4 - The Early Buddhist Conception of World Process, Dharma, and Kingship

Summary

Our analysis of the myth of genesis contained in the Agganna Suttanta showed that it had a balanced structure with the king on the one side mediating between social disorder and the formation of the four vannas (orders), of society itself, and with the bhikkhu on the other side, drawn from all four vannas, transcending society, mediating between home and homelessness and entering the path that leads from lokiya, this world, to lokottara, the other world of liberation. He (i.e., the bhikkhu) therefore is chief of them all, the king, the khattiya, the brahmanas, the vessa, and the sudda.

Early Buddhist literature contains instances of denunciation and devaluation of khattavijja, the kshatriya “science” of exercising coercive power. A Pali canonical text (Digha Nikaya 1, p. 9) declares that khattavijja belongs to a group of low arts (tirachchhanavijja) and wrongful occupations (michchhajiva) by which false ascetics and brahmans earn their livelihood. What is being railed against is not so much the ruling function per se but that kind of brahmanical – particularly arthashastric – formulation that went so far as to identify the kshatriya way of life with manipulative action inspired by self-preservation and self-interest. The Buddhist objections to certain arthashastric notions are, for example, portrayed in certain Jataka tales. In one story (No. 528) an ascetic denounces to the king the false doctrine of his ministers, a doctrine that condones the killing of parents, siblings, and friends if self-interest demands it.