Gananath Obeyesekere, Karma and Rebirth, Delhi, Motilal Banarsidass, (2002) First Indian edition, 2006.
Preface
…no theories are possible outside descriptive specificity….—p. Xiv
…Although European thinkers see the Greeks as their intellectual forebears, the Greeks themselves looked toward the East for the sources of true wisdom—to Egypt, Persia, and, during the early centuries of the common era, India. Thus tradition has it that early Greek thinkers travelled east in their quest for knowledge. Pythagoras, for example, is said to have wandered into Egypt and later to have sat at the feet of Zoroaster. These traditions might not be based on fact, but they do illustrate the reality that Greeks saw the East as the source of knowledge, in much the same way that modern Europeans relate to the ancient Greeks.
….Recent studies by scholars such as M. L. West {Early Greek Philosophy and the Orient. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1971}, W. Burkert {The Orientalizing Revolution: Near Eastern Influences on Greek Culture in the Early Archaic Age. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 192} , and P. Kingsley { Ancient Philosophy and Magic: Empedocles and the Pythagorean Tradition. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995} have shown that the idea of Greeks looking to the East is no pure fantasy and that they were influenced by a multitude of ideas stemming from those regions ….—p. Xvii
…Plato as a rebirth theorist and soteriologist who had a spiritual affinity with those of the Indian subcontinent, especially the Buddha. Those who have read the dialogues of the Buddha must surely be aware of their stylistic resemblance to Plato’s dialogues, even though the Buddha was not interested in secular [polity as Plato was. One does not have to posit actual contact between early Greece and India, although this was both possible and likely….—p. Xviii.
…The fact that thinkers such as the Buddha and Plato allegorized some myths and deconstructed others did not mean that they did not believe (p.xix) in some and invent new ones, just as present-day deconstructionists do….—pp. Xix-xx
…Ethnographic prejudice virtually takes for granted that one cannot understand another culture unless one has done fieldwork in it. I do not buy this argument at all, but I am acutely aware of the shortcomings in my knowledge of these ethnographic areas….—p.xx
1 KARMA AND REBIRTH IN INDIC RELIGIONS Origins and Transformations.
…The association between karma and rebirth is not at all clear in the earliest texts and discourses on Indic religions. There are virtually no references to rebirth or to an enthical notion of karma in the Vedas or in the Brahmanas, the oldest texts belonging to the Hindu tradition. The first significant references appear in an early Upanishad, the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, probably composed sometime before the sixth century B.C.E., followed by the Chandogya and the Kausitaki. A hundred years or more later these theories appear in full bloom in the so-called heterodox religions—particularly in Buddhism and Jainims—that have karma and rebirth at the center of their eschatological thinking. Soon afterward these ideas surface in mainstream Hinduism itself and become an intrinsic part of the eschatological premises of virtually all Indic religion.—p. 1
…The word karma, which etymologically means “action,” has the meaning of “ritual action” in Vedic (pre-Buddhist and pre-Upanishadic) thought, where it is neither fundamentally ethical nor related to rebirth. By contrast, in Buddhism karma refers to intentional ethical action that determines the nature and place of rebirth, and this definition of karma has influenced the many Hinduisms that came after….(p.2) […] the fact that the word appears in a variety of texts might indicate continuity of an idea. On the other hand it might not, and ethical thinkers in the Buddhist tradition have poured into the term a new set of ideas that break with previous tradition.—pp. 2-3
…theories of rebirth are found in many parts of the world without being associated with a doctrine of ethical causation such as karma. In one instance at least—that of Druze of Syria, Lebanon, and Israel and related Isma’ili sects—rebirth is uneasily linked to a form of monotheism. Most scholars assume, along with the generality of the educated public, that rebirth and karma are uniquely Indic constructs, invented and perpetuated in that tradition….—p. 2
…If one raises the issue of “incipient beliefs” of whatever kind, one can, I think, find them in any religious tradition.—p. 3
I think it impossible to find a tradition of thought that does not refer back to its antecendents. Even when one makes a radical shift away from a prior tradition, one must refer to it, often explicitly or sometimes implicitly, justifying one’s own break with that tradition or arguing for or against it….—p. 3
…The continuity of terms from a previous ideational system gives the illusion of the continuity of ideas. Sometimes the implied continuity of a term can serve as a deliberate rhetorical strategy to seduce the reader or listener into believing that there has been no real ideational change. At other times it is not so, and different or even opposed ideas might be invested in the old terms.
Indologists have suggested that the first shift in the Vedic idea of karma as “ritual action” to that of ethical action in relation to rebirth appears in the Brhadaranyaka Upanisad. The relevant part is 3.2.12-13, where Yajnavalkya and Arthabhaga, two Upanishadic sages, converse on the nature of the senses. Their conversation ends with a discussion of death and the afterlife….—p. 4 (see p. 85)
Most scholars, following such eminent ones as Hermann Oldenberg, Paul Deussen, and Surendranath Dasgupta, have seen this passage {Brahadaranyaka Upanisad. 3.2.12-13}as proof of the entry into the Vedic tradition of the novel ideas of karma and rebirth. This is correct, although the text itself does not warrant the idea that karma here means “ethical action.” As for rebirth it is at least implicit. One argument is that this text is still rooted in the Vedic tradition, clearly indicated by the description of the fate of the dead person. Thus, it is said that the good and bad karma mentioned here refers to the correct and incorrect performance of the sacrifice in the orthodox tradition of the Brahmanas rather than the classic karma doctrine that “relates the fact of rebirth to the moral efficacy of an individual’s deeds,” {Tull, Hermann W. Vedic Origins of Karma. New York: SUNY Press, 1989, 31} Yet this also is not clear from the text; and one must reserve judgment. The (p.4) text implies that Yajnavalkya is postulating a new idea, perhaps the doctrine of rebirth, including the notion that the name does not perish at death, a conception found in other rebirth eschatologies outside the Indic orbit….—pp. 4-5
…there is another aspect of this rebirth reborn as “worms, insects, or snakes.” This refers to an inferior rebirth among lower creatures, but it is not caused by the operation of an ethical law of karma. Rather, it is because of ignorance of two legitimate paths to salvation: one enunciated by the Upanishadic thinkers (atman = Brahman) but adapted to a theory of rebirth (unity with Brahman eliminates rebirth), the other path enunciated by the preceding tradition of the Brahmanic sacrifice but now downgraded somewhat….—p. 9
…With Upanishadic thought the idea of salvific knowledge has come to the fore. Truth is the knowledge that “atman is Brahman,” formulated in the famous phrase “thou art that.” But because this knowledge is unavailable to all, the sage king formulates a lesser knowledge that is contained in the previous tradition of the sacrifice but with the proviso that those who sacrifice continue to be reborn and therefore cannot obtain any finality of bliss. This is a remarkable shift and suggests that in interiorizing the sacrifice (giving it symbolic values), denying salvation to those who perform sacrifices (downgrading the sacrifice), introducing the new theory of rebirth, and articulating all of this to the general Upanishadic idea of the unity of atman and Brahman, this text has made a crucial departure from the whole of the previous Vedic tradition.—p. 9
…Note that hell is not mentioned in this scheme, only an inferior rebirth. It seems that the king, Pravahana Jaivali, is using a familiar idea that states that at death a person may be reborn as a human being or as an animal or similar creature. This is clearly not part of the older Veidic tradition because rebirth is not recognized there. That is why the text presents the two Brahmin sages, who embody Brahmanic thought, as ignorant of this new knowledge. It needs the Ksatriya sage to tell the Brahmmin Gautama “This knowledge has never before been in the possession of a Brahmin” (Patrick Olivelle, Upanisads. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996 , Brhadaranyaka Upanisad, 6.2.8).—p. 10
…The king replies as before but with an important qualification pertaining to knowledge as power in a very literal sense: “Gautama, let me tell you that before you this knowledge had never reached the Brahmins. As a result in all the worlds government has belonged exclusively to royalty [Ksatriya]” (Chandogya Upanisad. Tr. Patric Olivelle. No reference is given for this, but for Upanisads, New York: Oxford University Press, 1996, 5.2.7, my italics)…..—p. 10 [see page. 85]
The Chandogya {Upanisad} text {5:3-10} clearly articulates the rebirth theory with Vedic thought and brings the varna scheme into the picture. As before, some Brahmanic ethics operate here: those who venerate gift giving to gods and priests (Brahmins) go the way of the Fathers. Those whose conduct has been pleasant are reborn as the “twice born” classes; those whose conduct has been foul become inferior domestic animals and “outcastes.” The “pleasant” and “foul” conduct of the text does not necessarily imply the ethics of karma, as later Buddhist and Jaina thinkers understood it. The text refers to the proper behaviour generally expected of the three higher classes (varna) of Indian society, that is, to an ordained way of life in which pluralistic ethics operate. Once again it is presumably the ignorance of the two paths rather than morality per se that condemns the last residual category of humans into an endlessly repeating cycle of rebirth as “creatures.”….—p. 12
…the texts that we have for ancient India are those that happened to be preserved in an oral tradition committed to memory by special religious virtuosos. It is an accident of history that these traditions and not others were preserved. For example, we know very little of the religions of the Indus valley; and the Rg Vedic texts themselves mention the existence of a variety of religious cults, the most famous being that of the munis, the silent ones. We know virtually nothing about the beliefs of these munis even though their beliefs and practices were influential enough for the name muni to be given to later sages like the Buddha. To put it differently: ancient India must surely have had a multiplicity of religions that would inevitably have influenced one another. It is the case that scholars must make do with what they have; it is absurd to expect them to deal with data that have vanished out of existence! Yet valid as this argument may seem, it does pose a problem when it concerns the question of origins: one cannot construct the origins or history of a particular set of beliefs in a linear fashion from a body of data or a tradition of beliefs that could not possibly have had that linear quality at all….—p. 13
…any attempt to trace the history of the idea of rebirth from texts that exist only through the accident of history is by definition futile.—p. 14
…Another possible strategy is to look for rebirth in the “little traditions” of India, based on the assumption that the post-Vedic religions would have picked up these ideas from peasant or tribal peoples. But this strategy has limited efficacy because these “little traditions” have often been contaminated by the high religion around them. Consequently, one might be able to argue that the only defensible methodological strategy is to ignore the question of origins or the history of a difficult eschatological problem, a position that some anthropologists might favour….—p. 14
…Fortunately, one can demonstrate the existence of “rebirth eschatologies” without the theory (p.14) of karma in many small-scale societies all over the world….—pp. 13-14
Now let me shuttle back to the empirical issue at hand. I will use the term rebirth eschatology to refer to theories of rebirth in societies that have no theory of karma, and I will use the term karmic eschatology for those that combine with karma. An overwhelming number of societies the world over have “rebirth eschatologies”; “karmic eschatologies” are found only in Indic religions. Greek Pythagorean and Platonic eschatologies have intermediate forms that I will discuss later. Further, I will demonstrate that even for India discourses on karma and rebirth can exist separately or that at the very least one can have a rebirth theory without karma. These two ideas are empirically and conceptually separable. Finally, rebirth eschatologies must have been invented for the most part independently of each other because they can be found in regions that do not seem to have had mutual contact….—p. 17
…Although all experiments are imaginary (that is, constructed in the imagination), experimentation in the human sciences is exclusively imaginary rather than partially constructed and tested in a laboratory….—p. 18
2 NON-INDIC THEORIES OF REBIRTH
…Owing to their {Tlingit of southeastern Alaska} belief that all life is interwoven (species sentience), there is a strong Tlingit reluctance to destroy nature, and the Tlingit hunter is averse to “killing creatures with souls akin to his own.” No animal or bird should be needlessly hunted; nor, once hunted and killed, should the body be wasted. “Rather, the hunter would pray to the dead animal and to his own ‘spirit above,’ explaining his need and asking his forgiveness. The dead creature was thanked in song, perhaps honoured with eagle down (like a noble guest); certain essential parts (head, bones, or vital organs, depending on the species) were interred, returned to the water, or cremated, to ensure reincarnation of the animal.”{de Laguna, Frederica. “Tlingit,” In Handbook of North American Indians. Vol. 70, edited by Wayne Suttles. Washington, D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Press, 1990, p. 209}—p. 51
3 THE IMAGINARY EXPERIMENT AND THE BUDDHIST IMPLICATIONS
…Rites of passage at birth assist this transition, helping one to over-(p.72)come the perils of the soul (wherever such an idea exists) and of conception and fostering the nurture and protection of the fetus and the mother…Each of these transitions, as ethnographers have consistently pointed out, can be viewed as a symbolic death and rebirth….—p. 72-73
…When real death occurs, funeral rites serve to transfer the individual once again into the invisible world of the ancestors. We can now posit an important feature of this otherworld, namely, its essential temporality, because a person must eventually leave this otherworld for the human one, and this must go on and on. In fact the only enduring thing is the rebirth cycle itself, which in principle at least can go on forever….—p. 73
…Christians and Buddhists generally think that the morality expressed in the Ten Commandants or the Five Precepts is of a truly unique nature. Quite the contrary: the moral rules enshrined in them are very conventional for the most part and found virtually everywhere in small-scale societies because such rules are required for the minimal operation of an orderly society. Their unconventionality lies not in their substance but in their ethicization. It is ethicization that produced an important break or turn in the history of religion..—p. 75
…in Buddhism and the great monotheisms virtually all morality is by definition religious and implicated in otherworldly recompense.—p. 76
…Yajnavalkya is a Brahmin sage who takes his pupil aside as he enunciates the idea of karma and rebirth that he does not want to talk about “in public.” “In public” surely does not mean in front of the general populace because no Upanishadic text talks to the public in that sense. The “public” in this context must refer to other Upanishadic seekers of salvation—teachers and their pupils….By contrast King Pravahana Jaivali {see p. 4} assumes a different discursive posture. He clearly states that these doctrines are not new but that they were unknown to Brahmins; they are the prerogative of the Ksatriyas, and that is why “government has belonged exclusively to royalty [ksatriya].” The dialogues dramatize an important theme: that the rebirth theory is something new or ignored in the Brahmanic tradition but that it was well known to the Ksatriyas.
If this is so, there is a historical question that must be answered even as informed guesswork. From where did the Ksatriyas gain this knowledge? The only reasonable conclusion one can make is that these doctrines have come from some source outside the Vedic tradition and have been creatively incorporated into the Upanishadic tradition, although not into its mainstream….I suggest that the Ksatriya sage as a dramatis persona was voicing popular beliefs about rebirth that were known to many persons in this region and recasting them (p.85) in a frame that might seem acceptable to Vedic thought. Brahmins either were indifferent to these ideas, which violated early Vedic eschatology, or did not know them. The early heartland of Brahmanic power was further west, in what was known as the Aryavartha, the region of the Aryas (noble ones). Hence the enigmatic statement of the king: that because the Brahmins were ignorant f these ideas, “government has belonged exclusively to royalty.” This statement, I think, implies that knowledge of the rebirth ideas of large masses of people was necessary for dominion over them. Knowledge is power […]
In Pravahana Jaivali’s scheme the way of the gods leading to union with Brahman is fully within the innovative soteriology of the early Upanishads, breaking away from the primacy of the sacrifice of the Brahmanas and the soul’s journey into the realm of the Fathers (ancestors). In the Upanishadic transcendental state of the union of atman with Brahman there can be no further rebirth. The way of the Fathers, which was the goal of early Vedic thought, is now downgraded. It is no longer a paradisiacal realm where the souls of the dead comport with their ancestors but a temporary way station in the rebirth cycle….—pp. 85-86
…One thing is clear though: in Buddhist ethicization, with its strong emphasis on motivation, it is the intentional killing of the animal rather than eating it that is at issue, whereas Jainism forbids not only killing but also eating animals, as well as selected sentient plants and vegetables. By contrast the Brahmanic religions right up to the period of the Upanishads permitted the killing and eating of animals. We also know that goats, sheep, and cattle were eaten in the religion of the Vedas, and huge numbers of cattle and horses were sacrificed in Brahmanic rituals for kings….Dharmasutra texts, particularly Gautama …permits Brahmins as well as renouncers to eat the “the flesh of animals killed by carnivorous beatsts.” {Georg Buhler, The Sacred Laws of the Aryas (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1879), 1:267; see also 1:193} Aapastamba, another early Dharmasutra authority, lists specific animal food thata Brahmins might eat; Vasistha is even more liberal, permitting “food given by a hunter’ and such delicacies as porcupine, hedgehog, hare, tortoise, iguana, and some unspecified domestic animals except camels….—p. 91
It is well known that Buddhism, unlike Jainism, does not teach the sentience of plants. Plants do not have centers of consciousness as animals do; therefore, taking the life of a plant is totally different from taking the life of an animal….—p. 96
To sum up: there are at least three forms of plant sentience recorded in the Indic literature. First, there are those plants, already mentioned, that possess a single center of consciousness; because they are living beings, they must not be destroyed. It is not clear how these plants achieved sentience in the first place. Second, there is the Upanishadic form in which the spirit of an ancestor gets into certain plants that are creatively consumed by humans. Third, there are the well-known Indic cases in which a spirit can reside in especially large trees (such as a banyan) as the deity of the tree. Injuring these trees is a sin as far as orthodox Buddhist doctrine and pouplar beliefs are concerned.—p. 97
…My question is a simple one: did the Brahmanas possess an ethicized religion or not? I think Keith is correct in saying that they did not.
Consider the Rg Veda, the oldest stratum of Brahmanic religion. The soul at death, driven by a chariot or on wings, takes the route of the Fathers and reaches a place of eternal rest. The Rg Vedic notion of heaven is a paradisiacal one: “there is light, the sun for the highest waters, every form of happiness, the Svadha, which is at once the food of the spirits and the power which they win by it, their self-determination” (Keith, Arthur Berriedale. The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas and Upanishads,2. Vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925,2:407). As is well known, the major deity of the Rg Veda is Indra, who, along (p.99) with other divinities, enjoys material luxury, intoxicants (sura), milk, ghee, honey, and soma (the drink of immortality), as well as the delights of love. There is also music and singing and a celestial fig tree where Yama drinks with the gods.
This eschatology is a paradisiacal, not a retributive, one. Keith notes that even Yama and Varuna, who sometimes might appear as ethical deities, do not “punish the dead or judge them for their sins” but grant a kind of unconditional pardon. Consequently, “the idea of a judgement of any kind is as foreign to the Rg Veda as to early Iran.” He then adds that the notion of hell “was present in germ” in the Rg Veda (Keith, Arthur Berriedale. The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas and Upanishads,2. Vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925,, 2:409)….The Atharva Veda depicts at best a minimally or occasionally ethicized eschatology. Here also the otherworld is for all and is contingent on the performance of the correct rituals rather than on the moral nature of one’s this-worldly action.—pp.99-100
…It is true that at death a person is weighed in a balance to test the good and the bad, but this judgment is based primarily on violations of taboos and ritual interdictions. This comes out clearly in the vision of Bhrgu in the Satapatha and Jaiminiya Brahmanas, where the persons confined to hell are those who cut wood without offering the agnihotra and those who kill and eat animals and even herbs without performing the correcti rituals. In the Kausitaki Brahmana the animals will take revenge on a person in the next world unless he or she performs the correct ritual.{ Keith, Arthur Berriedale. The Religion and Philosophy of the Vedas and Upanishads,2. Vols. Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1925,} In the Brahmanas also there is occasional ethicization, but for the most part these texts are concerned with the violation of taboos and ritual interdictions.
The Upanishads, although belonging to the Vedic tradition, prove that a sophisticated speculative religion need not concern itself with other-(p.100)worldly ethics, except for the few instances discussed earlier. This fact has dismayed scholars who are conditioned to think that a speculative soteriology must also entail an ethical soteriology. Thus Paul Deussen, in his exhaustive discussion, points out the absence of a moral concern in the Upanishads except for specific scattered injunctions. His own explanation is rather naive: “Lack of generalization, as well as the rarity of such warnings in Upanishad literature, proves that offenses of this character were not common.”{Paul Deusen, Philosophy of the Upanishads (1906; reprint, New York: Dover, 1966), 366} He also argues that ethics have no objective or external work to do in the Upanishads, misjudging their ethical nature, because European religious traditions emphasize external, non-subjective ethics, that is, ethics that seem to exist outside the individual. But he forgets that both Buddhism and Jainism had an external (or a social) morality very different from the subjective, internal ethics of the Upanishads. The fact is that the Upanishadic seeker of salvation can in some instances go beyond everyday morality. In the Kausitaki Upanisad the man who attains Brahman after passing by the river of immortality casts away his good and bad deeds; he is above all morality, even above such heinous deeds as the slaying of an embryo and the murder of a father or a mother, a position unthinkable in religions like Buddhism and Jainsim.
This kind of thinking goes back to such texts as the Jaiminiya Brahmana referred to earlier and anticipates the late Upanishadic texts of renunciation, such as the Bhiksuka Upanisad and the Brhat–Samnyasa Upanisad. In these later texts the renouncer is no longer part of the social world and is indifferent to its mores; hence he makes “no distinction between right and wrong.”{Patric Ollivelle, tr. Samnyasa Upanisads: Hindu Scriptures on Asceticism and Renunciation. New York: Oxford University Press, 1992} Or, as the injunction in the Brhat–Samnyasa Upanisad states: “Abandon right and wrong; abandon truth and untruth. Having abandoned both truth and untruth, abandon that by which you abandon.”{Quoted in ibid., 244}—pp.100-101
…Interestingly enough, Buddhist reform has given karma intentionality (cetana) such that if I do something unintentionally I do not reap a karmic consequence (karma phala, “the fruit of karma”). Jainism took yet another route; it stipulated that karma produced irreversible effects, whether intentionally motivated or not….—p. 102
A.L. Basham, in his influential book History and Doctrine of the Ajivikas, says that the most important thinker subscribing to the theory of rebirth but denying ethical causality is Makkhali Gosala (Makkhali of the cowshed), whose teachings survived up to about the sixth or the eighth century C.E. in parts of southern India. Basham shows that Purana Kassapa was also an Ajivika, although not necessarily a follower of Makkhali Gosala. Because both Purana Kassapa and Makkali Gosala believed in rebirth, it is not likely that a third “heretic.” Ajita Kesakambili (Ajita of the hair blanket), was also an Ajivika, as Basham thinks, because Ajita, an uncompromising materialist and “annihilationist,” clearly did not subscribe to such a theory.
In my view the Ajivikas rationalized a pre-existing rebirth eschatology without bringing in karmic causality. Makkhali Gosala fully recognized the impersonal nature of the rebirth cycle and then gave it philosophical elaboration and conceptual formulation. He seems to have asked, What keeps the universe going in this manner? He suggested that an impersonal cosmic principle, or niyati, determines continuity. This doctrine denies an ethical theory of karma but does not deny an orderliness to the universe—what the Greeks called cosmos. But Makkhali Gosala added another element in his own rationalization of the re birth eschatology, stating that the rebirth cycle cannot go on forever but will simply run out after many eons, at the end of which the soul will have attained bliss or salvation.
Let me now present his {Makkhali Gosala} teachings as depicted by Ajatasattu in the “Samannaphala Sutta” of the Majjhima Nikaya:
There is neither cause nor basis for the sins of living beings; they become sinful without cause or basis. Neither is there cause or basis for the purity of living beings; they become pure without cause or basis. There is no deed performed either by oneself or by others (which can affect one’s future births), no human action, no strength, no courage, no human endurance or human prowess (which can affect one’s destiny in this life). All beings, all that have breath, all that are born, all that have life, are without o=power, strength, or virtue, but are developed by destiny, chance, and nature, and experience joy and sorrow in the six classes (of existence). (p.104) […]
This is the earliest and most detailed statement of Ajivika thought by a contemporary, and although it is mean to be perorative, even satiric, it does contain the elements of Gosala’s thought, in Basham’s opinion.
The forece that propels the rebirth cycle or samsara is niyati (Destiny or Fate), which is similar to karma in its impersonal and lawlike quality. Associated with niyati is sangati (chance) and bhava (nature). Later Ajivika thinkers identified svabhava, or bhava, with niyati itself….
What is striking about the Ajivika theory is that it does recognize “karma.” Makkhali uses this word and describes the various kinds of karmas in almost casuistic fashion….(p.105) Any purposive theory of action, be it karma or God, is anathema to the Ajivikas (Basham, A. L. History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas,London: Luzac, 1951,233). Instead, each person goes through a variety of rebirths in fantastic time cycles, and these rebirths include those of humans, animals, supernatural beings, even plants. It seems that the Ajivika doctrine, more than any other known religion of the time, possessed a systematic notion of species sentience. Thus all beings must pass through all known forms of sentient existence. Ultimately this cycle stops “like a ball of thread that has unwound itself.” Concomitantly, all persons will eventually achieve salvation, defined as the purity of the soul, irrespective of the quality of their this-worldly actions. […]
There is another crucial issue pertaining to Ajivika religion that scholars and commentators have not satisfactorily explained. Is the system totally and irrevocably deterministic? If everything must work itself out, according to principles of niyati, what is the significance of the extreme asceticism assiduously practiced by the Ajivikas? The logically expectable answer that asceticism, like everything else, is determined by Destiny is not satisfactory…. (p.106) Nevertheless, if it is the case that all persons go through the same scheme of reincarnation and eventual salvation, why are there two special classes of highly advanced spiritual virtuosos? Why the preferential treatment? The answer, it seems to me, is that the Ajivikas probably believed that the only thing that could hasten the salvation of the individual is asceticism. Asceticism cleanses the soul and permits the achievement of salvation even in this life. The idea of the jivan mukta, the person who has achieved salvation in this very life, is common to the soteriologies of other samanic groups like the Jainas and Buddhists.—pp. 104-07
…My reformulation renders intelligible the similarities that scholars have noted between Ajivikaism and Jainism. The difference is that Jainism has an ethical theory of karma, as in Buddhism. Yet in a unique departure from Buddhism, Jainism postulates that karmic actions produce a material component that taints the soul and weights it down in both a physical and spiritual sense. Cleansing of the soul is through extreme asceticism. Here then is Jainism’s resemblance to Ajivikaism: even though Ajivikaism did not subscribe to the ethical theory of karma as in Jainism, it probably believed with Jainism that “karmas” have a material component and hence can be classified casuistically. More important, it believed in the power of ascetic practices to purify the soul and thus achieve “nirvana” even in this life, as Jainas do, but through a form of nonmoral effort. Thus the Ajivika ascetic, like those of other samanic religions, abolishes the rebirth cycle after the achievement of nirvana. Ordinary people will also eventually achieve nirvana but only through the long-term operation of niyati, or Destiny. Because Ajivikaism did not subscribe to the karma theory, it in effect permitted everyone to achieve eventual salvation. This is probably why it became popular in India and at one time was a contender with Buddhism and Jainism…..—p. 107
…Buddhist Jataka texts refer to Ajivika soteriology as samsara suddhi, which can be translated as “samsaric purification” because the soul will eventually become purified and achieve salvation. “There is no short cut (lit. Door) to bliss, Bijaka. Wait on Destiny. Whether (a man has) joy or sorrow, it is obtained through Destiny. All beings are purified through transmigration [rebirth], (so) do not be eager for that which is to come.”{Quoted in Basham, A. L. History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas,London: Luzac, 1951, 227-28} This quotation, in my view, refers to the ordinary road to salvation and is typical of the advice given to laypersons even by such thinkers as the Buddha to remind them that their time of salvation will eventually come and to encourage them to be patient. In my interpretation purification by asceticism in Ajivikaism takes the place of the ethical notion of karma, whereas in Jainims, the religion closest to it, there is a coexistence of karma and purificatory asceticism.—p. 108
The general term for ascetic renouncers was paribbajaka (Pali) or parivrajaka (Sanskrit), which means “those given to wandering,” a term appropriated by the samanic traditions….—p. 109
…The wanderer Sakuludayin gives a vivid account of the diverse schools of the time locked in debates with each other during the rain retreat.
Sometime ago, revered sir, when divers members of other sects, recluse and Brahmans, were gathered together and were sitting down in the debating hall, this chance conversation arose: “Indeed it is profitable for the people of Anga-Magadha … that these leaders in religious life, heads of companies, heads of groups, teachers of groups, well known, famous founders of sects, held in high repute by the many-folk, have come Rajagaha for the rains-residence. This Purana Kassapa is a head of a company ….This Makkhali Gosala too…This Ajita of the hair-blanket too…This Pakudha Kaccayana too…This Sanjaya Belatthi’s son too…The Nataputta the Jain too…This recluse Gotama too is the head of a company, head of a group, the teacher of a group, he is well known, the famous founder of a sect, held in high repute by the many-folk; he too has come to Rajagaha for the rains-residence. {“Greater Discourse to Sakuludayin” (Maha-Sakuludayisutta), in Horner, I. B. Tr. Middle Length Sayings (Majihima Nikaya, 2 vols.), London: Pali Text Society. , 2:204}—p. 111
…The public debates practiced by religious virtuosos were call vada-vivada (arguments and counterarguments)….—p. 111
…Thinkers must imagine a lay congregation before they actually create one, but even imagining such a community is impossible or meaningless if knowledge is secret or esoteric or if the salvific goal is for an exclusive elite. Buddhist texts give us insights regarding the processes whereby religious innovators established connections with the lay population.—p. 112
Many groups of wanderers had the general support of the laypeople in their midst but were, like the Upanishadic ascetics, not interested in lay conversion. I suggest that it is in relation to a lay community that ethicization of the moral life occurs. This should not surprise us because ethicization is the conversion of the morality that governs the life of ordinary people into a religious one….—p. 112
What one finds in the Upanishads (and similar doctrines among both Indian and Pythagorean Greeks) is a preoccupation with the individual’s personal salvation; the values of the society are irrelevant to the issue, and in extreme cases of renunciatory asceticism, they can be openly rejected. By contrast, in the samanic religions, such as Buddhism and Jainism, there was an additional interest in the soteriological-cum-ethical welfare of common men, women, and Sudras, that is, of the larger lay community.—p. 113
The theoretical significance of these divergent ethical orientations was neatly stated by Durkheim in his classic essay “The Determination of Moral Facts”: individual, he argued, cannot be moral objects unto themselves because the ground of morality is established in a asocial network. {See Emile Durkheim, Sociology and Philosophy, trans. D. F. Pocock (New York: Free Press, 1974), 35-62; esp. 37-38} One must qualify Durkheim somewhat and reaffirm that by morality we mean the kind of values necessary for the orderly conduct of social life—such things as respect for elders and injunctions on theft, adultery, lying, violence, among others. It is possible for someone to reject a social morality for a “higher” ethic, hence my reluctance to enter into axiological judgments. If social morality of the sort I have described is established only in our relationships with others, then one cannot expect it to have salience for any indivualistic salvation quest. In such quests social morality is at best irrelevant, even a hindrance, insofar as social morality links a person to his or her group, whereas salvation entails removal from it.—p. 113
…Although the doctrine of homelessness and ascetic withdrawal from the world was central to it, Buddhism was additionally concerned with conversion and the constitution of a lay community. This linkage was so powerful that the Buddhist salvation seeker could not be indifferent to morality; failure to adhere to conventional moral standards as stipulated in the Five Precepts will hinder the achievement of nirvana. The ascetic withdrawal from the world with its goal of personal salvation must be reconciled with the establishment of communication between layperson and monk.—p. 114
…Although the Buddha discovered the main doctrinal tenets of Buddhism during his first tremendous meditative experience, or Awakening (Enlightenment), the Five Precepts pertaining to lay ethics were not one of them. They were invented when the early Buddhists, like the Jainas, decided to convert the laity.—p. 114
…In a beautiful passage Weber described the prophet presenting to his followers “a unified view of the world, derived from a consciously integrated and meaningful attitude towards life. To the prophet, both the life of man and the world, both social and cosmic events, have a certain (p.116) systematic and coherent meaning. To this meaning the conduct of mankind must be oriented …if it is to bring salvation”. (Weber, Max, The Sociology of Religion, tr. By Ephraim Fischoff. Boston: Beacon Press, 1963,,59). The prophet attempts to “systematize all the manifestations of life, regardless of the form it may take in the individual case” (ibid. 59); or, as Arthur Mitzman felicitously put it, he becomes a “tool of the divine will.”{Arthur Mitzman, The Iron Cage (New York: Grosset and Dunlap, 1971), 203}—pp.116-17
…If I were to distinguish the Buddhist ethical reform from that of the biblical tradition I would characterize it as “ethical asceticism.” Asceticism is not necessarily ethical nor even necessarily salvific; often it is to acquire spiritual powers through bodily mortification. Indeed the Buddha’s criticism of extreme asceticism was often on ethical grounds.—p. 117
…Contrary to the opinion of some scholars Buddhism does not contain a theory of radical evil like that found in the monotheisms. The basic contrast is that for the monotheisms the pre-existing (or alien) religions are evil, whereas for the Buddhist they are folly.—p. 119
…Religions like Buddhism and Jainism have compromised with the secular authority. Buddhism, for example, was strongly critical of caste (varna), but it nowhere attempted to reform the social order based on it. However, it did not provide any kind of validation for the caste order either.—p. 119
…Once the Buddha decides to become a renouncer, he ceases to be a member of the local community; furthermore, as the Buddha he is the seventh, twenty-fourth, or twenty-eighth (depending on which texts you choose) of a long line of redeemers, previous Buddhas. Thus the three main axes of the religion—the Buddha, the Dhamma, and the Sangha—are all universalizing conceptions.—p. 122
…Weber did have a restricted and more useful definition of rationalization as the kind of intellectual action that “the systematic thinker performs on the image of the world: an increasing theoretical mastery of reality by means of increasingly precise and abstract concepts” { Max Weber, “Social Psychology of the World Religions,” in From Max Weber, ed. Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976), 293-94}….—p. 123
…Yet, although the prophet had abstract ideals, he hardly used abstract concepts to understand the world; indeed, he shunned such concepts or found them irrelevant to his passionate and intense soteriological vision. Conceptualism, as I have used, is rarely found in the Bible; it is only in the Platonic heritage of later Christian and Islamic thinkers that one encounters careful and deliberate conceptualism….—p. 123
…Weber rightly noted, “Not every rational religious ethic is necessarily an ethic of salvation. Thus, Confucianism is a religious ethic but it knows nothing at all of a need for salvation. On the other hand, Buddhism is exclusively a doctrine of salvation” (Max Weber, “Social Psychology of the World Religions,” in From Max Weber, ed. Hans Gerth and C. Wright Mills (New York: Oxford University Press, 1976, p. 146). And one might add Jainism and forms of Hinduism. All these religions use a term like nirvana or moksa to designate salvation, but although the theologians of these three religions define nirvana differently, their definitions have one thing in common: nirvana has to be sought outside the cycle of rebirths, or samsara; it must result in the cessation of rebirth….—p. 128
…Thus the ideal model, as Max Weber recognized, can serve as a means for assessing deviations from it; or, more reasonably, the ideal or utopian conditions postulated by the model might help us understand those complicating existential conditions that always occur in empirical reality.
Only a limited number of ideas could be introduced into the karma doctrine without necessarily affecting its strict determinism. In doctrinal Jainism one cannot escape karma’s consequences, which operate irrevocably and mechanically. However, Buddhists gave the karma theory a different emphasis: only intentional and ethically motivated actions have karmic effects Buddhists also added another dimension to karma by postulating that human pain and suffering can arise from nonkarmic causes. For example, illness can be caused by karma, but it can also be caused through the sole action of the bodily humors. Thus, although karma is deterministic, it is not exclusively so as far as human existence is concerned. In practice one can reconcile the karmic with the humoral by saying that it is a person’s karmic condition that permitted the humors to affect his or her health….—p. 130
…Thus, although all karma must bear fruit (phala), not all “fruit” has been produced by karma. This is an escape clause formulated very early in Buddhism to meet this particular aporia produced by the karma theory.—p. 132
…According to karma the past determines my present condition, and my present karmic actions will determine my future-life fate. But here’s the rub: my present life situation is, I am told, mostly, if not entirely, owing to what I have done in a past birth or births, but of this know nothing. If I know nothing regarding my karmic past, then I will never know what my present existence holds for me. Consequently, sudden peaks and drops of fortunate could occur as results of things I have done in a previous existence (of which I know nothing). Today I am a paper, tomorrow a prince; today I am young and healthy, tomorrow stricken by a fatal disease. In a religion like Christianity we are all born with a constant load of original sin; any sin or meritorious (p.132) action I commit is something I am for the most part conscious of. The effect of sin is psychologically determinate, and I can do something about it through what the religion has made available to me; faith, sacraments, confessionals, and the like. Not so in karma theory; not only is the load of sin or merit that I m born with different from everyone else’s, but I do not know what that load is. Karma produces a psychological indeterminacy regarding the life contours of one’s present existence that adds to the instability regarding one’s moral and spiritual condition….—pp. 132-33
…The basic idea is that the major gods in a Theravada-Buddhist nation like Sri Lanka are Bodhisattvas, or Buddhas-to-be, and guardians of the secular and spiritual realms. People propitiate the gods and the gods help them; as a gesture of gratitude people transfer merit to the gods whose own salvation will thereby be short-circuited. Although this theory has no justification in any of the texts of the doctrinal tradition, it appeared as soon as Buddhism became the religion of specific nations in South and Southeast Asia.—p. 134
…Brahma found in the (p.134) Bhuridatta Jataka, from the Jataka Tales, that popular compendium of life stories of the Buddha:
He who has eyes can see the sickening sight;
Why does not Brahma set his creatures right?
If his wide power no limits can restrain,
Why is his hand so rarely spread to bless?
Why are his creatures all condemned to pain?
Why does he not to all give happiness?
Why do fraud, lies, and lies, are ignorance prevail?
Why triumphs falsehood,–truth and justice fail?
I count your Brahma one th’ unjust among,
Who made a world in which to shelter wrong.{The Bhuridatta Jataka is number 543 of the compendium; Cowell, E. B., ed. The Jataka; or, Stories of the Buddha’s Former Births. 6 vols. London: Pali Text Society, 1981, Jataka, 6:110}—pp. 134-35
…in later Hinduism it became orthodox for someone to subscribe to the doctrine of karma and simultaneously to the belief in a powerful go (Brahma, VisnuSiva, or any of their manifestations), who has the power to subvert it. The result is that in practice many Hindu movements, especially those influenced by bhakti devotionalism, are virtually (mono)theistic, so that karma becomes relatively unimportant and could be overcome by a single-minded devotion to god. But in Buddhism there is no such way out, and this entails a logical contradiction in the explanation of suffering: if the gods are powerful enough to ameliorate human suffering, then karma is not the deterministic doctrine it is claimed to be; if karma governs human suffering, then the gods cannot be powerful or capable of subverting it. It seems to me that these types of contradictions cannot be ironed out by scholarly dialectical devices that often impel us to reconcile and systematize them in relation to the rationalizing imperatives of our own disciplines. These “contradictions” are a consequence of the aporias that arise from within an ideology and in many instances cannot be resolved….—p. 135
…From here { in Buddhims?} it is a short way for the popular tradition to reify the idea that a strong deed will cancel out the effect of the weak one and clear the path for merit making and for introducing an ethic of works that will coexist with an ethic of intention.—p. 137
…dana (munificence)….—p. 137
…A well-known text says that just as seed sown in a “field that is undulating, rocky and pebbly, saltish, without depth of tilth, without (water) outlet … is not very fruitful,” so gifts [dana] given to monks and men of bad character are barren of result. Similarly, in a “field perfected, when the seed that’s sown is perfect and the deva rains perfecting it,” one will have perfect grain; so too “per-(p.137)fect alms in perfect precept given lead to perfection—for one’s deed is perfect.”{E.M. Hare, trans., Gradual Sayings (Anguttara Nikaya) (Oxford: Pali Text Society, 1989), 4:161-63.} And of course the best “filed of merit” is the monk order!
The idea of the field or merit, with its symbolism of fertility, is obviously to keep the monastic order fed and looked after….—pp. 137-38
Merit transfer is very popular in everyday life. It postulates that the merit one has made can be transferred to a dead relative in need or to a deity….—p. 138
…in Buddhist texts, early or late, merit transfer occurs only in respect to deities, good or bad, whereas ordinary Buddhists transfer merit to any dead kinsperson, enhancing that person’s store of merit.—p. 139
…The renunciatory ideal itself is represented in the great ascetics of the Buddha’s time, the “elders,” or theras, after whom the religion Theravada is named. These monks have achieved nirvana and are therefore called arahants….—p. 144
…In the Buddhist world, as everywhere else, monks are involved in political conflicts and conflicts over power and position that operate within the order itself or between the order and the secular authorities. For example, monks are generally extremely inclined toward status and are addicted to titles and honorifics, which they love to display. Again: monks are expected to renounce caste, but in Sri Lanka, at least from the eighteenth century onward, the Siamese fraternity exclusively recruited its members from the high farmer (goyigama) caste, and especially wealthy temples tolerated chief monks from only the aristocratic segment of that caste. The colonial period gave impetus for the aspiring lower castes in the maritime areas to assert their dignity, and soon they went to Burma and inaugurated two new fraternities, the Amarapura and the Ramanna. Although these fraternities were more (p.146) open in their recruitment patterns, each temple or monastery tended to favour its own caste members. In all three fraternities small groups of very low castes, such as kinnaras (mat weavers) and rodiyas (professional beggars), are not represented at all and in rare instances are not even permitted to enter the temples. Monks from the traditional Siamese fraternity in the Kandyan areas often refuse to accept alms from them. Ironically, caste, status, and power distinctions within the order are important for the monks alone; for the laity in general anyone who wears a yellow robe is a “son of the Buddha” and worthy of respect. In fact, some high-caste groups may prefer to give alms to the Ramanna and Amarapura fraterinities because they believe that they are more pious and less worldly than the monks of the dominant Siamese fraternity.—pp. 146-47
4 THE BUDDHIST ASCESIS
…religious innovations are constrained within the limits of prior structures of thought….—p. 150
…The Theravada texts give us virtually no information on the actual life of the Buddha prior to his “Enlightenment.” Undeterred by this limitation scholars have constructed the real Buddha from mostly mythic material in the texts. And almost any text on Buddhism can give a good account of his life and death. I am not against this procedure; there are good reasons for understanding the historical Buddha, if that is in any way possible….—p. 150
…Siddhartha, meaning “he whose aim is accomplished.”….—p. 156
If Buddhism joined the ranks of other ethicized religions in inventing hedonistic heavens and sadistic hells, the very logic of karma theory prevents such otherworldly existences from being anything but temporary….—p. 173
…Buddhism grants the person who has committed the worst crime (according to its own ethics) the capacity to become a Buddha. The constraints imposed by the model have been overcome, giving the thinker (or a tradition of thought) a considerable degree of autonomy. Once again we are dealing with the interplay between the logic of a belief system and the capacity for creative improvisation and the invention of new ideas by speculative thinkers operating within a specific tradition.—p. 174
…In the doctrinal texts virtually every ritual or soteriological feature of the Brahamanic tradition is rejected and redefined axiologically. This is done in a variety of ways. The gods of the Vedic pantheon are demoted and converted into a species of Buddhist laypersons, karma-bound beings (p.176) themselves in need of salvation. Thus the powerful god Indra of the Rg Veda is converted into Sakra (Sakka, “Truth”), a kind of protector of the Buddhist church, or sasana, a benevolent being who often descends to earth when his seat becomes “hot” and sets aright injustice. The great Vedic god Brahma is also demoted, initially by deconstructing his origin myth….—pp. 176-77
…To me these Buddhist stories are primarily ethical in significance; they are not of much use for practical economics or polity, then or now, although their ethical message might well have influenced the economic thinking of Buddhist kings. The Buddha was not a social reformer….—p. 180
… “In five ways should a wife as western quarter be ministered to by her husband: by respect, by courtesy, by faithfulness, by handing over authority to her, by providing her with adornment.” And for the husband a wife should see that “her duties are well performed, by hospitality to the kin of both, by faithfulness, by watching over the goods he brings, and by skill and industry in discharging all her business” (Rhys Davids, C.A.F. Dialogues of the Buddha [Digha Nikaya] (3 vols.), London: Pali Text Society, 1977, 3:181-82). Very bourgeois values, one might say.—p. 181
…The varna debates pertain to the fact that the Buddha of our epoch was born a Ksatriya. Naturally he cannot be made inferior to the Brahmins, whose very ideology he was contesting. Hence, the varna of the Buddha has to be superior to that of the Brahmins. The “Ambattha Sutta” simply turns the Brahmin’s claim to ancestral purity on its head by saying that the Buddha’s own Sakya lineage practiced sibling marriages in order to maintain its purity!—p. 186
The Brahmin converts to Buddhism by uttering the formula that other Brahmin converts also make in the Therigatha: “Formerly, I was a kinsman of Brahma; today I am truly a brahman. I possess the triple knowledge, I am endowed with knowledge, and I am versed in sacred lore; (and) I am washed clean.” {K. R. Norman, trans., Therigatha (Elder’s verses), vol. 2 (London: Pali Text Society, 1971, 26]—p. 187
…Buddhist texts everywhere recognize, but do not accept, the Brahmin as the superior varna in both the worldly and the spiritual sense; and the standard phrase “Brahmanas and samanas (recluses)” that the Buddha uses gives implicit recognition to this fact. So does the idea that some Buddhas of the past were Brahmins. Morevoer, the Buddha’s own lineage name, Gautama or Gotama, is a well-known Bramanic one; and whether it was adopted or not, it does legitimize the religion’s founder and his contesting of the ethical thought attributed to the other Gautama, an important Brahmin sage of both the Upanishads and the Dhasrmasutras. The very fact that the Buddha had to contest Brahmanic claims and give axiological meaning to Brahmin further suggests the critical importance of the Brahmanic status….—p. 187
5 ESCHATOLOGY AND SOTERIOLOGY IN GREEK REBIRTH
…Myth is history for those who believe in it….—p. 190
…Although we know that traditions are being constantly invented, it is also the case that some ideational forms, or epistemes, show remarkable consistency over time, good examples being Buddhist ideas of karma, samsara, nirvana, and so forth. Otherwise no idea of enduring structures makes sense….Thus, there is justification for using later works as part of an ongoing tradition….—p. 191
…The historian or ethnographer is a special type of storyteller, the history teller (or histor), who weaves “facts” into the fabric of a narrative. Therefore, historical accounts have to be justified by evidence or admitted as speculative and, in the latter instance, defended with good reasoning. This concern with evidence and the logical justification of speculation is what gives “truth-value” to historical and ethnographic descriptions as against fiction and other purely invented genres. Hence the paradox: verisimilitude is simply impossible in history or ethnography, but it is entirely possible in fictional narratives, where the messiness of “truth” is no impediment to storytelling.—p. 193
“…in the words of a Pythagorean poet, man’s sufferings are self-incurred”.{E. R. Dodds, Greeks and the Irrational (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1951), 150}—p. 200
…Members apparently applied to join and were put through a series of rigid tests. For example, the opinions of parents and others regarding a candidate’s character were solicited. According to Pythagorean beliefs external appearance indicated internal character; hence they observed the “candidate’s features, his manner of (p.202) walking, and other purely external traits, “perhaps implying that, like the Buddhists, they stressed decorum and personal demeanor. If candidates passed the preliminary examination, they entered into a three-year apprenticeship in which “they were tested for firmness of spirit, love of wisdom and contempt for worldly honor.” {Taylor, Thomas, trans. Iamblichus’ “Life of Pythagoras.” Rochester, Vt.: Inner Traditions International, 1986, 28} Women were included, but their exact status in the overall organization is not clear….
During the next five years they became active members, giving their goods over to the common stock and entering into a regimen of silence. They underwent various purificatory rites and were initiated into certain of the mysteries of the society. This tested their fitness to be entrusted with the deepest secrets of the society. The fortunate ones … were admitted “behind the veil,” and from thenceforth they not only heard but saw the divine Pythagoras as he performed the mystic rites. {Clark, Gillian, Iamblichus: On the Pythagorean Life. Cambridge: Liverpool University Press, 1982, , 28-29}—pp. 202-03
… “Miracles” are not unique to shamanism, nor could they be simplistically subsumed under the dubious label of “magic.’….—p. 203
The Pythagorean injunction against eating the meat of sacrificed animals meant in effect abstention from meat eating in general because for Greeks, according to Marcel Detienne and his colleagues, every act of meat eating was a sacrifice, and every sacrifice entailed meat eating. {Marcel Detienne and Jean-Pierre Vernant, The Cuisine of Sacrifice among the Greeks (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1989. }….—p. 205
..The rationale for abstention from meat eating was cogently argued by Porphyry in his treatise De Abstinentia. Porphyry’s argument, based on species sentience, is that all animals have souls, reason, and sense and that, consequently, they share the same spiritual nature as humans….But because all animals life shares the same spiritual essence, it is rational to abstain from eating flesh.—pp. 205-06
…One might reasonably conclude that even in Porphyry’s time (the mid-third century C.E.) the tradition was strong regarding the following Pythagorean rebirth beliefs: all animate nature (including some plants) were kin; they possessed souls that reincarnated; therefore, destroying them was tantamount to endoanthropophagy. –p. 206
…The idea that beans contain a life principle is again implicit in an injunction reported by Porphyry that Pythagoreans must abstain from eating beans as they do from eathing human flesh. And there was a Pythagorean saying attributed to Orpheus that eating beans is like eating the heads of one’s parents, perhaps a reference to an ancestral life force contained in the head.—p. 207
…The numbers were arranged visually with pebbles or dots in the shape of an equilateral triangle and venerated as the Tetractys of the Decad, thus:
*
**
***
****
Much as the geometrical yantras and mandalas were for the Indians, the tetractys was the primary sacred symbol for the Greeks and was used for the searing of oaths in which the founder himself was recognized: “by him who handed down to us the tetractys, source and root of everlasting nature.”{Guthire, W. C. K. The Earlier Presocratics and the Pythagoreans. Vol. 1 of A History of Greek Philosophy. 1971. Reprint, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992, , 225}—p. 208
6 REBIRTH AND REASON
…But unlike those of any other thinker that we have dealt with, Plato’s doctrines of rebirth derived their force through the human faculty of Reason. I want to contrast this apotheosized Reason of the Greek Enlightenment with the “Buddhist Enlightenment,” in which reason is only given secondary place. All forms of Buddhism subscribe to the distinction between conventional and ultimate truths (Pali, sammuti sacca and paramattha sacca); ultimate truths are apprehended through penetration (pativedha), that is, through meditational ascesis and not through reason.—p. 249
…Briefly stated, Plato insists that the soul may seem to us to be weighted with corporeality and contaminated by injustice, indiscipline, cowardice, and ignorance, but in its origin it possesses “a kinship with the divine” (Plato, Republic, 10.611e), that is, a shared affinity with the gods. Further, the number of souls is finite and can never be increased or decreased; this brings Plato’s theory in line with other Greek theories (and those of several small-scale societies) in which souls are “continuously incarnated” in various forms of sentient existence.—p. 250
…Socrates is fearless and confident because, as a philosopher, his very lifestyle is given to “practising death.” {Plato, Phaedo 812}1 This training for death is in reality the cultivation of the soul, rendering it pure and recognising its immortality. It means leading a pure life untrammelled by the body so that the soul will at least be released from the body’s bondage….—p. 250
- The edition of Phaedo I use is Hugh Tredennick’s translation, which appears along with other of Plato’s works in The Last Days of Socrates (London: Penguin, 1969), 99—183.
…For Socrates also the body imprisons the soul and awaits the wise man to set it free. “Every seeker after wisdom knows that up to the time when philosophy takes it over his soul is a helpless prisoner, chained hand and foot in the body, compelled to view reality not directly but only through its prison bars, and wallowing in utter ignorance” (Hugh Tredennick’s translation, which appears along with other of Plato’s works in The Last Days of Socrates (London: Penguin, 1969)., 82e).—p. 250
…Repentance is important in the Platonic scheme, but it must be accompanied by the forgiveness of the victims. Neutral or ordinary citizens are punished for the wrongs they have done, after which they are rewarded….—p. 252
…Note that Plato, who is primarily an ethical and political thinker, never uses the terms soteriology or salvation. Instead he uses nous or noesis, and sometimes episteme, to designate one’s knowledge of this realm of being, which is opposed to the world of coming-into-being or becoming, where one is enmeshed in taken-for-granted beliefs, or doxa. Nevertheless, the sense of happiness or bliss inextricably associated with the contemplation of that reality can reasonably be translated as “salvific.”—p. 255
Plato’s God is not an omnipotent being. Although perfect and good, embodying Reason itself, this God has to create the universe with whatever materials are available, even though the model for creating the world is the ideal one of Forms. Moreover, the Maker, although perfect, must of necessity create an imperfect world….—p. 259
Take the myth of creation: the gods originally create Men. These men are free of sexual feelings, which emerge only with the creation of women in the second incarnation. Yet, structurally speaking, a myth of creation must contain a myth of procreation in order to account for the existence of the human race. Unhappily the original community of the Timaeus was an ideal community of males without sexual organs; the love that bonds them cannot be sexual (homoerotic), only asexual, or “Platonic.” Plato’s Timaeus says that some men have fallen from their high state as a result of immorality or cowardice and “it becomes reasonable to suppose” that they become women or other kinds of creatures. Sexual love was created by the gods at that time only. Plato describes in some detail how man’s body was changed to create the desire for procreation and the organs to ensure it. In this new situation “man’s genitals are naturally disobedient and self-willed, like a creature that will not listen to reason, and will do anything in their mad lust for possession.” By contrast a woman has a different form of unreason: her lust is to bear children in the matrix, or womb. “If it is left unfertilized long beyond the normal time, it causes extreme unrest … [and] this goes on until the woman’s longing and the man’s desire meet” (Austen, Leo. “Procreation Beliefs among the Trobriand Islanders”, Oceania 5 (September 1934): 102-13, 49.91). Plato does not tell us what happens when women’s passion for procreation is not fulfilled through men’s desire. I assume that women’s “unrest” causes their wombs to wander, and they become “hysterics.”
Thus a peculiar situation: the original love was between men, and it was devoid of passion; when women arose, men were given sexual passion and women a drive for offspring, or “womb-passion,” if I may use that phrase….—p. 266
…There is no emancipator message for women in the Republic {by Plato}.—p. 269
Plato, then, was interested in everyday morality and public ethics even in early works such as the Gorgias….—p. 270
…An important theme running through the text argues for just punishment and proclaims, further, that “wrong doing is the worst harm that can befall a wrong doer” (Gorgias., 509). The ideal therefore is to live without “sin” because “to enter the next world with one’s soul loaded with sins is the supreme misfortune’ (Gorgias., 522)….—p. 270
…Plato, like Jaina thinkers, argues that the body, via sinful acts, stains the soul and prevents freedom and the achievement of salvation; in Buddhism it is karmic ethics that directly affects the path to salvation….—p. 274
…one might ask why a profoundly original and speculative thinker such as Plato was trapped in the prison of the pre-existing tradition. Why could he not have introduced a more profound idea of rebirth ethics (not necessarily a karmic one) into his scheme of things? I have said that ethicization everywhere entailed the conversion of ordinary morality into a religious one concomitantly with the creation of congregations. Plato inherited an ethicized world of hell and heaven from Pindaric (and possibly Orphic) thought, but to create a rebirth ethic would have required the creation of a congregation. This was impossible in Plato’s academy, which was confined to a very small elite that excluded women. Plato might well have imagined an audience; but he could not possibly have created a congregation. His was an exclusive soteriology for the (p.274) philosopher. In his idealized republic the people of the polis are simply incapable of ever apprehending the true reality, the world of Forms. The philosopher is the only kind of being who can transcend bodily desires and worldly wants, who can glimpse the original pure condition from whence he sprang. It is he who can ultimately experience the vision of the Realm of Forms. Like the Upanishadic guru, Plato was not interested in the salvation of common men, women, or Sudras.—pp. 274-75
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