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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s4: 4. The Conception of Dhamma or the Norm

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c8.s4

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4. The Conception of Dhamma or the Norm

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It is now possible to appreciate the precise significance to be attached to the view of Normalism, conceived as the reign of impersonal law, as the essential doctrine of Buddhism.³ Dhamma enters Buddhist thought with an interesting history: the Vedic period shows us in the Brāhmaṇas the development, to the detriment of the older term Dharman, of Dharma conceived not so much as relating to physical order, but as the moral order of the world, including in that term all matters pertaining to spheres later discriminated as law, custom, and etiquette. The conception is admirably illustrated by a passage in the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad¹ which tells of the absolute, Brahman, creating the lordly class, the commonalty, and the servile class. But still the creation was imperfect: ‘he created further a better class, the law. This is the power of the lordly class, the law. There is nothing higher than the law. So a weak man controls a strong man by the law, just as if by a king. Verily, that which is the law is truth. Therefore they say of a man who speaks the truth, “He speaks the law,” or of a man who speaks the law, “He speaks the truth.” Verily, both these are the same thing.’ Or again²: ‘the waters are the law; hence, whenever the waters come down to the world, everything here is in accord with the law. But whenever there is drought, then the stronger seizes upon the weaker, for the waters are the law.’ The conception of regularity in the physical and the moral sphere is thus as effectively brought out as the parallelism between the two aspects of order. The conception is as old as the Rigveda, for it is embodied in the conception of Ṛta as moral and physical order, and the parallelism of the Avestan counterpart of Ṛta even suggests that the idea is Indo-Iranian. Nor in the Rigveda is the moral order the creation of a god, even of Varuṇa; Ṛta itself is divine and independent of the gods even if Varuṇa and the Ādityas are its guardians par excellence.³ Normalism is, therefore, present in the earliest Indian thought known to us, just as the gods of Homer are faced with Anagke; the Tao of Chinese thought presents another obvious parallel.⁴

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³ Mrs. Rhys Davids, *Buddhism*, pp. 235 ff.; Rhys Davids, SBB. iv. 54 ff.

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¹ i. 4. 14. See Oldenberg, VWW., pp. 188 ff.

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² ÇB. xi. i 6. 24.

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³ Oldenberg, Religion des Veda, pp. 194 ff.; Keith, Indian Mythology, pp. 23 ff.

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⁴ Grube, Die Religion und Kultur der Chinesen, pp. 86 ff.

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Buddhism, therefore, in laying stress on the presence of law in the nature of things, was merely developing a doctrine which was fully realized in the Brahmanic circles, though in the new belief much greater stress was directed to this conception, as a result of the lack of concentration on the absolute as real. Dhamma is freely and widely applied; it denotes the laws of nature: man's body falls under the rule of decay; it equally applies to the law of impermanence enunciated by the Buddha; whatever comes into being is subject to the law of destruction. It applies with special appropriateness to the chain of causation; he who sees the chain sees the law, and vice versa. The various members of the chain stand in a relation of accordance with law (dhamma-ṭhiti), and the knowledge of this relationship is itself subject to the law of evanescence (khaya-dhamma). The progress to enlightenment on the part of the individual is regulated by law; the aspirant who has entered on the path to salvation is subject to the rule that he cannot fall away from the fulfilment of his purpose; the non-returner (anāgāmin) to the rule that he cannot be born again in this world. Dhamma applies equally to law in the sphere presided over by the king and his judges. It covers again the norm for the castes, and the duties which that norm exacts from them, and all action in accord with duty, in contrast with Adhamma, disobedience to, or discord from, the norm. It denotes whatever is righteous or good, with the same contrast; indeed in the Milindapañha¹ we find a curious quasi-personification of the idea, just as in the Ṣatapatha Brāhmaṇa² a god, Dharma, the embodiment of righteousness, appears formally. In a less pregnant sense Dhamma denotes any usage or practice, without regard to its moral quality; it expresses the characteristic of any person or thing. Still more vaguely it comes occasionally to be used almost as a synonym of cause or ground (hetu), with which the commentators identify it.³

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¹ p. 207; SBE. xxxv. 295, n. 2; Poussin, JA. 1903, ii. 406, n. 2.

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² xiii. 4. 3. 14.

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³ Geiger, PD., pp. 32 f.

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By a natural development of meaning Dhamma comes to be selected as the description of the Buddha’s doctrine, but equally it can be applied to the views of other teachers; in the first use it is often qualified as the good law, or the noble (ariya) law, a term in which it is unwise to see any ethnical consciousness, or the law of the good man. In the compound Dhamma-vinaya we have an expression for dogma and disciplinary regulation, or, as one idea, the teaching in its complete form, for the order is as essential an element of Buddhism or most of the rival faiths as the doctrine itself. The essence of the Buddha’s Dhamma is variously given, though the result is the same; it embraces the four noble truths, or their equivalent, the knowledge of the true character of the empiric world (*sakāya*); the chain of causation; the nature of the aggregates (*khandha*) which constitute the individual as impermanent, of the six senses, and of the six elements including consciousness.

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In keeping with the Brahmanic tradition is the frequent use of Dhamma in the sense of truth or reality, though Dhamma actually appears alongside of truth (*sacca*), in which case it denotes something superior to ordinary accuracy. In this sense we may best take the common phrase ‘he sees the Dhamma’ and the term ‘insight into Dhamma’ (*dhamma-vipassanā*), and ‘the eye of the Dhamma (*dhamma-cakkhu*).’ But of course such passages admit of the interpretation of Dhamma as denoting more than mere truth, as signifying the essence of things. That Dhamma has this sense appears clearly enough from its obvious substitution for the idea of Brahman, or its use alongside of the older expression; thus the way of the Dhamma replaces the path of the Brahman, though that also occurs;¹ he who thinks of the Tathāgata dwells with the Brahman or Brahmā;² the eightfold path which leads to Nirvāṇa is styled indifferently either the Brahmayāna or the Dhammayāna; the followers of the Buddha are sons and heirs of the Dhamma, even as the Brahmins claim to be born of and heirs of the Brahman; the Tathāgata is said to have the Dhamma as his body, the Brahman as his body, to be one with the Dhamma, one with the Brahman.³ Very rarely the Dhamma seems to be regarded as replacing the Ātman in the Brahmanic use as a synonym of the absolute.⁴

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¹ SN. i. 141; Therag., 689; Chānd. Up., iv. 15. 5.

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² AN. i. 207.

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³ DN. iii. 84, 81.

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⁴ Cf. SN. v. 6; DN. ii. 100; attadīpā, dhammadīpā; J. v. 66.

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How far can we hold that the norm is regarded as more than an abstraction, as something truly real lying at the bottom of, and determining, the world? It is clear that the norm is sometimes regarded as almost, or completely, equivalent to the highest reality or force. We find the expression ‘pay homage to the norm’; the wise show reverence to it; Upāli instructs the elders in discipline, standing out of regard for their seniority, while they stand also out of regard for the norm (*dhammagāravena*).¹ Especially interesting is the tale of the difficulties of the Buddha after he had attained full enlightenment; he felt the need to study under a teacher to pay him honour and respect, but could see none in the world of gods, Māras, Brahmās, ascetics, or recluses; ‘this norm then, wherein I am supremely enlightened, what if I were to live under it, paying it honour and respect?’² The norm is incorporated in the Tathāgata; hence the *Milinda-pañha*³ explains there cannot be two Buddhas simultaneously, for the earth could not bear the weight of so much Dharma. The norm as a motive force appears also prominently in the Aggañña Suttanta,⁴ where the claims of the Brahmins to pre-eminence on the ground of birth are dismissed; in every class there are cases of virtuous dispositions and of evil ones, and an Arahant may arise in any, possessing pre-eminence by reason of the norm, not without its co-operation. It is because of recognition of the norm that Pasenadi, the Kosala king, holds the Buddha in honour, though the Buddha’s people, the Sākiyas, are inferior to him and pay him homage as mere vassals. So, too, the followers of the norm are superior to Brahmins. The theme is further elucidated by a tale of the origin from time to time of the world, after it has been dissolved into the lowest form of being; at this time most spirits have been reborn in the world of radiance, but, as there is evolution of the earth, there is decadence among the spirits, whose radiance declines; in the course of evolution the lordly class of Khattiyas arises to preserve order, Brahmins further morality, Vessas perform various trade tasks, and Suddas live by hunting and low occupations, all in accord with the norm, which marks out the Arahant as the highest in the world.

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¹ VP. ii. 168.

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² SN. ii. 138 f. ; AN. ii. 20 f.

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³ pp. 237 f.

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⁴ DN. iii. 80 ff.

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The conception, it is plain, is vague, and does not really advance further than the old Vedic idea of Ṛta or the later Brahmanic Dharma; it recognizes, however, that there is more than mere change based on causation in the world; there is immanent in reality the norm which makes the Arahant the highest of beings, and which in its special application to the classes of mankind secures them appropriate occupations. What is specially significant is that this norm has no vision of the progressive improvement of the world; the whole is pictured perfectly steadily as a process of evolution and involution, which persistently proceeds developing the same results; there is here no room for visions of a golden age to be attained on earth, nor material on which a reforming spirit could arise. The Arahant seeks and attains under the norm an enlightenment for himself, and thus subtracts himself for ever from the otherwise endless series of births and rebirths.

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It is less easy to trace in the early Brahmanic literature the conception of Dharmas as objects or things, a sense which unquestionably is common in the extreme in Buddhism. We have, however, the idea clearly in two passages of the Kaṭha Upaniṣad;¹ the man who regards objects (dharmān) separately, who sees no unity, pursues after them, and the wise man is urged to lay aside what is material (dharmya) and seek what is subtle (aṇu). It is quite impossible to accept the view² that the primary sense of Dhamma is idea, for there is no conceivable ground, etymological or otherwise, whence this meaning could emerge, and it is obviously not found in the Upaniṣadic use of the term. Equally impossible is the suggestion³ that the term denotes the regularities which are the relations for the mind of the super-sensuous reality of change, which is the absolute truth for Buddhism. More tenable is the suggestion⁴ that the plural use of the term, which is presumably the older, as it is by far the most frequent, arises from things being regarded as manifestations of the natural and spiritual law which underlies reality. Yet this is perhaps too deliberately metaphysical a conception, and it is more plausible that the origin should be looked for in Dharma, considered as the fundamental or regular nature of a thing; in Buddhism⁵ we have the conception of the Dhammatā, or essential characteristic of a Buddha, e. g. that he decides to preach on the invitation of the god Brahmā, of a Bodhisattva, or of a disciple; the same conception appears in the case of a stone. Dharma then would mean simply object or thing,¹ without any metaphysical implication of a far-reaching nature. With this accords perfectly the fact that in Buddhism we find an express distinction made between Dhammas as internal (*ajjhattika*) and external (*bāhira*);² the former term applies to the mental presentation, the latter to the object which is conceived as the source of the mental presentation. It can hardly be supposed that Buddhism first appreciated things as mental, and then assigned them to an external cause; the obvious interpretation of usage is that the external thing (*dhamma*) was later analysed into the thing proper, and the mental image, an obvious and common step in the history of psychological analysis. The existence of external reality is, history testifies, a primitive view, which was widely spread in the Buddha’s time as the activity of materialists³ testifies, and psychological investigation is a later stage in which existing terms are reconsidered and given new significations.

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¹ iv. 14; ii. 13; cf. i. 21; aṇur eṣa dharmaḥ.

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² Franke, DN., p. 275, n. 3.

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³ Beckh, Buddhismus, ii. 119.

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⁴ Geiger, PD., p. 9; Oldenberg, LUAB., p. 300.

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⁵ Mil., p. 234; MN. i. 320; SN. i. 140; DN. iii. 147; MN. i. 325; Mil., p. 179.

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¹ For its wide use in this sense see PD., pp. 88 ff.

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² MN. i. 191.

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³ Cf. H. Jacobi, KF., pp. 38 f. with Oldenberg, GN. 1917, pp. 248 ff.; below, ch. vii, § 1.

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There is a similar error in interpreting idealistically the signification of Saṃkhāra⁴ when used as a synonym of Dhamma of things in general. We should not regard the Saṃkhāras as things in relation to mind (*saṃkhata*); rather the term has the more general signification of product, as well as of producing, and it is therefore naturally and directly applied to the whole world of external reality as well as to mental products. The Vijñānavādins would have us believe that Buddhism was always idealist, but the Madhyamakas deny it energetically, and the early texts bear witness in their favour. It is a heresy to hold that material things endure but for the moment of the thought which apprehends them;⁵ the body by reason of its duration is in a sense a truer self than consciousness with its constant change.⁶

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⁴ Geiger, PD., pp. 85 f.; Franke, DN., pp. 307 f.; Beckh, Buddhismus, ii. 104 ff.

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⁵ KV. xxii. 8.

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⁶ SN. ii. 94.

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