Nalin Swaris

The great kings of Siddhartha Gotama Buddha's Day were advised by amoral theoreticians of statecraft. The Buddha's policies for just governance need to be appreciated in the context of the principles and practices of the real politik in the monarchical states of the Mid-Gangetic Valley. The Buddha's views on righteous rule are presented clearly and succinctly in the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta: 'The Lion's Roar on the Turning of the Wheel Discourse.' That this discourse is presented in popular style shows it was intended as much for the education of the people as for the instruction of rulers.
Symbolism of the Wheel of Righteousness

The wheel is one of the most ingenious human inventions. It has had a profound impact on practical life. From the wheel and axle, other inventions grew. The original inventors and everyday wielders of wheels were ordinary men and women, working at the spinning wheel, the potter's wheel, the carter's wheel, the grinding wheel, etc. The power of the wheel also created the most feared weapon of conquest and destruction in the ancient world: the war chariot. The wheel became a symbol of more than human power. People imagined that the cyclic reproduction of the cosmo-social order was due to the mysterious turnings of an Invisible Wheel. Historically a tool produced and controlled by working men and women, the wheel was celestialised and transformed into an objective alien force existing outside and above them beyond their control.

In the non-Brahmanised states of Northeast India, the great kings projected themselves as 'wheel-turning' cosmocrats empowered to reproduce the cosmo-social order and prevent it from falling back into primordial chaos. These kings were not merely monarchs to whom vassals paid tribute. They had at their command powerful state apparatuses consisting of centrally controlled administrations and salaried standing armies owing them allegiance. Backed by ruthless rulers and armed men, tax collectors terrorised the countryside.

The power and prestige of a king's imperial might was symbolised by the possession of 'seven gems,' or insignia. The first and foremost of these was the Wheel (of the War Chariot), symbolising the right of King and State to dominate and rule by physical coercion. The wheel is an evocative symbol of state power because its power extends in concentric circles along two axes, one vertical and the other horizontal. Along the vertical axis, at the apex of the social pyramid, was the Maharaja, assisted by a council of ministers and the army commander in chief. Below were subjugated kings and chiefs of tribes and tribal federations, the governors of provinces and heads of villages. Next to the lowest social stratum were property-owning peasants and artisans. At the bottom of the heap were the propertyless wage labourers and domestic servants. Along the horizontal axis, conquered territories were centrally controlled and secured in a hub of power symbolised by the royal palace. From the palace, power extended in concentric circles through the royal capital, towns, market towns and rural settlements where agriculture, livestock breeding and craft production took place. Over this great wide circle of the earth, the kings proudly claimed to exercise power. The wheel also symbolised the power differential between the centre and periphery. Beyond the rural settlements were the great forestsÐthe habitat of wild beasts and forest tribes and also to where those renouncing life in society withdrew to live in contemplation and asceticism. The great forests also provided a hideout for political opponents: rebel leaders used the forests to gather other dissidents in order to create trouble in the border provinces or to organise attacks on the throne.

The Brahmin and early Buddhist attitudes to state power indicate the two schools' contrasting values. The Brahmins were quick to exploit the people's naive understanding about the basis of monarchical power. Brahmin theoreticians of statecraft list 'punitive and coercive force' among their seven indispensable elements of state power. The Buddha, on the other hand, gave the Wheel of State a different significance. He began his teaching career by presenting himself as a new type of hero and conqueror who had gained mastery over himself, not others. He called his first sermon the 'Turning of the Wheel of Dhamma (Law/Teaching).' Through this revaluation, the Buddha formulated not only a general ethic, but an inspiring theory of statecraft as well. He replaced the despotic and amoral principles promulgated by political philosophers of his day with principles and policies imbued with righteous values. He called upon kings to abandon violence and to turn themselves into nobleÐariyaÐturners of the Wheel. The Brahmins identified nobility with birth, property and power. The Buddha took this valuation of nobility and gave it a new worth. The true ariya, he pointed out, are the morally unimpeachable. The real 'outcaste' is the grossly immoral person. A king could claim to be ariya by birth but morally be an 'outcaste' by his actions.

The Lion's Roar of the Wheel-Turning King

The Buddha began his morality tale by recalling that a long time ago there lived a Noble Wheel-Turner monarch named Dalhanemi, the 'Well-Girded' (in righteousness). This king ruled over the entire earth, from ocean to ocean, 'without the sword and without the rod, but righteously.' The rod and the sword symbolise monopolisation of the means to violence by King and State. In patriarchal culture, the rod or sceptre is also a symbol of phallic power. By ruling 'without the sword and the rod,' the righteous king had renounced despotic patriarchal power. The Noble Wheel-Turner was in possession of the seven gems of power, but the first of these attributes, the Heavenly Wheel, was not descended from the skies. As we shall see, it ascended to its place in the heavens through righteous rule and functioned as a guardian and guarantor of righteousness in the kingdom.

After a period of just rule, King Dalhanemi decided to make a significant innovation. He appointed 'a person,' ekam sattam, to act as Watchman of the Wheel and to report to him if the Wheel was becoming unsteady. The laconic ekam sattam shows indifference to privileges of birth, gender, wealth or status. What mattered was whether the person would conscientiously perform the duty.

Duties of a Righteous Ruler

After a long period of time, the Watchman reported to the King that the Wheel had slipped a little. The King, now well advanced in years, had not deviated from righteousness, but the omen suggests that age was weakening his control over state affairs. In ancient India, as elsewhere, kings tended to cling to power even when senility made their rule ineffective. Impatient princes often committed parricide to usurp the throne. The Buddha recommended a different policy. The Watchman warns the King that the Wheel is unsteady. The King sees it as a sign that the time has come for him to retire, and he abdicates to his heir. The transfer of power takes place through the formal handing over of the seven gems. The old king retires to the forest to devote his last years to meditation.

The ascent of the new king to the throne is marked by a dramatic disappearance of the Wheel Treasure. The Watchman informs the new incumbent of this portent. Without the Wheel, the king would lose his power to rule credibly. Disturbed by the Wheel's disappearance, the young king hastens to his father to seek an explanation for the strange phenomenon. The stage is set for the Buddha to present his own views on governance through the mouth of the royal sage. The opening sentence thunders like a lion's roar against rulers who use their birthright and religious ritual to mystify the legitimacy of their rule: 'The Heavenly Wheel Treasure, my son, is not a paternal inheritance.'

Considering the period when it was made, this is a truly astonishing statement. Until recent times, all over the world the right to rule was regarded as a birthright. The Buddha, through the mouth of the royal sage, states that societies may have various conventions for deciding who will rule over them. Dynastic succession is for him one such convention; this gives a legal right to rule. But the seal of legitimacy has to be earned through righteous rule. The disappearance of the Wheel symbolically expresses this. The new king asks his father how he can regain the Wheel Treasure and is told: 'You must, my son, turn yourself into an Ariyan Wheel-Turner.'

The young king asks, 'In what way, Sir, must an Ariyan Wheel-Turner turn the Wheel?'

Again, through the royal sage, the Buddha presents his views on statecraft:

'It is this, my son:
Yourself depending on the Dhamma, honouring the Dhamma,
Revering the Dhamma, cherishing the Dhamma,
Doing homage to the Dhamma and venerating the Dhamma.
With the Dhamma as your Badge, with the Dhamma as your Banner,
Acknowledging the Dhamma
as your Master,
You should establish guard and protection, according to Dhamma,
For your household, your nobles and vassals,
For Brahmins and householders, town and country folk,
Samanas and Brahmins, for beasts and birds;
Let no unrighteousness prevail in your kingdom and to those who are in need give
wealth (emphasis added).'

What the royal sage enunciates is a concise but comprehensive state policy embracing all sentient beings. The Buddha begins by revaluing all the conventional insignia of royal power and making them signifiers of righteousness. The State is morally obliged to protect and foster the welfare, not only of humans, but also of the beasts and birds in its territory. In establishing 'guard and protection,' the new king is admonished to be vigilant about the practice of righteousness in his kingdom: 'Let no unrighteousness prevail in your kingdom.' The royal sage immediately mentions the one policy of state by which the righteousness of any government must be judged: to those who are in need distribute wealth. Following his father's advice, the young king conscientiously performs the duties of an Ariyan Wheel-Turner, and the Wheel Treasure reappears in the heavens. Having established himself in righteousness, the Noble Wheel-Turner resolves to spread righteousness throughout his realm.
Establishing the Legitimacy of Government

In describing how a just king spreads righteousness, the Buddha presents a countermodel to the Brahmin ideal that is enacted through the liturgy of the Horse Sacrifice. His listeners would have been familiar with this bizarre rite and would have grasped this revaluation of ethics. The rubrics of the Horse Sacrifice are recorded in the Brahmin scriptures, enabling us today to appreciate the revolutionary character of the Buddha's teaching on statecraft.

The Horse Sacrifice was unabashed glorification of violence and warfare, the subjugation of working people and degradation of women to the status of childbearing vessels and objects of masculine lust. At the prelude to a military campaign, a purebred stallion would be untied and driven into enemy territory. Regarded as an incarnation of IndraÐthe god of warfareÐthe horse would be followed by the king and his fourfold army consisting of elephant, horse, archery and infantry brigades. A rival allowing the horse free passage was deemed to have surrendered to the invader. If passage was denied or resisted, war would break out. After a victorious campaign, the horse was brought back to an esplanade and tied to a post. An obscene and revolting ritual followed, beginning with the exchange of lewd remarks between the presiding priests and the king's chief consort with her female escorts. After this build-up of sexual tension, the horse was forced to lie down, covered with a gold cloth and suffocated to death. Thereafter, the king's chief consort was required to lie down beside the dead animal and press the equine phallus into her vagina while begging it to lay its divine seed inside her. Once this union of queen and beast was completed, the horse was offered as a burnt sacrifice to Indra. Its marrow was extracted, cooked and offered to the king, who breathed in the fumes, symbolically taking in the virility of the stallion and, by extension, that of the warrior god.

The Buddha recast this sordid ritual in terms of righteousness and non-violence. The Wheel of Dhamma replaces the War Horse. Accompanied by his fourfold army, the king approaches the Wheel Treasure and exhorts it: 'May the noble Wheel Treasure roll on! May the noble Wheel Treasure conquer!'

The Wheel rolls on across the four quarters of the earth, followed by king and army, until the entire kingdom is brought under the reign of righteousness. Whatever territory the Wheel Treasure enters, the rulers and people see it as a harbinger of righteousness and peace. They welcome the king with enthusiasm, freely submit to his rule and seek instruction from him. The king gladly complies and instructs his subjects in the Five Moral Precepts: do not take life, do not take what has not been given, do not abuse pleasures of the senses, do not make wrong use of speech, do not take intoxicating substances. In a radical reversal of the invader's war cry 'Woe to the conquered!' the righteous king tells his subjects: 'Continue to enjoy your possessions as you have been accustomed to doing.' Having established the Rule of Righteousness throughout the Four Quarters, the King returns to the royal city, led by the Wheel Treasure. The Heavenly Wheel stands above the Palace of Justice and casts radiance into the inner chambers of the royal residence.

There then follows a long line of righteous kings until an ascendant to the throne decides to abandon the noble traditions of his ancestors. He does not seek the advice of his father, the royal sage, nor counsel of the moral guardians. He uses his army to consolidate his rule and begins 'to rule the people according to his own ideas.' As a result, 'the people do not prosper so well as they had done under the previous kings.' With the king departing from righteousness, moral degeneration gradually sets in and engulfs the whole society. The Buddha traces these conditions to a single root cause: the unjust king 'did not give wealth to the needy; and as a result, poverty became rife.'

Moral Degeneration
of Society

Applying his basic explanatory principle of conditioned co-genesis to social analysis, the Buddha discloses how, with mal-distribution of wealth and the rise of poverty, other unwholesome social conditions surface and proliferate. Following the example of their ruler, the people become indifferent to the plight of the poor and begin to take what is not given: 'As the taking of what was not given increased, the use of weapons increased; from the increased use of weapons, killing increased.'

The king thinks he can pacify society, not by tackling the root cause of poverty, but by trying to alleviate it through charity. This only makes the cunning lazy. They turn dependence on state handouts into a way life. Poverty continues to spread and with it plunder and killing. Deprived of food, the poorest of the poor are reduced to eating wild grasses. Widespread hunger and malnutrition have a dramatic impact on the health of the people. Their physical comeliness and longevity decline; children begin to die prematurely. In the absence of moral restraint, people follow their impulses; even members of the same family burn with lust for one another. Sexual violence and incest become commonplace; girls who have just attained puberty are violated and become pregnant. The breakdown of private and public morality is such that people no longer understand the meaning of morality.

As greed, lust and violence become rampant, people burn with fierce animo-sity towards one another. They feel no compassion, 'just as a hunter feels no pity for the beast he stalks.' With the downward spiral of morality, society is plunged into what the Buddha calls 'a sword period.' Basic human values disappear, and people are filled with a brutish sense. Armed with swords and knives, with hatred in their hearts, people attack each other, shouting: 'This is a wild beast! Kill! Kill!'
Moral Regeneration
of Society

The Buddha pins his hopes on a minority with the courage 'to go against the current' and lift society out of its moral morass. Amid rampant immorality, greed and violence, a few say to themselves: 'Let us not kill or be killed by anyone!' These dissenters opt out of society and retire to the wilderness where they reflect on the tragedy over-coming the society they have left: divided into conflicting interest groups, each side denying the humanity of the other.

After a period of reflection and self-transformation, these renouncers come out of seclusion. They meet with others who, like themselves, have fled the insanity of society. No longer filled with hatred, without the old social differences and labels to divide them, they embrace each other and exclaim with joy, 'Good being, how happy I am to see you are alive!' They address each other as 'good being,' not 'you' or 'outcaste' or 'prince.'

Becoming aware of their common humanity, the 'new humans' resolve to create a new society. The first step on the way to social renewal is the common resolve 'Let us renounce the taking of life.' Beginning with a respect for life, the small moral vanguard proceeds to produce wealth justly and share it equitably. The example begins to have an impact on society at large. With wealth being shared, poverty disappears and with it plunder, killing and licentiousness. Gradually, society begins to prosper again, and a vigorous urban civilisation emerges built on solid moral foundations. The morally healthy society produces physically healthy people with comely bodies and long life spans, but the Buddha did not raise false hopes and say that in this 'paradise' the bodies of people would be spiritualised and that they would become immortal. Even in the most perfect of societies, the law of anicca will prevail; for while living under conditions most favourable to and worthy of their human dignity, they will still be subject to three kinds of limitations: physical needs, indispositions and decay. The true realm of freedom can blossom if people live according to Dhamma but always with this realm of necessityÐ impermanenceÐas its basis. The Buddha did not make promises he could not keep nor raise hopes he could not fulfil. He remained resolutely and realistically on 'this side' of the threshold of hope.

Moral decline began when the king departed from righteousness. Its renewal began, not from above, but from below. As a result, the people got what they earned: a just ruler named Sankha. As if to crown the efforts of the people, a Maitriya BuddhaÐa Buddha of Universal FriendlinessÐappeared in their midst accompanied by a community of saintly mendicants.
Implications of the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta

As in several other discourses, the Buddha repeatedly stressed that the well-being of a society depends largely on the moral character of those who claim to be its elite, especially its religious and political leaders. The moral degeneration of society begins when the king deviates from righteousness.

Social disintegration and decadence begin when the king decides to establish 'watch and ward' (coercive power) only for the internal and external security of his kingdom. Unconcerned about the disappearance of the Wheel Treasure, the king begins to 'rule according to his own ideas.' Rulers who, like the unjust king of this discourse, place themselves above universal norms of justice and righteousness are despots. So-called Buddhist leaders who usurp the Teaching of the Buddha and claim that their aim is to establish a righteous society while blatantly flouting its noble values are guilty of a heinous sacrilege. They and the religious leaders providing them with ideological cover seem to have forgotten the first axiom pronounced by the Buddha in this discourse: The epithet of righteousness cannot be arbitrarily appropriated; it has to be earned by righteous practice. They must first 'depend on Dhamma, revere Dhamma, cherish DhammaÐtake Dhamma as the Badge and the Banner of society.'

A just constitution should be in accord with the Five Precepts. These are presented not as 'Buddhist' laws but as ethical principles indispensable for all societies, irrespective of religious label. The first right on which all other rights depend is the Right to Life. The 'right to life' becomes a platitude if the conditions necessary to safeguard and promote life are absent. Social decline begins when wealth is not shared with the needy. The second precept, 'do not take what has not been given,' is the logical concomitant of the first: 'Do not take life.' The second precept is generally translated as 'do not steal,' but its implication is somewhat different to what is understood by 'theft,' implying 'taking what belongs to another.' The notion of theft is based on the assumption that private property is an inalienable right. The Buddha used the compound term adinnadana where adinna means 'not given' and adana means 'taking, seizure, appropriation.' The practice of seizing what was not freely given began when the custom of equitable wealth distribution was abandoned for want of sanction by an unjust king. What the Buddha advocated was dana, literally 'sharing.' The word subsequently came to denote 'almsgiving' or 'charity' practised with the selfish intention to gain invisible merit. The shift of moral sentiment from distributive justice to charity was inculcated first by the Brahmins; later it also became part of Buddhism.

A radical Buddhist understanding of 'theft' must be comprehended in the context of dana as wealth-sharing. Poverty did not arise from natural causes; it co-arose with a refusal to practise true dana, which originally meant sharing wealth. The Buddha was perhaps the first thinker who came to the radical conclusion that poverty is the result of theft.

The Buddha was not a naive moralist. He recognised that a country must be protected from external aggression and internal disorder. The just king was always accompanied on tours by his fourfold army, but the Buddha understood that despotism is a perpetuation of war for the internal conquest of society. His just king did not see 'the rod and the sword' as the principal instruments of government; he engaged in conquest to create conditions in which the affairs of state would be conducted justly with the informed participation of his subjects. In this situation, the armed forces were necessary to only defend the kingdom from external threats.

The Buddha knew from experience that state powers could degenerate into an instrument of oppression if citizens are not vigilant. Brahmin theoreticians listed a 'well-fortressed city' among their seven elements necessary for consolidating royal power. The Buddha recognised that constant vigilance is the price of peace, but he extended this to include moral vigilance. He recommended a new type of sentinel. The just king ruled by paying homage to Dhamma, but even he needed a built-in safeguard, lest he become complacent. The king therefore took the initiative to appoint a Watchman over the Wheel and inform him if it became unsteady. Despotism began when the Watchman's warning that the Wheel had disappeared from its place was ignored.

The sentinel-function recommendation reveals the Buddha's great political sagacity. Even an Ariya Cakkavattin needs critical monitoring. Governments denying the importance of a sentinel function that cannot stand scrutiny from 'the independent eye of society' are by definition despotic. On the other hand, a government desirous of just constitutional rule will not only permit but will encourage monitoring by an independent body of citizens.

The Buddha did not condone the double morality of prescribing one set of standards for public life and another for the private life of rulers and politicians. In anticipation of contemporary calls for an independent and non-corrupt judiciary and transparency in governance, the Wheel of Dhamma positioned above the Palace of Justice illuminated the courts of justice and inner chambers of the royal palace.

The Ariya Cakkavatti King was portrayed as preferring decentralised government where the regions of state enjoy considerable autonomy. Visiting the various parts of his kingdom, the people would welcome him with joy. He, in turn, would assure them that they could continue 'to enjoy what they had as before.' At times of constant rebellion in border provinces, the Buddha suggested that, if kings would rule righteously, the people would freely and gladly accept their authority.

Between them, the Buddha's legend of the Noble Wheel-Turner and Brahmin myth and ritual of the Horse Sacrifice embody two radically opposite theories of right. The Brahmins define a legitimate right to rule in terms of conquest and subjugation; the Buddha traces it to an original social contract. The first is based on the right of conquest and subjugation; the second on consent and participation.

In the Cakkavatti Sihanada Sutta, the Buddha talks about moral decadence and the raw human sufferingÐdukkhaÐwhich co-arises with it. Suffering in the Buddha's Day was not merely mental distress experienced by the affluent pondering the vicissitudes of life and their personal frustrations. In vivid language, the Buddha described the enormity of hardship among ordinary men and women. This discourse clearly shows that the Buddha was concerned about the ocean of social miseries people heap upon themselves: his response was not disgusted ascetic withdrawal but compassionate engagement to end this suffering. Buddhist scholars tend to discuss dukkha in abstract terms as if it were a philosophical problem, not a situation-specific social condition, but the compassionate Buddha was not a world-estranged monk seated beneath a tree enjoying the bliss of his personal emancipation.

(This is the seventh in a series of 10 articles extracted from the text Buddhism, Human Rights and Social Renewal by Dr. Nalin Swaris and published by AHRC. To obtain copies, please contact AHRC.)