PRESENTED TO THE MEMBERS OF THE BUDDHA CENTER ON SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 29, 2014 AND AGAIN TO THE NEW BUDDHA CENTRE ON SATURDAY, OCTOBER 5, 2024 (REVISED)
The Discourse to Kutadanta
Digha Nikaya 5
Country: Magadha
Locale: Ambalatthika park in Khanumata
Speakers: Kutadanta, the Buddha
Date of Composition: mid 5th-mid 4th cent. BCE
Walshe points out that this is not the same place as the royal park of Ambalatthika on the road between Rajagaha and Nalanda in the first discourse, but a place like it. Khanumata is described as populous, full of grass, timber, water, and corn. King Bimbisara of Magadha—who was murdered by his son, Ajatasattu, thus establishing this discourse as earlier than the second discourse of the Digha Nikaya—has given Khanumata to the Brahman Kutadanta.
Kutadanta decides to make a great sacrifice of 700 bulls, bullocks, heifers, he-goats, and rams, 3,500 animals in total, all tied to sacrificial posts. Walshe suggests that this is the story told by the Buddha to King Pasenadi of Kosala.
As in the previous discourse, the governor goes up to his verandah for his midday nap, clearly the norm at the time. Like Sonadanda, he sees the streets filled with people heading toward Ambalatthika. Asked the reason, his steward tells him that they are going to see the Buddha. Perhaps this discourse is put after the previous one due to the similarity of the situation.
The absurdity of the story reveals itself, for it occurs to Kutadanta to ask the Buddha about how to conduct the threefold sacrifice with the sixteen requisites, a topic that Kutadanta, a Brahman, professes not to understand. Again the text clearly has a polemical motive to emphasize the ignorance of the Brahmans.
Ritual sacrifice is the heart of the Vedic religion. The Thai movie, Angulimala, shows the extent of the Vedic practice of animal sacrifice, which may be compared to the animal sacrifices of the ancient Hebrews.
The intent of the story is clearly to insult the Brahman, who is made out not to know his own business so that the Buddha is seen to be the true Brahman, but it is also to show that Buddhism is the true Brahmanism.
In the previous discourse, Sonadanda resolves to visit the Buddha, and is accompanied by a large group of Brahmans, to whom he praises the Buddha. Almost the same scenario occurs in this discourse.
One of the Buddha’s teaching techniques, besides seeking common ground, is to tell a story set in the past, at the end of which the Buddha identifies people in or known to the audience as rebirths of the people in the story. Often the situation in the story reflects or embodies the current situation. Perhaps this became the basis for the belief that the Buddha possesses past-life recall, despite the Buddha’s non-emphasis on psychic powers (the reality of which he never denies, however). The Buddha tells the Brahman the story of King Mahavijita (‘great conqueror’), which is subsequently revealed to be a past-life memory of the Buddha himself.
Such stories indicate two beliefs regarding causality: (1) that people who are involved with each other in one life are likely to become involved with each other in similar ways in subsequent rebirths, and (2) that underlying patterns or structures of events reoccur from birth to birth, based on causality. Finally, the phenomenon of past-life recall itself, which is canonical, pervasive, and for which empirical evidence exists, raises the problem of the substrate in which these memories are preserved, as the brain is the substrate of biological memory but ceases to function at death. Clearly, the continuity of rebirth is also a continuity of memory, even if those memories are so subtle that they are ordinarily indiscernible to any but the most refined awareness.
The discourse is organized around the declaration of two issues where the Buddha is far ahead of his time: animal and human rights. This establishes the Buddha’s fundamental political philosophy, and his ethical views regarding animal rights, as well as providing further insights into this concept of an “inner Brahmanism” that is opposed to the Brahmanism of rites, rituals, and dogmas. This doctrine further explains the ambivalent attitude that the Buddha seems to have toward Brahmans and Brahmanism, at times hostile and contemptuous, at other times collegial and cooperative.
Therefore, Mahavijita, like Kutadanta, wants to make a big sacrifice to produce merit, and approaches his ‘family priest,’ which Walshe translates as ‘chaplain,’ for instructions. Instead of answering him directly, the priest segues into a discussion of the state of the kingdom: “Your Majesty’s country is beset by thieves, it is ravaged, villages and towns are being destroyed, and the countryside is infested with brigands. If your Majesty were to tax this region, that would be the wrong thing to do.” This reflects the social situation in northeast India at the Buddha’s time. The land is dangerous; the monarchies and military dictatorships are ruthless; wealth is moving from the autocrats to the merchants, resulting in heavy taxation by the state; the laws are arbitrary and cruel; wars and political violence are common; brigands and gangs haunt the roads; there is widespread dissatisfaction and widespread spiritual yearning. Not so different form our own time.
The priest continues,
Suppose our Majesty were to think, ‘I will get rid of this plague of robbers by execution and imprisonment, or by confiscation, threats and banishment,’ the plague would not be properly ended. Those who survived would later harm Your Majesty’s realm. However, with this plan you can completely eliminate the plague. To those in the kingdom who are engaged in cultivating crops and raising cattle, let Your Majesty distribute grain and fodder; to those in trade, give capital; to those in government service, assign proper living wages. Then those people, being intent in their own occupations, will not harm the kingdom. Your Majesty’s revenues will be great, the land will be tranquil and not beset by thieves, and the people with joy in their hearts, will play with their children, and will dwell in open homes. (11)
In this remarkable passage, redolent of later political theories, the Buddha sets forth the basic thesis of classic liberal progressive economics, in which the state supports agriculture, capital, and a well-paid bureaucracy. In other words, the state is responsible for maintaining the common infrastructure, which in turn supports the civil society that depends on it, the prosperity of the latter resulting from the actions of the former making the taxes that the state spends to maintain the infrastructure affordable. Elsewhere, the Buddha envisages democratic government, and even kings abdicating their thrones and fortunes in favour of the people. The Buddha sees that a high tax, law-and-order agenda will intensify the cycle of violence, culminating in social breakdown. Ashoka put policies like this in place during the third century BCE. Ashoka’s benevolent public works included charitable hospitals, poverty relief, tree planting, travellers’ inns, parks and gardens, wells and tanks, clinics for birds and animals, and a ban on animal sacrifice, alongside the promotion of moral law, religious tolerance, and legal reforms inscribed in his famous edicts.
Having reformed his kingdom, Mahavijita reitertaes his desire to perform a great sacrifice, so his family priest gives him clearly allegorical instructions to perform the sacrifice. According to this allegory, the eight accessories for the sacrifice are the king’s birth, beauty, wealth, power, generosity, knowledge of the mantras, linguistic skill, and his understanding of the workings of the law of causality. Similarly, the chaplain himself, being a Brahman, is wellborn, versed in the mantras, virtuous, and learned. The three modes of the sacrifice are not to regret the cost of the sacrifice in the past, present, or future. The ten conditions refer to ten precepts, starting with the familiar four precepts, followed by not coveting, not harbouring anger, and not having wrong views.
Finally, the chaplain gives sixteen reasons why the sacrifice will be successful, including:
- Inviting the warrior caste to attend;
- Including advisers, counsellors, Brahmans, and householders;
- Being wellborn on both sides; and
- His family priest being wellborn.
Finally, the priest points out that the sacrifice should be carried out with ghee, oil, butter, curds, honey, and molasses; no animals should be killed; no trees or plants should be injured; and no slaves or servants should be required to do anything against their will.
Kutadanta asks why this sacrifice is better. The Buddha points out that arhants and stream entrants—those who have attained the arhant path—will not attend a violent sacrifice, but they will attend a sacrifice that does not involve killing, implicitly producing merit for the “sacrifice” by their presence, and thus themselves metaphors for merit.
The guests also bring money to contribute to the ceremony, but the king rebuffs them, so they put their gifts to the east, south, west, and north of the sacrificial pit as offerings.
This interpretation clearly establishes Buddhism as an esoteric tradition, from Greek esotero, ‘more within.’ First used in English with reference to the Pythagorean doctrines, esotericism explores the hidden meanings and symbols in various philosophical, historical, and religious texts, especially texts that are central to mainline religions. Thus, the esotericist finds “more within” the traditional texts. This is exactly the method of the Buddha with respect to the mainline practices of Brahmanism. He does not merely reject Brahmanism. Rather, he finds an ethical and perhaps a spiritual meaning within Brahmanism that the Brahmans themselves have long forgotten. Historically, we know that this “forgetting” characterizes the late Vedic period, from about 1000–500 BCE, especially with reference to the true nature of the soma sacrifice.
Another meaning of “esoteric” is “for the few.” Thus, when the Buddha attains enlightenment in his 30s he hesitates to teach, concerned that most common people will be unable to understand him, but the Brahma Sahampati persuades him to teach for the sake of the few. Thus, Buddhism is an esoteric tradition from its inception.
Kutadanta, clearly impressed, asks the Buddha if there is another, simpler, more powerful practice. It is not that ritual has no efficacy, which is a naive misinterpretation of the Buddha’s view, but rather there is something within ritual that is more efficacious, just as there is something within ethics that is more efficacious, viz., intention. The Buddha responds by giving a list of seven progressively subtler and more powerful practices: giving to virtuous renunciants; providing shelter for the order; going for refuge to the Buddha, the teaching, and the order; undertaking the five precepts; morality; insight; and finally the cessation of the corruptions. Beyond that, the Buddha says, “there is nothing further in this world.” Note the qualification—he refers only to “this world”; he does not say that there is nothing further in another world: “beyond this there is no sacrifice that is greater and more perfect.” One may also read this in two ways. Each of these things is a sacrifice in the pure sense of converting matter to energy in the service of a higher intention. This universal law of sacrifice is the central principle of the science of spirituality. The more one sacrifices, the more energy is liberated and the more merit accrued.
Maurice Walshe’s translation of the fifth precept is “to refrain …from taking strong drink and sloth-producing drugs.” However, there is no textual basis for the prohibition of drugs. T.W. Rhys Davids’s English version of this discourse has “abstention from strong, intoxicating, maddening drinks, the root of carelessness.” Note the absence of any reference to drugs. The phrase in question is the same as that used elsewhere in the Pali Canon—sura meraya majja pamadatthana veramanim. Sura, meraya, and majja are three types of alcoholic drinks. Sura was a medical anaesthetic. Majja may have been a kind of mead. Other alcoholic drinks are not included in this list, including sidhu, arista, madhu (related to majja), madira, and asava. We recognize the English words “mead” and “madeira” here. According to Tamilcube, sura is distilled liquor and meraya is fermented liquor. Majja also seems to refer to a brewage. Thus, the Buddha seems to be prohibiting a range of alcoholic beverages, from weak (brewed) to strong (distilled). Pamada means ‘negligence,’ ‘indolence,’ ‘remissness,’ ‘carelessness,’ from mada, ‘pride,’ ‘intoxication,’ ‘conceit,’ ‘sexual excess.’ Veramani means ‘abstinence.’
On the other hand, according to Tamilcube, the English word ‘drug’ is osadha or agada (agado), whereas we find neither of these words in this phrase. Therefore, the exact translation should be “to refrain from drinking distilled and fermented liquors and mead [wine?] that cause (or lead to) negligence and indolence.” Perhaps one could make this out to refer to spirits, beer, and wine, but drugs? That is not what the Buddha says. He does not refer to “drugs” at all, with all the redolence of that word in modern English, and he certainly permits the use of medicines, yet this “translation” is common in the popular literature, even in scholarly translations like Walshe’s. Rhys Davids suggests that the original precept prohibits going to drinking establishments, not drinking per se, though drinking alcohol is included in the Vinaya as a minor offence.
Kutadanta is so impressed that he becomes a lay follower on the spot, freeing the 3,500 animals that he had collected. The Buddha gives Kutadanta a graduated talk on generosity, morality, the higher worlds, the evils of sensuality, and the good of renunciation, followed by a dharma talk in brief on the Four Noble Truths. Instantly Kutadanta realizes the truth of change and acquires the Dharma Eye, the equivalent of stream entry. The next day Kutadanta entertains the Buddha and his entourage at his home for the morning meal.
Buddha Centre, Saturday, October 5, 2024
Dharmata 