[Buddha-l] Dharmapala

[Dan Lusthaus]

Lance,

> As far as I know, there is no sutta in the Pali Canon which authorizes
> violence in the way you suggest and much which clearly rejects it.

The essays that deal directly with Theravada in the book focus on current 
events, e.g., what sort of ceremonies and sermons do Buddhist clerics 
provide to the military. Those essays do not argue against a strong 
pacifistic dimension in the canonical texts. What they do point out, 
however, is the important ways, going back to early canonical texts, 
Buddhists rendered unto Ceasar, and on closer examination, what they render 
and condone belies any sense of absolutist pacifism. Have you read the book? 
If not, when I get a chance, perhaps I can copy out some of what they write 
on the issue, so we can discuss this with specifics rather than in an 
abstract vacuum.

While some line between cleric and laity is maintained, the king as a 
Cakravartin is not exactly out of the fold, and to the extent he is a 
promoter and defender of the Dharma, preserving the state is preserving the 
Dharma (and vice versa). This is not a throwaway formula, but worked out in 
some details in a variety of Theravadin (and other Buddhist) sources, and 
did have an impact on Buddhist politics (by violence, the authors include 
how prisoners and criminals are treated, etc., not just all out warfare). 
E.g., one essay shows that according to some influential sources, torture is 
condoned, while capital punishment is not.

As I said, all these materials need to be studied more thoroughly, and 
currently such efforts are underway, but not without some resistance from 
the old guard.

> That violence has occurred [...] The suggestion
> now being made that this is a new discovery seems to me to be quite
> ludicrous and perhaps motivated by the usual attempt that people make to
> puff up the importance of their own research.

I don't think anyone is really making the claim that something new (i.e, 
violence) is being discovered. That is why, for instance, the Demieville 
essay is included in the book (and that itself being a response to even 
earlier research on militarism in Japanese Buddhism). Precisely to show that 
it is not new, but still not fully integrated either into the popular sense 
of Buddhism or even the academics' understanding. What I think is new is the 
range and diversity, and elucidating with greater specificity, the details. 
It's not just the monk armies in Heian Japan, or the fifth Dalai Lama's rise 
to power, but almost everywhere one looks. And the Mahayana sutras that 
explain how violence is to be employed were not backwater, obscure texts 
used by some minority group. They are prominent sutras known and quoted by 
prominent Buddhists, like Nagarjuna, Bhaviveka, Candrakirti, Santideva, etc.

My own favorite "shocker" example of how it has been under our noses forever 
but ignored or not taken for what it is -- and this is not from the book --  
is the story of Huineng's receiving the robe and bowl of Bodhidharma and the 
transmission from the fifth patriarch. The fifth patriarch declares him his 
successor and then tells him to flee for his life since jealous monks will 
kill him to retrieve the bowl and robe (and the authority of the 
transmission). He flees, and sure enough a posse of monks pursues him. It is 
not important whether or not that story is historically true or merely 
legend. Either way, it tells us something about the ethos of Chan temples 
long before Brian Victoria noticed a problem. And lest this be shucked off 
as some Chinese or Mahayana aberration, there are numerous similar stories 
about Nalanda and other Buddhist enclaves in India, concerning guarding of 
"state secrets" (in the Indian ones, non-Buddhist spies do get murdered when 
discovered stealing the secrets of Buddhist logic, etc.). How many scholars 
and students have read the Platform Sutra or heard the story without 
wondering why a bunch of meditating, poem-writing monks would kill over a 
robe in violation of their master's wishes, and that the threat of murder 
should be so prominent and palpable that even the fifth patriarch is aware 
that passing on his robe could be a death sentence to the recipient? How 
many Zennists have conjured up alibis for Nansen's catricide?

Dan