Courtesy: HSRC
K.P.Shankaran
(Dedicated to the memory of my non-human companion Winky)
Prelude
Gandhi’s writings clearly show that he was a philosophical theorist, and hence the sub- heading “Gandhi’s Hypothesis”. I have tried to argue that as early as the 6 th century BCE the Buddha had discovered the effect of reducing unsatisfactoriness (Dukkha) by lowering selfishness and used the cultivation of ethical virtues of Satya, Ahimsa etc, as the instruments of that purpose. Once the practitioners become “psychologically self-sufficient” their unsatisfactoriness (Dukkha) disappear and all metaphysical props (ultimate reality pictures) including God/gods/supernatural benevolent power(s) become redundant. Hence religion too. Once the Buddha made metaphysical props unnecessary , meditation practices (Jhana, Vipassana), conceived as that which lead to the insight to the “Truth which is intrinsic to Being/ metaphysical Truth(s)” , become only medically helpful exercises. I have also tried to show how, through the agency of Emperor Ashoka, the Buddha’s Philosophical way of life inadvertently, became a religious way of life. The Nikayas are Pāli texts. They are believed by the Theravada Buddhists to be the sayings of the Buddha.
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Reflexive capacity of language
“Dasein is] that entity which in its Being has this very Being as an issue…” (Heidegger, Being and Time,1988, p.68). For our purpose we read this Heideggerian dictum as “ human being is] that entity which in its existence has this very existence as an issue…” We know from the Nikayas that it was the Buddha, who prior to his enlightenment, found, that for human beings their being/ existence was in itself a perpetually nagging angst/unsatisfactoriness . He therefore began searching for a solution that would heal them from this existential crisis. Independent of the Nikayas, if we were to look for the cause of the human predicament, we would perhaps zero in on the human ability to use language.
Language is the only human natural endowment which can become its own subject: we can talk about talking. With the emergence of language and with its reflexive capacity it is not surprising that human existence itself reflexively became a subject of human concern. As far as I can tell no thinker before the Buddha, saw this issue as being worthy of critical analysis or attempted to find a solution for the problem of unsatisfactoriness/angst that it causes in human life.
Gandhi’s Hypothesis
“Ever since its commencement, the world, the wise and the foolish included, has proceeded upon the assumption that, if we are, God is and that, if God is not, we are not. And since belief in God is co-existent with the humankind, existence of God is treated as a fact more definite than the fact that the Sun is. This living faith has solved the largest number of puzzles of life. It has alleviated our misery. It sustains us in life, it is our one solace in death. The very search for Truth becomes interesting, worthwhile, because of this belief” (Harijan-21 September 1934).
This I take to be Gandhi’s hypothesis about the origin of belief in God/gods. What Gandhi is saying is that the idea of God/gods came into being as a solution to the human existential crisis which in turn is a result of man’s self-awareness arising out of the reflexive function of the human linguistic endowment. What is interesting about this Gandhian hypothesis is that the belief in God/ gods is a metaphysical assumption and historically perceived, it is authorless .I think it is as good as any other assumption suggested by historians and cultural anthropologists.
The Gandhi hypothesis, though it offers a reasonable explanation about the origin of belief in God/gods, is completely silent about the phenomenon of “religion”. Religion is not just a belief in God/gods or supernatural powers; it is also a culturally transmitted interconnected practice. That said, I am willing to accept that the global use of the word “religion” is a product of the anthropology of the colonial period. It came from early Christians like Tertullian’s appropriation of the Latin ‘Religo’ for their self-description of their dealings with the concept of God and related practices. We now know that it is not applicable globally in the way the early anthropologists thought. However, the word “religion” has become an integral part of most languages of the world.
Grounding a set of interconnected practices in the metaphysical belief of an everlasting, supernatural, often benevolent, personal/ impersonal power(s), has been a widespread cultural phenomenon. I use the word “religion” to designate this phenomenon, as it exists historically and anthropologically, in almost all cultures . As far this phenomenon is concerned there is no difference between literate and non- literate cultures.
The Philosophical practice of the Buddha.
In the history of humanity, the Buddha will likely stand out, as perhaps, the only thinker who found a non-religious solution for the human existential angst/unsatisfactoriness . And in this perhaps lay his greatness. But the suttas which became available as texts only in the post Ashokan period (perhaps the 2nd century BCE) , seek only to highlight the metaphysics and the meditative practices of Jhana and Vipassana. It was only natural therefore that metaphysics and meditative practices both acquired a pan Buddhist approval from the 2nd Century BCE, unmindful of the fact that according to many scholars, Vipassana was a later addition and Jhana had been critically rejected in a very important Sutta in the Nikayas.
In the Ashokan inscriptions there are references to a few suttas but strangely there is no reference to meditative practices .The Ashokan inscriptions are also silent on the metaphysical theses relating to Anicca (impermanence), Anatta (non-self), Pancha Skandhas (Five aggregates) etc. On the contrary there are suttas within the Nikayas which suggest that the Buddha rejected all metaphysical theses.
While it may not be possible to distinguish between the earlier and later sections of the Nikayas, it is an undeniable fact that the Nikayas do not convey a uniform thesis. Many different views are discernible within the voluminous collection of suttas. I will now refer to a few suttas, which reject both the metaphysical thesis as well as meditative practice. The latter was presented as a technique to provide an insight into metaphysical truths. Therefore once it is established that the Buddha rejected the metaphysics that he had himself suggested, then the meditative practices we encounter in the Nikayas, automatically lose their relevance.
The Buddha rejects his own metaphysical thesis.
In the Alagaddupama Sutta and the Mahatanhasankhaya Sutta the Buddha advices the readers “that the Dhamma has been taught as similar to a raft, being for the purpose of crossing over, not for the purpose of grasping” . Similarly In Suttanipata’s Duṭṭhaṭṭhaka Sutta it is said :“Nothing is taken up or rejected by him(the Buddha); he has shaken off all views right here”. There are other suttas also where he advices the reader to shake off all metaphysical views. So it is useful to link the “raft simile” to these suttas and see them in the context of the Buddha’s discourse of the ten unfathomable issues in the Culamalunkya Sutta :
1.The world is eternal.
2.The world is not eternal.
3.The world is (spatially) infinite.
4.The world is not (spatially) infinite.
5.The being imbued with a life force is identical with the body.
6.The being imbued with a life force is not identical with the body.
7.The Tathagata (a perfectly enlightened being) exists after death.
8.The Tathagata does not exist after death.
9.The Tathagata both exists and does not exist after death.
10.The Tathagata neither exists nor does not exist after death.
Or the 16 issues of Sabbasava-Sutta such as :
1.What am I?
2.How am I?
3.Am I?
4.Am I not?
5.Did I exist in the past?
6.Did I not exist in the past?
7.What was I in the past?
8.How was I in the past?
9.Having been what, did I become what in the past?
10.Shall I exist in future?
11.Shall I not exist in future?
12.What shall I be in future?
13.How shall I be in future?
14.Having been what, shall I become what in future?
15.Whence came this person?
Whither will he go?
These issues are unfathomable not because they are very profound or very difficult. They are problematic because they do not yield a universally agreeable answer even when scholars work in the same frame of reference with the same presuppositions. So the Buddha, the Nikayas tell us, took a middle path (the Kaccanagotta sutta). The middle path itself is, as the raft simile suggests , only an ad hoc device. In other words there are enough reasons to believe that at least parts of the Nikayas turn against its own metaphysical thesis.
Pointlessness of Jhana and Vipassana.
The Buddha’s metaphysical constructs were conceived as ad hoc devices to replace the Brahmanical metaphysics of Bhraman/Atman. Once the Buddha advised his disciples to let go of his metaphysical constructions, meditative practices /yoga and the Brahmanical spiritual technology, too became redundant . The Ariyapariyesana Sutta tells us that he had tested the Brahmanical meditation and found it wanting as a means for healing human existential angst/ unsatisfactoriness . But later the Sappurisa Sutta concedes that Jhana produces psychological conditions of a certain kind though it is still wanting as it does not make the practitioner an ethical/good person. Of course, due to biochemical changes (Dopamine’s effect?) in the nervous system and the brain , meditators may end up temporarily feeling good both physically and psychologically. Hallucinations too are not uncommon (Lindahl et al (2014) at https://doi.org/10.3389/fpsyg.2013.00973).
In the case of Vipassana, it is capable of generating de-automatization (Analayo, Satipattahana p 264). Here too I am willing to grant that Vipassana may have some medical utility. But as the Sappurisa sutta claims, these practices do not contribute to the development of the all important psychological self-sufficiency by cultivating Ethical virtues.
Reclining Buddha. Ajanta
Ethics and Psychological self-Sufficiency
Once we reject the so called the metaphysical thesis of the Buddha and the meditative practices, as the devices to gain access to “Reality”, what remains for serious consideration are the ethical practices.
While a significant number of suttas in the Nikayas are dedicated to the exposition of what Buddhist scholars have identified as the metaphysical thesis of the Nikayas, they are merely ad hoc devices for novices to use and discard. The same can be said about a large number of suttas dealing with meditative practices. In the final analysis metaphysics and meditation are only optional devices for temporary use, to be discarded once the practitioner’s ethical behaviour gets stabilised.
I now draw attention to a significant passage from SamannaphalaSutta: “And then, Sire, that monk who is perfected in morality sees no danger from any side owing to his being restrained by morality…….. on account of his morality, sees no danger anywhere. He experiences in himself the blameless bliss that comes from maintaining this Ariyan morality. In this way, Sire, he is perfected in morality.”
Although there is no phrase in the Nikayas that can be equated with “psychological self-sufficiency” I use the term to capture the significance of this passage. The above passage tells us that the mental state of a person who is “perfected in morality” is different from the mental state of one who has not mastered morality. Morality/ Ethics here means the practice of Ahimsa, Satya, Brahmacharya, aparigraha and karuna.
Perfection of morality produces “blameless bliss” in which the practitioner feels that nothing can harm her. Therefore she no longer requires external support and she becomes absolutely free from existential unsatisfactoriness/angst. This is the state of psychological self-sufficiency—the absence of the need to look outside oneself for help. In the Kalama Sutta the narrator asks, “Having done no evil action, from where will suffering touch me?” A religious believer in God/gods on the other hand seeks help/solace from an external source through the medium of rituals like prayers, visiting religious sites etc.
Reduction of self-centeredness/ selfishness
A predominant theme in the Nikayas, which is not taken up for critical analysis by scholars, is the harm that selfishness/self-centeredness does to a human being. The third sermon the Buddha gave after his enlightenment, is called Ādittapariyāya Sutta or the Fire sermon. The most startling beginning of the sutra is:
“Bhikkhus, all is burning. And what, bhikkhus, is the all that is burning? The eye is burning, forms are burning, eye-consciousness is burning, eye-contact is burning, and whatever feeling arises with eye-contact as condition-whether pleasant or painful or neither-painful-nor-pleasant-that too is burning. Burning with what? Burning with the fire of lust, with the fire of hatred, with the fire of delusion…..I say”.
Here the fire of lust, hatred and delusion are synonymous with selfishness/self-centeredness. Although the fire sermon does not use the word “Nirvana”, it says that after hearing the sermon all the listeners became liberated immediately. Liberation here must be understood to mean “Nirvana”.
Although the promise of ‘immediate liberation’ should be accepted as a hyperbole this does not dilute the crux of the Buddha’s advice viz. to achieve liberation (Nirvana) it is essential to extinguish (Nirvana) the fire of selfishness by the cultivation of ethical virtues of Ahimsa, Satya, Brahmacharya, aparigraha and karuna.
An alternative to belief in God/gods
The claim that I have been trying to make is that the Nikayas contain a genuine alternative to religion.
It is not my claim that religions do not promote ethics, they do; but ethics is not the mainstay of religions. Ethics play only a subordinate role in religious traditions and it is totally subservient to the metaphysics of God/gods.
The Buddha through the final jettisoning of metaphysics and related meditative practices made Ethics the sole practice and mainstay of his philosophical practice. The Buddha was an ethical consequentialist in that the purpose of his ethics was to reduce self-centeredness and promote the-concern-for-well-being-of-all (Sarvodaya). The empirical discovery made by the Buddha was that when self-centeredness reduces to a critical level, the practitioner will be able to cultivate Sarvodya easily.Simultaneously unsatisfactoriness with its concomitant fears too disappear. To extinguish (Nirvana) the fire of selfishness, one does not require help from an external source; ethical practices are meant for that. The state of extinguished selfishness/psychological self- sufficiency (Nirvana) is what is described as “blameless bliss” in the verse I have quoted earlier from The Samannaphala Sutta. This state of Nirvana, removes all fears that arise from human existential crisis. Accordingly if we were to read the Nikayas, independently of the long tradition of commentaries, we would see that Buddha had invented a non-religious solution to the human existential crisis, as early as the 6th century BCE.
The Buddha’s solution was part of a philosophical way of life. This remained confined to a small group of adult practitioners, as is historically the case with such practices. Gradually however the Buddha’s way of life ceased to be a philosophical practice and got converted to two religious ways of life with significant family resemblance. This could be attributed to emperor Ashoka’s evangelical efforts to spread Buddha’s philosophical way of life. Since philosophical ways of life, as historical induction informs us, are always confined to a small group of people, Ashoka’s efforts to globalise it, inadvertently ended up in converting it into a religion. This in turn led to the deification of the Buddha (Inscriptions of Asoka: The pillar inscription no:1, D.C Sircar,1956, p66).
As a consequence of this development, meditative practices, visiting sacred sites and offering prayers to this ‘deity’ in order to attain release from the cycle of rebirths as prompted by the Nikaya metaphysics , became the mainstay of the religion called Theravada. Mahayana on the other hand grounded the practices of believers by developing its’ own metaphysics of “Tathagata-garbha” and its’ variations. The insight into this Ultimate Reality is believed to be the means of ending the cycle of rebirths. The pure land Buddhism and the Tantric are other religious manifestations of Mahayana.
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Author’s Note In this essay my attempt has been to retrieve from the Nikayas, a possible reading which, as far as my understanding goes, has not been attempted before . The possibility of a pure ethics-led philosophical way of life instead of one led by metaphysics alone or by metaphysics combined with meditation, is unique in the history of philosophy. This reading of the Nikayas, I submit, makes the Buddha an exceptional intellectual figure in world history. K.P. Shankaran was Associate Professor at St. Stephen’s College New Delhi, where he taught Philosophy He also taught Political Philosophy and Gandhian Thought at Delhi University. He has written a book, “Marx and Freud on Religion” and many essays on Gandhi.
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This is an excellent piece. I Hope that Shankar will elaborate on the Buddha Gandhi connection in greater detail soon.