[Buddha-l] Non attached & mindful culinary triumphalism?

[JKirkpatrick]

The descriptive lists Artur cited are very helpful to a project of mine, but would someone please identify the source of the text (or texts?) being discussed here?
Lance,
My reservations are the same as yours except for the last, where you claim an attempt to enlarge the varna list.  Why would the text be about that? 
Or, if stating lists of high and low groups, what was the purpose? 

I'm missing context here. That is: was the text going on about good and bad consequences due to good or bad actions, or something else?


Joanna




-----Original Message-----
From: buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com [mailto:buddha-l-bounces at mailman.swcp.com] On Behalf Of L.S. Cousins
Sent: Sunday, July 10, 2011 9:21 AM
To: Buddhist discussion forum
Subject: Re: [Buddha-l] Non attached & mindful culinary triumphalism?

Responding to Artur Karp:
> Dear Joanna, Lance and Dan,
>
> What hampers this discussion is scantiness of realistic information on 
> the social structure in the times of the Buddha (whatever way we date 
> him), Fick's (clearly outdated) work notwithstanding.
Quite so.
> Social marginalization is definitely a byproduct of deforestation and 
> detribalization, the two processes conditioning/accompanying the 
> emergence of the new political and economic order in Northern India.
> [On that, sufficiently, Romila Thapar and, lately, Greg Bailey&  Ian 
> Mabbett.]
This is argued and may be so, but we don't really know anything very solid about these historical processes. There seem to me to be many possibilities.
> Pali texts, to the extent that I am familiar with them, don't seem to 
> show any interest in either of the two. Their silence re the effects 
> of marginalization (not of the śudras, their social position was only 
> relatively marginal) isn't surprising, the real target for Buddhist 
> missionary activities being urbanized and urbanizing segments of the 
> society. [On that Schopen.]
It is hardly surprising that Buddhist monks would direct their teaching towards those of a similar background to themselves.
> The other factors operating behind this marked lack of interest must 
> have been the linguistic-cultural differences. Who were those 
> ex-tribals deprived in the name of progress of their land and their 
> sources of livelihood?  Were they Dravidians? Austro-Asiatics? What 
> type of matrimonial exchange they were practicing? Inheritance rules?
We have  no idea.
> The texts kind of concentrate on their poverty, seemingly as the 
> effect of their bad karma, not on their being the victims of 
> civilizational violence. Showing them as inferior beings, of the 
> Untermensch type. A quote from Bailey&  Mabbet's book (p. 42-43, a 
> fragment repeated nearly verbatim in five texts):
>
> "There are degraded families: a candala family, a family of hunters, 
> of bamboo workers, of chariot makers and of refuse removers. A person 
> is born in such a family which is poor, one in which food, drink and 
> possessions are few, in which the lifestyle is difficult, in which 
> animal fodder and covering are gained with difficulty. And he is of 
> poor complexion, ugly, dwarf-like, frequently sick, or else he is 
> blind, deformed, or lame or a cripple; nor does he possess food, 
> drink, clothing, vehicle, garlands, scents and ointment, nor a bed, a 
> dwelling and a lamp plus things to light it with".
>
> But  the text continues:
> <<So kāyena duccaritaṃ carati vācāya duccaritaṃ carati manasā 
> duccaritaṃ carati. So kāyena duccaritaṃ caritvā vācāya duccaritaṃ 
> caritvā manasā duccaritaṃ  caritvā kāyassa bhedā parammaraṇā apāyaṃ 
> duggatiṃ vinipātaṃ nirayaṃ upapajjati.>>
>
> Telling the listeners, that such people transgress (against the 
> accepted norms) - by their way of thinking, speaking and acting, and 
> that is why they deserve hell. (or Hina-Hell, if I may borrow your 
> expression, Joanna).
This is out of context. In most cases this passage occurs precisely to distinguish the fate of caṇḍālas, etc. who live a good life from those who live a bad life. Those who live a good life go to a good destination. Those who live a bad life go to a bad destination. And similarly for those from 'high' families.
> What I like in this fragment, is that this standard list of 
> occupations (caṇḍāla nesāda veṇa rathakāra pukkusa) is used so many 
> times as part of the argument against brahmanic haughtiness, and so - 
> against inequality. Comparison sounds much better and is more 
> effective if we bring in extreme elements. But is, otherways, nearly 
> empty, one part of it being well known, the other being a bunch of 
> stereotypes.
I don't see it this way at all. All this is part of attempts to expand the brahmanical list of four varṇa. So either we have a list of six, as in the repeated line:
khattiyā brāhmaṇā vessā, suddā caṇḍālapukkusā; or, we have a contrast between high families (khattiya, brāhmaṇa and rājañña or gahapati and low families i.e. those given in the list of five you cite.

This is surely a deliberate attempt to include a wider social range than in the four varṇa.

> Empty, if not for the standard, although oblique, mention of pigs 
> (pig-through, sūkaradoṇi). Hunter, Bamboo-worker, or Refuse-remover 
> with their pigs and the lack of garlands, scents, ointments - as the 
> mark of their not belonging among civilized people. Ultimately 
> confirmed by their inability (or is it just contempt?) to conform to 
> widely accepted, civilized norms.
I think the issue here is poverty.
> And – getting what was coming to them.
No, this is incorrect, as I indicated above.

Lance
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