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The History of Buddhist Thought c15: Chapter VII. Brahminism and the Upanishads

The History of Buddhist Thought c15

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Chapter VII. Brahminism and the Upanishads

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SO far little has been said of the brahmins. Among the six schools brought forward by Ajātasattu there is no mention of one representing the brahmins, and among the sixty-two doctrines in the *Brahmajāla-sutta* it is difficult to recognize any as being held in the form stated by one of the orthodox schools. Yet the brahmins play a large part in Buddhist polemics, though it is as priests, not as mystics or philosophers. Their claim to be the highest caste, and to be the only caste able to perform the sacrifices and ceremonies necessary for men even to exist as a member of society, had led to protests. Buddhism was only one of these movements, which, as we have seen, were led by ascetics seeking, not a reformed state of worldly society, but an explanation of the ills of life and an escape from them.

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A frequent term in the Scriptures is *samaṇa-brāhmaṇa*, ascetics and brahmins. Here the samanas are doubtless those who have permanently abandoned a household life, and may include brahmins who have adopted an ascetic life, for the brahmins proper are treated as householders, But the term *samaṇa-brāhmaṇa* is always used quite generally for those religious leaders who are mentioned as teaching doctrines in rivalry with the Buddhists. In the *Sāmaññaphala-sutta*, it is applied by Ajātasattu to the six teachers, who cannot all have been brahmins.

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There is a great difference from what we know of the brahmins directly from their sacred literature and the picture we find of them in the Buddhist Scriptures. The brahmin literature with which we are concerned consists firstly of the Brāhmaṇas, extensive prose works expounding the hymns of the Vedas,¹ theorizing about the ritual of the sacrifice, and developing speculations about its meaning. These extend into cosmogonic theories, for the sacrifice had come to be conceived as a ritual which keeps the whole universe going on in its due course. Appended to a Brāhmaṇa is usually an Āraṇyaka, “forest treatise,” and added to this or forming part of it is an Upanishad, a work of “secret teaching”. All these works were secret or esoteric in the sense that they were confined to the brahmin schools, and as they were unwritten they could only be learnt by an initiated member of the school. But the Upanishads developed theories of the world and the soul going far beyond the teaching of the Vedas. They were the secret teaching in a special sense. These speculations led to new upanishads being composed, and though they are all said to belong to one or other of the Vedas, they are mostly quite independent works. We are here concerned only with those supposed to be early enough to be independent of Buddhist influence. The most important of these are the Bṛhadāraṇyaka and Chāndogya Upanishads.¹

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¹ The Buddhists speak only of three Vedas, the Rigveda, Sāmaveda, and Yajurveda. The fourth, the Atharvaveda, was known, though it was not yet recognized as a Veda by the other schools.

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¹ In the list of upanishads in the Muktikā Up. the first ten are still recognized as belonging to the oldest class:— Īśa, Kena, Kaṭha, Praśna, Mundaka, Māndūkya, Taittirīya, With Aitareya, Chāndogya, And likewise Bṛhadāraṇyaka.

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The warrior caste figures largely in the dialogues of the Upanishads, so much so that it has been held that the characteristic doctrines originated with this class. Whatever be their origin, they had become the possession of the brahmins, and although any of the three higher castes might devote themselves to Vedic study, we have the striking fact that the kshatriyas described in the Buddhist records show no trace of upanishadic teaching. The original centre of brahmin culture was far from the cradle of Buddhism. This centre was in the West, chiefly in the region between the Ganges and the Jumna. It gradually permeated the East of India, but there are indications to show that the East, and Magadha especially, were long considered unfit for the habitation of brahmins. But at least as a sacrificial system Brahminism had established itself there before the development of Buddhism. There was not the same reason why the study of the secret doctrine should have spread as early as the brahmin cult, which performed the sacred rites for individuals at every stage of life.

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Controversy between brahmins and the Buddhists turns upon caste, sacrifice, and the possession of the sacred lore, the three Vedas. The brahmins are represented as saying “ the brahmin is the best colour (caste), the other colour is base; the brahmin is the white colour, the other colour is black; the brahmins are purified,¹ not non-brahmins. The brahmins are the true sons of Brahma, born from his mouth, Brahma-born, Brahma-created, heirs of Brahma ”.² The word for colour here is vaṇṇa (varṇa), and is the same word which means “ caste ” in the sense of the four classes of mankind held to be the four primitive castes produced in the beginning, from which the others have originated by intermixture. Another statement attributed to a brahmin is, “ there are these four castes, kshatriyas (warriors), brahmins (priests), vaiśyas (traders and farmers), and śūdras (serfs). Of these four the three castes of kshatriyas, vaiśyas, and śūdras are really but attendants on the brahmins.”

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¹ Purified is often used in Buddhist phraseology of final release; so in the title of Buddhaghosa’s great work, *Visuddhi-magga*, “ the way of purity.”

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² *Majjh.*, ii, 84; *Dīgha*, ii, 81.

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A number of suttas are devoted to refuting the brahmin claims, but they do not read like actual discussions. They are mostly in the form of legends, and the stereotyped arguments are repeated over and over again. We are told of a conversation between Buddha and the brahmin Soṇadaṇḍa. Soṇadaṇḍa declared that there are five things that constitute a brahmin: he is well born on both sides for seven generations; he knows the mantras, the three Vedas, and accessory sciences; he is handsome and fair in colour; he is virtuous; he is learned and the first or second of those who hold out the spoon at the sacrifice. Buddha asked if any of the five qualifications might be omitted. Soṇadaṇḍa at once admitted that colour might be omitted, then that knowing the mantras did not matter, nor birth if he is virtuous and learned. There is no real discussion, and what we have comes to be merely an assertion of the Buddhist position that virtue and wisdom are the highest things in the world. The same description of the brahmin is given by king Avanti-putta of Madhurā (Mathurā) to the elder Mahā-Kaccāna.³ The elder shows that a wealthy kshatriya can have one of the other castes to minister to him. If a brahmin were a thief or adulterer, he would be punished like any other. If a man, no matter what his caste, were to adopt the ascetic life, he would be honoured as a recluse. The same argument is brought forward against the brahmin Assalāyana,¹ and countries life those of the Yonas and Kambojas ² are pointed out where there are only two castes, noble and slave, and these may change places. If there were two brahmin brothers, one learned and one not, the former would be received first as a guest, but if the learned one were wicked and the other virtuous, then the latter would receive honour. Brahmins are also made to admit that as a matter of fact they are unable to be sure that their descent has been kept pure for seven generations. Esukārī ³ offers another mark of the brahmin caste: a brahmin may be served by any of the four castes, a kshatriya by any of the three lower, a vaiśya by the two lowest, and a śūdra only by a śūdra. But Buddha replies that it is merely the brahmin view, and says that not all service should be undertaken or rejected. That which makes a man better and not worse should be undertaken. He is not better or worse through high birth, high caste, or great wealth. Even if of high birth he may be either criminal or virtuous, and he is rewarded according to his actions, not according to his caste. Again, the castes are said to be distinguished by their sources of wealth, the brahmin by living on alms, the kshatriya by his bow and arrows, the vaiśya by farming and cattle-rearing, and the śūdra by his sickle and carrying-pole; but the four classes are mere designations according as a man happens to be born, just as a fire that burns logs is a wood fire, or a fire that burns straw a straw fire. True wealth, Buddha proclaims, is the noble transcendent Doctrine. Anyone, whatever his caste is, may practise this and develop the thought of love and freedom from enmity.

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³ *Majjh.*, iii, 83.

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¹ Ibid., ii, 147.

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² These are the names of two peoples mentioned by Asoka in his inscriptions (Rock Edict) as being within his realm. There is no reason to connect the Yonas directly with the Greeks, though the name (Yavana) is the name by which the Persians knew them.

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³ Majjh., ii, 177.

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The brahmins are also attacked as being degenerate. They are contrasted with their ancient ancestors, who kept their own caste laws. They did not seek to be well groomed and adorned, nor did they live on rich food and enjoy luxurious palaces and chariots.⁴ Usually the discussions are described with great urbanity, but there is a certain animus in the description of five ancient brahmin practices which are said to be not now found among brahmins but are still found among dogs.¹ A still more disparaging reference occurs in the *Majjhima* (iii, 167), where certain people are said to be "running like brahmins at the smell of a sacrifice". The brahmins are never referred to as living an ascetic life. Yet this is taught in the Upanishads. "Brahmins who have come to know this ātman rise beyond desire for sons, desire for wealth, and desire for worlds, and practice living on alms . . . Therefore, let a brahmin, becoming disgusted with learning, desire to abide in a state of ignorance. When disgusted with both the state of learning and ignorance then he becomes a recluse." ² But the ancient ideal state of the brahmins as described by the Buddhists is that of the householder. The life of the brahmin philosopher appears to be unknown.

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⁴ Dīgha, i, 104; Sn., 284-315. The attacks on caste were long continued. In the Lalita-vistāra (159) the Bodhisattva chooses his wife for her good

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¹ Union of a brahmin only with a brahmin woman; seasonal intercourse; not buying and selling; not storing up wealth; begging only in the morning and evening; not to any amount or after a good meal. *Angut.*, iii, 221.

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² *Brhad. Up.*, iii, 5.

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Where the discussions touch most closely upon positive Buddhist doctrines is in the treatment of the way of salvation and in cosmogony, the theory of the origin of the universe. But what we find are the peculiar Buddhist theories, stated without any distinct recognition of the different conceptions of brahminism, and in no case with any allusion or quotation referring to an upanishad. On the one hand there was the view of the brahmin priests that by due performance of the sacrifices and other duties of life rebirth in heaven might be won, and on the other the secret doctrine of the brahmin recluses that freedom from rebirth might be won by attaining a certain knowledge. It is only the first that we find discussed by the Buddhists. The *Tevijja-sutta*, the discourse on the three-fold knowledge, the Vedas, undertakes to discuss the value of sacrifice, and the brahmins are represented as holding that it leads to life in the Brahma-world. But the Brahma-world as described belongs purely to the Buddhist conception of the universe. It is a definite region above the heavens of sense-pleasures, and is ruled by Mahā-Brahmā, the god who thinks he has created the universe, and every inhabitant

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qualities from a number of ladies of all castes. The *Vajrasūci* sometimes attributed to Aśvaghosha (first cent. A.D.) uses brahmin works to enforce its refutation.

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of that heaven is called a Brahmā. To reach that heaven is called attaining to the companionship of Brahmā. The view that the ancient Vedic sages knew the way to attain it is refuted by asking if they have ever seen Brahmā. It turns out that they have never seen him, nor do they know where he is. They are like a string of blind men led by a blind man. They indulge in the pleasures of the five senses, and this, even if they indulge in them quite lawfully, can only (on Buddhist theory) result in rebirth in one of the heavens of sense pleasures, not in the heaven of Brahmā.

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What is expounded here is not the brahmin theory at all, but the possibility of attaining to the Brahma-world as the Buddhists conceived it to exist, that is, by the practice of the Brahma-vihāras. The brahmin view is refuted only in the sense that it must be false if the Buddhist conception is true. But all this, whether understood according to brahmin or Buddhist theories, has nothing to do with the upanishadic teaching about union with Brahma. Even the name is not the same, for the Buddhist Brahmā is a personal god who is also recognized by the Brahmins. But he, like the other Vedic gods, is only a manifestation of the ultimate reality Brahma.¹ This neuter Brahma is never mentioned by the Buddhists, nor do they ever discuss the upanishadic doctrine of attaining to this Brahma or becoming identified with it. Salvation for the teachers of the upanishads consisted in knowing that the individual self was identical with Brahma. This doctrine, though utterly opposed to Buddhist teaching, is never referred to in the Scriptures, though if it had been known it would have been the one most in need of refutation. It is possibly alluded to in the passage where the doctrine that the world is the self is mentioned (p. 102).

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¹ Brahmā (masc.) as a god is not known to the Vedic hymns. He appears later and is mentioned in the Upanishads, but the chief conception there is the neuter brahma.

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Questions of cosmogony are much older than the Upanishads. In the Vedic hymns we find the universe conceived as a sacrifice performed by the gods. Once it is even represented as a human sacrifice, in which the four classes of society proceed from different parts of the primeval man.² Or it is an egg. The Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads go on multiplying these myths. The favourite ideas are emanation, in which a primeval being emits everything from himself,¹ or production by the magic means of austerities (tapas). “Verily in the beginning there was nothing here. This (world) was covered over with Death, with hunger; for hunger is Death. He formed the thought, ‘would that I might have a self.’”² Most of these myths are attempts to find an absolute beginning, for neither the doctrine of recurrent cycles nor rebirth is yet found, and it is against such vain attempts that the attacks of the *Brahmajāla-sutta* are directed.³ But another principle was also involved. An origin implies an originator. The Buddhists opposed this in two ways. As we have seen, they explained away Brahmā the creator as being an individual who arose first at the beginning of a new cycle, and imagined that he had created all the rest as it arose out of the chaotic state between two cycles. He is represented as declaring, “I am Brahmā, the great Brahmā, the subduer, the unsubdued, the beholder of all, the subjector, god, maker, former, the chief appointer, the controller, the father of those that have been and shall be.” Besides thus explaining away the creator, the Buddhists invented a creation myth of their own.⁴ As the doctrine of recurrent cycles was assumed, it was not necessary to ask about an absolute beginning. There is no destruction of the whole universe, but only up to the world of Brahmā.

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² Rigveda, x, 90.

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¹ *Kaushītaki Br.*, vi, 10.

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² *Brhad. Up.*, i, 2, 1.

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³ Above, p. .

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⁴ *Aggañña-sutta*, *Dīgha*, iii, 80. It occurs also in Sanskrit forms showing that it belonged to the common tradition of early Buddhism. *Mvst.*, i, 338. It was originally one of the Vinaya legends. *Rockhill*, pp. 1 ff.

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When the world begins to re-evolve in a new cycle, beings are reborn in it from a still higher world (Ābhassara, the Radiant world). At that time all was water and complete darkness. Here we have the nearest approach to a beginning as represented in the Brāhmaṇas. There was no sun or moon, no distinction of seasons, of male and female. Beings consisted of mind, feeding on joy, self-luminous, passing through the air, and abiding in glory. After a long time edible earth appeared on the water like scum on boiled milk. One of the beings becoming greedy tasted it, and other beings followed his example. Their luminous disappeared, and moon and sun arose. Further stages are described, the disappearance of the edible earth, the growth of plants, until rice appeared. Greed and violence arose, sex and sex customs which were held to be wicked, and houses were built for concealment. Stealing, lying, and punishment arose, until the people went to the handsomest and ablest of the beings and asked him to administer justice. As he was authorized (*sammata*) by the people, he was known as Mahāsammata, the Great authorized One. He was the first king and first kshatriya, the origin of the warrior caste. Some of the beings decided to put away evil practices. They lived in leaf-huts, meditating, and begging their food. Some of these not being able to meditate compiled books¹ (the three Vedas, says the commentary). This was the origin of the brahmins. Others who adopted trades became the vaiśyas, and those who took to hunting śūdras. The discussion has thus come round again to the significance of caste.

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¹ *Gantha*, something tied together, i.e. the bundle of palm-leaves forming a book. Apart from the anachronism of thus describing the Vedas, it is an indication of the late origin of the legend itself.

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There is no implication here that caste is indifferent. It is admitted that the four divisions are the normal state of society, and the warrior caste is made the chief. It was natural that a movement originating in opposition to brahminism should emphasize its own pretensions and in particular the descent of its founder as a member of the warrior caste. His ancestry is traced back to Mahāsammata, and the legend says that the founders of his clan, the sons of king Okkāka, who became the Sakyas, were so jealous of their purity of blood that they married their own sisters. But caste is put on a moral basis. A man of whatever caste, if he does wrong in deed, word, or thought, will after death go to hell or to some unhappy state; if he does right, to happiness and the world of heaven. For those who abandon the world caste disappears. Out of these four groups is formed the group of ascetics (*samaṇa*). “Anyone in these four castes who becomes a monk, an arahat, who has destroyed the āsavas, who has done what had to be done, who has laid down the burden, who has accomplished his purpose, who has destroyed the fetter of coming to be and is emancipated by full knowledge, he is declared to be chief among these (four) through his dhamma (his prescribed course of action),² not through that which is not.” The idea of the true brahmin is finally entirely moralized. The name brahmin is used over and over again for the perfected disciple, the arahat.

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² Franke translates “seinem Wesen nach”, Mrs. Rhys Davids “in virtue of a norm”. The *dhamma* of any particular class is that course of action which is right in accordance with the duties peculiar to that class. Here the *dhamma* of the arahat coincides with the doctrine, the word of Buddha which teaches the whole career of the arahat.

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The relations of the upanishadic literature to Buddhism have been most fully studied by Oldenberg.¹ He points out the widely separated geographical position and the consider-ably later form of the buddhistic literature as shown in language, metre, the development of continuous thought, and management of dialogue. Another distinction is that the upanishads give us a picture only of village life, while the suttas show us city life, highly developed trade, and luxurious habits of living. The last point, however, is not very significant. We can speak of a literature contemporary with Buddha, but we find it embedded in a mass of legends which may be two centuries or more later. The memorizers who invented or adopted these legends had no historic sense to preserve the archaic features of previous centuries. They described the towns, the social life, the courtesans and traders of their own time as they knew them, and what they tell us of them is not, nor was it ever meant to be, the word of Buddha.

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¹ Die Lehre der Upanishaden und die Anfänge des Buddhismus, Göttingen, 1915.

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The idea of Brahma (neuter) in the old upanishads is said to have become hypostatized in Buddhism into a personal god Brahmā. But this rather implies that the older philosophic idea had been known to the Buddhists and then had become transformed into a much less philosophic conception. We have no evidence that early Buddhism ever knew it. It moves on the lines of the popular polytheism, which had never known the secret lore of the sages.

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There can be no doubt, says Oldenberg, about the chronological conclusions. Buddhist literature is later than the Bṛhadāraṇyaka or Chāndogya Upanishad, and it is unthinkable that it should be the immediate successor of those works. Here Oldenberg is in opposition to scholars like Hopkins, who cannot believe that even the oldest upanishads “go back of the sixth century”.² But it is surely a great assumption to speak of succession at all. We do not know that the upanishads had any connection with the region or social conditions in which Buddhism originated.¹ They may have been going on in the seclusion of their hermitages at the very time when the Buddhists were attacking the brahmin pretensions in Magadha.

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² Hopkins, in JAOS., xxii, 336.

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¹ Oldenberg himself refused to see the supposed references to several Upanishads, which Walleser finds in an old Buddhist text; cf. Walleser, Philos. Grundlage des alteren Buddhismus, p. 67. Oldenberg (Zur Gesch. des altind. Prosa, p. 40) held that the Sāmaññaphala-sutta was a direct imitation of a dialogue in Bṛhad. Up., iv, 1. In both cases there is a question between a king and a sage; in both the king tells what others have said; and in both cases these are six teachers. This has nothing to do with the origin of Buddhism, but with the literary form in which the editors put the dialogue. At that time literary contact may well have taken place.

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When we come to the question of the actual doctrines which may have been borrowed, we find that they are claimed to be not in the Upanishads, but in the philosophical schools of Yoga and Sāṅkhya. In the case of Yoga, as we have seen, it is rather a method of training which is in question. Some form of Yoga no doubt preceded Buddhism, and some of the particular methods may have been borrowed, but as the Buddhist system continued to grow we can in no case be sure that these belonged to original Buddhism. We have seen what is supposed to have been borrowed from Sāṅkhya. Even if the evidence for the borrowing of the Causal Formula were more cogent, we should have no reason to think that the Formula formed one of the foundations of the original system.²

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² A question which cannot be discussed here is whether classical Sāṅkhya was earlier than Buddhism. Garbe and Jacobi held that it was, and if so their view of borrowing would be thereby strengthened. But even then we could not infer that it was primitive Buddhism that borrowed it.

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The polemics of Buddhism help to show the kind of intellectual world in which its early expounders moved, but do not tell us of the fundamental beliefs which led its followers to abandon household life and undertake a long course of training. Buddhism rejected the worship of gods and the celebration of sacrifices as a means to final happiness. It rejected speculations about ultimate beginnings, especially about whether the self and the world were eternal, and a number of speculations about the ultimate state of the self in the future. What the Buddhist theories were as to the nature of this self and the ultimate state called Nirvāṇa are still matters of discussion.

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