[Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

[Richard Hayes]

On Apr 15, 2012, at 10:18 , Jo wrote:

> Well--not really "everywhere else." So far as India in the "everywhere"
> goes, one significant exception with Hinduism is, today and always, the
> Buddhist opposition to caste as an evaluator of moral identity and standing
> in one's community.

Buddhism became anti-caste when Dr Ambedkar retold the story of the Buddha and his Dhamma, and not much before. Ambedkar's Buddha based his teachings on the principles of liberty, equality and fraternity, but I don't think we can find any Buddhist prior to the French revolution who espoused those principles. There is no evidence that Buddhism was anti-caste before the 20th century. And when it did come to be portrayed as anti-caste, it was in the good company of progressive Hindus. In the 19th century one can find significant anti-caste and social egalitarian sentiments being expressed in Brahmo Samaj, and it continues among many progressive Hindus today. I think it would be difficult to find the exact source of this egalitarian sentiment in India. Perhaps it can be traced in part back to Islam, but perhaps it just evolved on its own.

Of the monks mentioned in the Pali canon who caste can be determined, more than 50% are brahmin. Most of the Sanskrit-using thinkers who shaped Buddhist thought in India—that is, most Mahāyānins, were brahmins. In Sri Lanka there are nikāyas within the bhikkhu-sangha that are closed to all non-brahmins. Of course, it can be said that when people become Buddhist monks, they theoretically no long retain their caste, but the same was also true of all sannyāsins in India. In Buddhist texts one finds repeated references to people being being born into good families because of their good karma in previous lives and bad families because of their bad karma. I'm sorry to say that the claim that Buddhism is today and always opposed to caste as a function of karma is a modern urban legend. 

Richard Hayes
Department of Philosophy
University of New Mexico