[Buddha-l] Rice & Dragons

[Erik Hoogcarspel]

Op 16-04-12 00:45, Jo schreef:
> OK, found it:
> PTS: Sn 116-142
> Vasala Sutta: Discourse on Outcasts
>
> The whole discourse, but here is a simple statement from it that birth does not convey virtue or mean anything of importance: 21. "Not by birth is one an outcast; not by birth is one a brahman. By deed one becomes an outcast, by deed one becomes a brahman.
>
> Joanna
> ____________________________
>
>
> What I had in mind were the Buddha's sermon(s) on whether or not Brahmins are "born instead of made", so to speak. This is in the Pali suttas. His point during the discussion with a Brahmin interlocutor was that only by observing sila and the other virtues can one claim to be a Brahmin. Being born one does not endow the owner of the caste title with virtue or automatic social precedence.  Right now I can't find the sutta--sorry.
>  From the Dhp XXVI:
> 393-394
> Not by matted hair,
> by clan, or by birth,
> is one a brahman.
> Whoever has truth
> &  rectitude:
> 	he is a pure one,
> 	he, a brahman.
>   395
> Wearing cast-off rags
>   — his body lean&  lined with veins —
> absorbed in jhana,
> alone in the forest:
> 	he's what I call
> 	a brahman.
> 396
> I don't call one a brahman
> for being born of a mother
> or sprung from a womb.
> He's called a 'bho-sayer'
> if he has anything at all.
> But someone with nothing,
> who clings to no thing:
> 	he's what I call a brahman.
>
>
> Also, some scholars claim that the majority of the Buddha's followers were kshatriyas and vaishyas.
>
Perhaps the downplay of the castsystem was a more important factor in 
the disappearance of Buddhism in India than the introduction of the 
Islam. The Islam formed casts in its own circles and thrived.
Anti-cast feelings never were popular with the rich and in general it 
seems to be part of the Indian lifestyle. The strong rationalist 
anti-cast movement in Tamil Nadu shrunk short after its leader Periyar died.

Erik