Nalin Swaris

Gotama Buddha understood that political rights would be meaningless without practical expression in a people's right to life and livelihood. The Buddha's views on political economy are formulated in the Kutadanta Sutta. Here too a profound economic philosophy is cast as a parable so ordinary men and women can easily grasp it. Applying his pedagogical method of revaluing prevalent values, the Buddha rejects and redefines the theology of sacrifice, which establishes an intrinsic link between violence and the Sacred in order to justify real suffering in the world, especially of the poor and oppressed. The Brahmin priest-theologians (their ilk is manifold) argued that bloodletting in ritual sacrifices was necessary to appease the gods whose divine majesty was affronted by sinful humans. The divine thirst for vindictive justice had to be satiated before the gods would bestow blessings and grace on human beings. A blood sacrifice's cathartic purpose though is sociological, not theological. It turns suffering into a sacred mystery, and the bloodletting serves as an outlet for the endemic violence of society which might erupt suddenly in irrational forms. Ritual sacrifices are aimed at containing this violence and channelling it into a sacred purpose. The Buddha saw through this priestly stratagem and went to the heart of the rotten matter that was being mystified by theology. Instead of the religious pseudosolutions, he called for the eradication of social injustice that was held falsely and mendaciously as a manifestation of divine justice.

The Brahmins devised several types of fire sacrifice to justify sacrifices made by working people for the benefit of the priestly, aristocratic and royal classes. The fire sacrifices entailed the slaughter of animals and a sacrifice to the god Brahma. The ritual fire was presented not merely as a symbol but as the real presence of the fire god Agni. At the moment of sacrifice, according to Brahmin sacramentology, god and priest became one. These fire sacrifices were, in reality, celebrations of priestly and royal greed as they were formal occasions for extorting wealth from the producing classes. The working people were forced to offer the best animals, produce of the land and even their daughters as tribute to kings and as ritual payments to officiating priests. The fire sacrifices had become an intolerable burden on the people who were already weighed down by an oppressive system of taxation. The Buddhists' campaign has to be understood, not as criticism of one "religion" by another, but rather, it was a powerful social movement to liberate people from the grip of an unjust and inhumane institution. Because of the relentless efforts of the Buddhists and Jains, these public liturgies were largely abandoned and finally banned by the Buddhist Emperor Asoka. Perceiving the threat posed by this new morality, the Brahmins gave up eating beef and in typical mystification of their motive declared the prohibition a divine taboo because the cow is a sacred animal!

Political Economy

The Kutadanta Sutta is a fine example of how early Buddhists targeted oppressive liturgies passed off as sacred rites ordained by the gods. The title of the discourse, Kutadanta, means "Sharptooth," indicating the incisiveness of early Buddhist polemics against Brahminism. It is the nickname of the Brahmin priest to whom this discourse is given, aptly characterising the greedy fire priests as vampire-like creatures sucking the people's blood. The discourse tells a story within a story to clarify the early Buddhist approach to political economy. Kutadanta is a wealthy quasi-feudal landowner enjoying the rights of a king over a village and its inhabitants. Kutadanta, however, is an anxious man; he fears that he is losing his grip on the people and, thereby, his providers of wealth and services because of their enthusiastic acceptance of the Buddha's Teaching. The priest decides to accost the Buddha and attack him for his "subversive" teachings. The Buddha receives the bad-humoured priest cordially and explains why he rejects blood sacrifices by narrating a parable about a despotic king.

The story begins with the king surveying with great satisfaction the vast territories conquered and "wealth upon wealth" accumulated in the royal treasury and granaries. He is filled though with anxiety when he contemplates the possibility of being ousted by an equally ambitious and ruthless rival. He could also die an untimely death from natural causes. Fear and anxiety make the monarch religious; he decides to commission a great sacrifice to the gods. He summons his palace chaplain and seeks advice on how to organise a splendid fire sacrifice. Through the royal chaplain, the Buddha presents his views on political economy. As mentioned, oppressive taxation and the demands of the fire priests had become unbearable for the working people. The royal chaplain, unlike the arrogant king, is well aware of the real state of affairs in the kingdom. He therefore tries to persuade the king to give up his foolish idea:

"Your majesty, the countryside is infested with brigands. In the border areas, you are facing an insurrection because of excessive taxation. If you were to extort more wealth for a lavish religious spectacle, the entire kingdom could break out in open rebellion."

The king haughtily replies that if the people rebelled he would unleash his troops and "eradicate this plague by executions and exemplary punishment." The chaplain points out that this would be a shortsighted remedy for a grave social problem. The king would merely drive resentment underground, and those surviving the war of extermination would rise up again against him. Instead of violent repression, the chaplain recommends a saner course of action:

"If you follow this plan, you will be able to put an end to social unrest on a permanent basis: provide seed grain to those engaged in agriculture and pasture land to livestock breeders, give capital to those engaged in trade and pay a just wage to government servants. When the people are gainfully engaged in occupations of their preference, the country will prosper, and no harm will come to your kingdom. This is the best sacrifice your majesty can perform."

This was a new type of royal chaplain when compared to the amoral political advisers of the period. The king decides to try this new type of sacrifice. The state incentives stimulate economic activity; bribery and corruption among government officials come to an end. Wage labourers, until then driven to work "by threats and blows, their gaunt faces covered with tears," were now given the freedom "to do work that satisfied them, and no one was forced to do work that did not please them." The people become happily engaged in their chosen occupations; the kingdom prospers and peace is restored. People live without fear with doors and windows of their houses open wide, "joyfully dancing with their children in their arms."

The social eliteÐprovincial chiefs and the wealthy property-owning classesÐ impressed by the king's new policy, decide to follow his example. They voluntarily bring their surplus wealth and place it at the king's disposal. The king tells them to take it back as he had acquired sufficient wealth "through just taxation" to run the state institutions. The elites decide that it is not right for them to retain excess wealth for private consumption. Instead of hoarding it, they set up permanent reserves of wealth in their various districts to be ploughed back into production or used in times of natural calamities. Their moral transformation is described by the Buddha through a masterly play of words: the Lords of WealthÐdhanapatisÐhad become Lords of SharingÐdanapatis. The ancient practice of dana as equitable wealth distribution had been restored. In this sacrifice, the Buddha observed that no animals were slaughtered, no trees felled and no plants or grasses destroyed. This, the Buddha concluded, is the true meaning of sacrifice: not the glorification of gods but the creation of a humane society.

The Buddha's economic vision steers a Middle Path that goes through and beyond the two models debated by contemporary economic planners: total control of production by the State or the laissez faire approach that gives freedom to market forces, which are, in reality, forces of desire. The Buddha recommends that the State should intervene to establish justice and equity to stimulate the productive skills of all according to a just and rational plan which will ensure the "welfare and happiness of the bahujana," the manifold subjects of the State. The Buddha did not share the pessimistic view that human beings are by nature egoistic creatures and that economic growth must necessarily take the form of a war of all against all. Human beings can infuse economic activity with better values than greed
and violence. The Buddha did not moralistically deplore the miseries of the political and economic system while enjoying its benefits. He presented a solution to the problems of social inequality and the unrest and armed insurrections to which it inevitably gives rise.

Domestic Economy

The Buddhist scriptures contain empirical descriptions of social relationships in monarchies of the time without suggesting that this state of affairs corresponded to a normative social order. The heads of the principal units of ownership and production in society were called gahapati. A gahapati was also the main provider of revenue to the government and is included among the seven gems of a Wheel-Turning Monarch. The power of a gahapati over his household is described by the same term as is used to describe the sovereign power of a monarch over his kingdom or a baron over his estates: ajjhavasati. This shows the power of a gahapati was both patriarchal and monarchical. It essentially corresponds to Aristotle's definition of the patriarchal household. His Ethics and Politics contain a form of Greek Brahminism because they are based on the unproven assumption that social roles are manifestations of innate nature. According to Aristotle, the patriarch exercises monarchical power over his household. The marital relationship is the juridical expression of the natural subordination of female to male. The slave is "according to his nature," and "natural destiny" meant to be a slave. The patriarch by natural right exercises despotic power over his slaves. Like the Brahmins, Aristotle held that there is a natural hierarchy of all living beings in which the naturally inferior exist for the sake of the naturally superior. The Buddha's teaching on domestic economy is a challenging charter for social emancipation compared to the crude will to power underlying Brahmin theology and Aristotelian philosophy. Two centuries before Aristotle the Buddha examined and exposed the emptiness of the theory of innate natures and permanent substances.

The Buddha's advice to the gahapati has been preserved in the Sigalovada Sutta (Digha Nikaya 31). It is worth noting that in this discourse the Buddha calls the rules of conduct he gave gahapatis "Vinaya," or Code of Discipline. The same term is used for the disciplinary rules that he laid down for his mendicant disciples. Though the advice given to householders has not been compiled as a separate book, like the Vinaya for the mendicants, it is fair to say that the Buddha gave his followers one Dhamma and two Vinayas: one for renouncers and one for disciples with economic and political power.

As in the case of political economy, the Buddha's views on the domestic economy are given in the form of a pedagogical story. The Buddha encounters a young man who, having finished his morning ablutions in the river Ganges, with clothes dripping, engages in some ritual observances as people in India do to this day. The Buddha asks the young man what he is doing. The young man replies that he has just inherited gahapati status after his father's death and is performing morning rituals as taught by his father. He is, he says, worshipping the Six Quarters of the CosmosÐNorth, South, East, West, Apex and BaseÐto invoke the blessings of the powers-that-be for the success of that day's activities. The young man's cosmic religiosity, needless to say, is self-centred.

The Buddha, in a remarkable revaluation of the young man's cosmos, instructs him on the worship of the true Six Quarters: his religious consciousness had been conditioned by a sense of awe for the mysterious forces of nature. He was blindly following the traditions of his forefathers. The Buddha symbolically adopts him into the kinship of the new nobility. The adopted son is re-educated to look beyond the narrow circle of his kith and kin and to become aware of the totality of social relationships in which he lives. The young gahapati is reminded that in real life he is situated at the hub of six interdependent, or conditioned-conditioning, social relationships. The true "East" is the parent-child nexus; the "West," that of husband and wife; the "South," teacher and pupil; the "North," relations between friends; "Apex," the relationship with the moral guardians of society; "Base," the relations of production, consisting of the gahapati, his wage labourers and domestic slaves. The mutual obligations of friends are enumerated as those between equals. The other relationships are treated as those between juniors and seniors. The juniors have prior obligations to the seniors and when only fulfilled can they expect the seniors to do their duties in return. This seems logical in the cases of children and parents, pupils and teachers and between householders and their moral guides, but surprisingly, the Buddha reverses the order of seniority when it comes to the husband-wife and employer-employee relationships. The conventional superior's obligations precede those of the conventional inferior. The old valuation is replaced by the Rule of the Noble: the ariyan gahapati must do his duty by wife and employees first. Only then may he expect them to fulfil their duties to him loyally and conscientiously.

Wives and Husbands

The gahapati should first honour, respect and be faithful to his wife. The Buddha though goes further than what may be expected of a mere good husband. He says that the husband should serve his wife in five ways: he should treat her with honour, not disparage her, not be unfaithful to her, share authority with her and provide her with adornments befitting her position. Since the gahapti household was a unit of production, "sharing authority" meant more than letting the wife manage housekeeping. This becomes clear when her duties are mentioned. A wife thus ministered to will properly organise the work, treat the workers well, protect the stores and be diligent and skilful. In this way, she reciprocates her husband's proper treatment. It is difficult to render the emotional nuance of the verb anumkampati, translated here as "reciprocate." It is something stronger than wifely love. It indicates the feelings of a woman who understands and shares the interests and concerns of her husband and, therefore, literally "pulsates together with him." This is a completely different understanding of a wife's role from that generally defined as one of service and submission to her master. It must be noted that here the wife is not asked to obey her husband. In fact, the word obedience is remarkably absent from the Buddha's moral lexicon. The husband is not asked to command but to share authority with his wife. When husband and wife fulfil their obligations, properly understood, "the Western quarter is secure, in peace and free from fear."

Workers' Rights

The duties of a gahapati toward his employees, as enunciated by the Buddha, amount to the first social charter on workers' rights. According to the Vinaya of the noble, a gahapti employer should:

(1) Allocate work according to workers' strengths and abilities;

(2) Provide just wages;

(3) Provide health care;

(4) Surprise workers with extras; and

(5) Provide leisure and rest.

The "unexpected surprises" would in today's terms correspond to wage bonuses given over and above obligations. The spirit of this worker-master relationship can be summed up by the well-known socialist norm: "From each according to his or her abilities and to each according to his or her needs." When the servants and wage labourers are thus ministered to, they work diligently, irrespective of whether the master's eyes are on them or not. They begin their work on time and leave only after their tasks are finished; are satisfied with their wages, knowing that they are just; and will safeguard the good name of their master. In this way, "the Base is secure, in peace and free from fear." The Buddha envisaged the possibility of creating working conditions in which employers and employees do not see themselves as locked in an antagonistic relationship, one seeking merely to maximise profits and the other to maximise wages. Production can be transformed into a cooperative venture, but employers must take the first step to make this a reality.

The perennial relevance of the principles laid down in the Sigalovada Sutta can be appreciated if compared with those contained in Article 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"(1) Everyone has the right to work, to free choice of employment, to just and favourable conditions of work and to protection against unemployment.

(2) Everyone, without any discrimination, has the right to equal pay for equal work.

(3) Everyone who works has the right to just and favourable remuneration, ensuring for himself and his family an existence worthy of human dignity and supplemented, if necessary, by other means of social protection. . . ."

And Article 24:

"Everyone has the right to rest and leisure, including a reasonable limitation of working hours and periodic holidays with pay."

The Buddha recognised that the creation of wealth is a necessary condition for ensuring social welfare. Wealth has to be created before it can be distributed. In the Sigalovada Sutta, the Buddha urges entrepreneurs to produce wealth non-injuriously, "just as the bee gathers honey." His advice on prudent householding (this is what "economics" originally meant) is starkly realistic. Instead of squandering his wealth in wanton living, a wise gahapati divides it into four parts: one-fourth for consumption, two-fourths reinvested and one-fourth held in reserve.

The Buddha's numerous discourses to rulers and householders show that he was not an estranged world-renouncer who was indifferent to the well-being and happiness of ordinary people. His entire Teaching is based on insight into the conditioned co-arising of phenomena. Poverty and miserable conditions are not the result of divine caprice, unchangeable fate or naturally occurring tragedies. Rather, they arise under specific and verifiable conditions which can be identified and eradicated.

Fundamental Human Rights

Moral demands for people to live virtuous lives, he realised, are platitudes if minimum conditions for wholesome living are absent. This principle was recognised by the Buddha in the provisions he made for his mendicant disciples. He did not require them to live miserably nor to neglect basic personal hygiene. He ruled that his disciples were entitled to four basic conditions of life: food, clothing, housing and medicine. The provision of these four indispensable life conditions for renouncers has wider social significance. It is recognition that all human beings, irrespective of gender and social status, have a right not merely to life but also to the indispensable needs for the preservation of that life, namely, food, clothing, shelter and health care. The Buddha's recognition of these rights in the sixth century BCE has only now been ratified as fundamental and universal by Article 25 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

(This is the eighth in a series of 10 articles extracted from the text Buddhism, Human Rights and Social Renewal by Dr. Nalin Swaris and published by AHRC. Copies are now available by contacting AHRC.)