Constitution of the Buddhist Sangha

Title: Constitution of the Buddhist Sangha

Editor: Kanai Lal Hazra

Publisher: Buddhist World Press, 2013 (First published 1988)

ISBN: 978-93-8085-224-9

Pages: 232

Religions take birth from the charisma of a great teacher and the adaptability of his precepts to the society’s mores of the time. But it needs the limbs of an organization to travel to the far corners of the world and take root on foreign soil. Christianity copied the hierarchy of the Roman civil service as a model for its ecclesiastical organization. Like wise, Buddhism also took as the model of its Sangha the political order prevailing in northern India around that time. On the cusp of transition from a republican mode of government to kingdoms, the local states provided early Buddhists with an elegant model to emulate and assimilate. Buddha himself was a scion of a prominent family in one of such republics. The book is spread into three divisions, which he begins with a historical survey of the political spectrum prevailed in North India in the 6^th century BCE. The states, or more preferably, city states are listed out and salient features of the polity as outlined in the Jataka stories are laid out. Ancient India lacked miserably in historiography. Apart from eulogies, there were no practical attempts to record history till the time of Kalhana’s Rajatarangini in the middle ages. Legends, folk tales and epic stories provided the only alternative. It is no wonder that the reliability of conclusions drawn from so poor a source in objectivity naturally would be below par with standard texts. The remaining two divisions deal with the practices of the Sangha, its procedure of doing business and finally, the constitution of the Sangha. Hazra is a reader of the department of Pali at Calcutta University and is a noted scholar of Pali language and literature. He has authored many books on Buddhist studies, including the current title.

The political configuration of states in North India is reviewed in the introductory chapter. The period spawned several republics, some of them oligarchies, in the Gangetic plain. There were 16 major states, out of which Kuru, Panchala, Kosala, Anga and Vaisali were the most prominent. Special reference to Sakyas of Kapilavasthu and Lichchavis of Vaisali are given as they are directly connected to the life and times of Buddha. There was a council; some historians call it parliament, comprising of the nobles, that formed a debating platform in order to arrive at decisions affecting the state. This council selected a rajan (president), uparajan (Vice president), senapati (Generalissimo) and other functionaries to lead the executive. However, Hazra has not been able to convincingly prove two characteristic features attributed to Lichchavi political system, which is the central object of attention in this chapter. Descriptions of an assembly containing 7707 members are available. Various authors interpret this with an outright rejection as the number being something entirely fanciful, while others attribute the whole nobility a say in clannish affairs. This is not narrated in detail. It is also noted that the freedom of an individual is jealously guarded in the Lichchavi judicial system, in which a person can be punished only after 7 consecutive authorities find him guilty. This hierarchy began with an ordinary judge on the lowest rung of the ladder and went straight up to the Rajan (President of the assembly, not to be confused with kingship, as the state was a republican one). If any of the tribunals found the accused innocent, he could be set free. Now, reposing our trust in the outlandish custom would only be naïve, as such a judicial system was sure to have floundered against influential people. Nepotism has been a curse In Indian society from time immemorial and such a painstakingly difficult system for the trial would often fail to nail the culprit in a meaningful time period. After all, justice delayed is justice denied.  

Hazra provides some interesting details about the Buddhist Sangha. It excluded slaves (a clear indication that the Indian society in that age was not free from this bloat), debtors, and one who caused schism and a few other categories, the most curious one being the ouster of one who violated a nun! People suffering from leprosy and consumption were also not permitted into the order. Women were allowed in monasteries at a later stage, but were regulated by strict injunctions. A nun is enjoined to show respect to a monk always, but not vice versa. She must not admonish a monk or fix dates of ceremonies for them. Several more injunctions follow. The reader must note here that Buddhism, even though progressive in many aspects, was totally in line with the ethos of the times. The Sangha also practiced a democratic style of decision making in which polls were conducted among the monks to reach the conclusions. The salakagahapaka, who is the presiding monk, was given extensive power to force the decision. If the presiding officer has sufficient reason to believe that the vote of the assembly is going to cause schism or against Buddhist teachings and even if they do not vote in accordance with the view which they really hold. Even though provision for secret ballot existed, it is not hard to comprehend how to circumvent these checks in practice. He can continue the polling process until the desired result is obtained as mentioned by Buddhaghosha. Then Hazra commits a grave error, by comparing it unfavorably with the American political system (!) which is totally unwarranted and irrelevant. We are left wondering what intellectual lameness prompted the author to write “perhaps even in an American state the polling officer does not stoop to wire-pulling and canvassing in the manner which Buddhaghosha innocently recommends” (p.114). Hazra must be a leftist, as they are the only group which injects vitiated political propaganda in every sphere of an activity. Otherwise, what relationship can we deduce between a historical book dedicated to the Buddhist religion with the contemporary political system of the United States?

The last chapter details about the constitution of the Sangha. Being a scion of a republican state, Buddha naturally followed a democratic style of functioning that included many features that are surprisingly modern, like majority voting, reading of a notion multiple number of times before the assembly, ballot, formation of committees, quorum and according prominent status to a notion passed by the Sangha etc. However, the author is at great pains to declare that the religious order and the political order is totally unrelated. We have no data on the political unit of those times, and the Buddhist texts took its written shape after several centuries had elapsed since the parinirvana of the great teacher. While he lived, Buddha ruled like an autocrat and set the rules the order should follow. He didn’t nominate a successor. The Sangha elected their leaders democratically at various places and a pontiff was absent. This strengthened in some points and weakened in some other points the effective functioning of the order. It bowed before the winds that saw re-emergence of Hinduism but couldn’t stand the tempests of Muslim invasions in the Middle Ages.

One notable thing is that the ganas (societies) were not free from the malice normally associated with modernity, such as family quarrels, party factions, lure of corruption, internal dissensions and mutual recriminations among members (p.22).

The book is hugely disappointing. Barely does it rise above the level of a poorly structured research paper. Sometimes we wonder whether anyone has read the proof of the text. In one instance regarding a quotation from another author named Beni Prasad, we see a sentence stopping midway like, “he observes….” (p.192). The author might have put a blank in the draft and then probably might have failed to fill up the text after searching it in reference books. Occurrence of such grave omissions proves that the book was haphazardly printed without anyone bothering to read the accuracy of the text. Mistakes abound in the work. It is also ridiculously priced at Rs. 995 as there is no justification for this huge amount. The author has not ventured to present an analysis of his own on many occasions and satisfies himself with verbatim reproduction of passages from several authors. This is good for academia, but not for the general readers. The diction is also lackluster and uninteresting.

The book is not recommended for general readers.

Rating: 1 Star