Social Background of Buddhism

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Preface

The growing interest in Buddhist studies has created more problems than it has been able to solve. Today there are as many explanations of the origin, nature and scope of Buddhism as there are scholars working on these themes. These problems become worse confounded when one is confronted with contradictory conclusions regarding the issues of its social location and class affiliation. There are scholars who project the Buddha as the champion of the downtrodden; there are others who "disparage him for neglecting the humble and the wretched" and for aligning with the noble and the rich. Such contradictions are primarily the result of an unfortunate situation - most of the modern writers on early Buddhism often work and draw conclusions without having an adequate understanding of the ancient societies in general. A funny situation, generally encountered, which, in turn, is partly responsible for some basic misconceptions and resultant contradictions, is a deliberate attempt on the part of some scholars to shun off the contemporary material milieu in their studies of Buddhism. Such an uninformed situation results on two counts - either these scholars equate the study of material culture with Marxist historiography or they are ignorant of Buddhism's interlinkages with historical developments. In either case, they deserve denouement. Ideas do not originate in a vacuum; they are inextricably linked with the social setting. Thus talking about Buddhism in isolation from its material background is bound to present a misleading picture, an academic problem that can possibly be addressed meaningfully if this entire body of thought and practice is situated in its proper contextual setting.

A study of Buddhism is beset with a serious problem, which is source-oriented. The Buddhist scriptures which shed light on its various aspects are historically unreliable because of a variety of factors. None of these texts are contemporaneous or even near-contemporaneous to the Buddha. Some of them, purporting to refer to the primitive times, are juxtaposed with later refined thought and philosophy. The resultant confusion adversely affects the very understanding of the basis of Buddhism. It was a socially developing religion, a religion which was dynamic, not static. It was undergoing distinct changes during the succeeding periods, changes that were, at times, so momentous that many of the earlier elements of this non-Vedic religion were obscured. For a proper perception of this dynamics of change one has to lean heavily upon the Buddhist texts, but invariably they do not come to our rescue. In fact, it is rather impossible to shift one layer of a text from the other and to date the same precisely. Unless the textual portions are precisely identified and situated in their contextual setting, their study not only tantamounts to deliberate misinterpretations, but is also bound to give an altogether different and misleading orientation to the whole issue; the different strands of thought instead of giving an idea of the dynamics of change may lead us to a set of incongruities. For avoiding these negativities, it is necessary not only to analyse the actual chronological framework of a text, but also to situate it in its proper material context.

Introduction

The study of Buddhism, and for that matter the whole gamut of religious history, under the rubric of secular historiography goes against the basic assumptions of the Believer by analysing the ecclesiastical ideology in terms of the expression of a specific type of social motivation and value-system. A religious belief is firmly rooted in its social milieu and in its wider manifestations it not only reflects the changing social relations but also mirrors the pains and agonies associated with the process of structural readjustments unleashed by the new social forces. A religious ideology, therefore, needs to be situated in its social setting in order to enable an analyst to address the key issues revolving around it. Buddhism too, with its congenital linkage with the material world, does accord centrality to worldly concerns of happiness and sorrow in its precepts and perceptions, a point that needs proper evaluation.

This conceptual stance has been, however, repeatedly challenged by castigating secular historiography as coming to extremely simplistic conclusions by erroneously equating the whole of religious history with "the history of beliefs of which the truth or falsity cannot be vouched." To buttress this cognitive position, G.C. Pande argues, "A common practice among modern historians is to judge religious movements as if they had nothing to do with theological or metaphysical beliefs and to treat them merely as the expression of a type of social motivation and values. It is true that where 'religious' behaviour impinges on universal human values, it can undoubtedly be judged without reference to supposed underlying beliefs. But there is a wide area where belief needs to be judged as a cognitive claim.

To condemn Marxist historians' refusal to take cognizance of suprasensible or metaphysical truth as blasphemy is sadly unhistorical and to drub their analytical methodology derived therefrom as fractured or superficial is an obvious negation of a historiographical tradition that seeks to analyse beliefs and practices in terms of social forces, not divine interventions. The emphasis on the historical validity of the cognitive claim tantamounts to a blind acceptance of all individualistic claims about interaction with god, union with god, transcendence to godhead, etc. Such a position leads to the construction of a typical post-modernist history wherein the past gets fractured into myths, mystic experiences and similar other essentially subjective discourses. The evolution of a religion needs to be viewed as an ideological affirmation of the changing social realities, not as its negation. It is pertinent to note that the world-negating and world-renouncing nature of Buddhism have been stressed upon by G.C. Pande.3 In support of his argument, he contends that the Sramana Movement, wherein Buddhism enjoyed a status of centrality, was historically both pre-Aryan and non-Aryan in outlook deriving sustenance from the attitude of detachment (nivrtti). "During the early Vedic period when the Aryans were actively engaged in colonisation, it was overshadowed by the activistic outlook (pravrtti) of the Aryans and was looked down upon as something alien. However, once the two cultures fused to form a composite whole and the process of colonisation slowed down, the nivrtti world outlook started asserting itself, resulting in the basic concepts of the Upanisadic philosophy. In the crisis-ridden Indian society of the sixth century B.С., this world outlook touched a new high and achieved its most rational and organised form in early Buddhism." This entire epistemological discourse, though aimed at demolishing the view that Buddhism was a product of the changing material
culture, ironically accords centrality to the analysis of distress
and pessimism caused by the on-going process of material
transformation for the full realisation of the potentiality of
Buddhism, both in theory and practice. This exercise of
divorcing a religion from its social base has led to the denial
of the secular or reformist content in the Buddha's message
along with an assertion against its equation with an ideology
of the newly emergent influential groups of the satthavahas,
the setthis and the gahapatis.? Pande goes to the extent of
suggesting that even its attack on the caste system and the
sacrificial rituals did not manifest a social concern because it
was basically a product of the Sramanic movement. His denial
of any social base of Buddhism is both explicit and
unequivocal, "...they (Buddhists) sought to transcend, not
disrupt, social life. Indeed, having abandoned secular society,
they themselves entered a new society based on spiritual
relations. They became the spiritual sons of the teachers whom
they followed and participated in a spiritual fraternity,
believing that man is not fundamentally a material being,
driven by the instincts of 'production' and 'reproduction'.
He is essentially a spiritual creature striving after a goal not
attainable in the Kingdom of Man." This and similar other
exercises to delink religion from its contemporary social
realities underline an attempt aimed at monopolising
ideological developments by the spiritualists and believers
with their transcendent social apathy and a pathological desire
for restructuring the social order in tune with the obsolete
and largely degenerate value-system. History is thus pushed
into the domain of abstruse and historical processes, as they
unfold before us, get further garbed in mystification with
historical understanding undergoing another painful process
of myosis. The Marxist historiography in India not only shows
its awareness with this historically unacceptable
supramundanish frame of reference, but also makes a successful attempt to stop the highjacking of ideas into the domain of the mystique.