and repetition of mantras. We have in the *Majjhima Nikāya* (I, pp. 343-4) a clear hint to that effect.³ “A king or a rich brāhmaṇa sometimes gets a hermitage (*santhāgāra*) built outside the town and lives there after having his hair and beard shaven and putting on rough skins. He is accompanied by his queen and purohita. He sleeps on bare ground and lives on a portion of the milk of a cow, and tends the sacrificial fire. He, however, orders that for sacrifice so many cows, calves, goats, etc., be killed, so many trees be cut down for *yupa*, *dabba*, etc.” This account shows that the Brāhmaṇas of the 5th century B.C. combined asceticism with animal sacrifices, but there is no adequate evidence to prove that they took to the extreme forms of self-mortification,¹ to which references are so frequently found in the *Nikāyas*. It seems that these extreme forms of ascetic practices were confined to the Jainas, Ājīvikas and such other non-Brāhmaṇic ascetic orders.

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² Keith, *op. cit.*, p. 490.

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³ See also *Aṅguttara*, II, p. 207.

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¹ The following is a stock passage occurring repeatedly in the Pāli texts: *Idha bhikkhave ekacco puggalo acelako hoti muttācāro hatthāpalekhano na chibhadantiko etc.* See *Infra*, p. 18.

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