8. Contesting the Brahmanical Order

Question 1

Emergence of the Śramaṃic religions

Answer 1

ca. 5th century BCE
Jainism: remains minority religion till today Buddhism: pan-Asiatic religion, mostly disappeared from India between 13th and 19th century revival.

Question 2

The Four classes (varṇa) of the brahmanical system

Answer 2

™Brāhmaṇas, priests or brahmins
™Kṣatriyas, warriors, royal class
™Vaiśyas, farmers and merchants
____
™Śūdras, servants, day labourers

o Outsideofthisstructure:untouchables(caṇḍālas)

Ø A normative model, not a reflection of reality
Ø The product of a given social group (competing models existed)

Question 3

Śramaṇa

Answer 3

= one who exerts himself —> renunciants and ascetics, also called “wanderers” (parivrājaka)
™ Not a single group, but a nebula, competing with brahmins and with each others for economic support.
– Some of them were of kṣatriya descent.
– Boundaries between groups may have been originally loose.

™ The most important groups:
™ Buddhists (followers of Gautama Siddhārtha, also Śākyamuni)
™ Jainas (followers of Vardhamāna Mahāvīra)
™ (little known) Ājīvikas (followers of Gośāli)
™ Śramaṇa form a pair with brāhmaṇa as religious practitioners in many sources, such as Aśoka’s inscriptions.

Question 4

Shared Ideas of Jains and Buddhists

Answer 4

™ saṃsāra, cycle of repeated rebirth, perceived as an entrapment
™ karman, action being the fuel of saṃsāra
™ identification of a way out by their “founders”, the “ford maker” (tīrthaṅkara) Mahāvīra and the Awakened One (buddha) Gautama.
™ notion that the “founder” is, in fact, the rediscoverer of an eternal truth –
™ shared rejection of violence, ritual or otherwise
™ key concepts to define their “saints”, such arhat, “worthy one”

Question 5

Shared Ideas of Jains and Buddhists

Answer 5

™ What transmigrates:
– Contrary to Jains (and Brahmanical thought), early Buddhists held that there was no such as thing as a permanent self (ātman)
– karman consequently is considered as a taint to the soul to Jains, and as a force impacting a continuum by Buddhist.
™ What is the state of the liberated Buddha or tīthaṅkara
– Jains believe in the full omniscience of the tīthaṅkara, the Buddha refuse to engage with soteriologically irrelevant metaphysical questions.
™ What is the role of ascetic practice in the quest for liberation
– Jains propound the suppression of every action, leading to extreme forms of asceticism. Buddhists identify as the proponents of the “middle way” between extreme asceticism and luxury life.

Question 6

Jainikas

Answer 6

™ Quite important during the centuries preceding the turn of the Common Era, much more marginal afterwards.
™ Mostly known from the sources of their opponents (Buddhists and Jains)
™Advocates an extreme form of asceticism
™Doctrinally, characterised by a strong determinism (niyativāda)
: opposition to individual wisdom and karma

Question 7

Contesting the brahmanical order by:
Reinterpreting key components
brahmanical ideology –

Answer 7

1. the “true” sacrifice
   - criticism of external sacrifice like animal sacrifice
   - internalising sacrifice i.e. Meditation
2. the “true” Brahmin:
   One does not become a Brahmin by matted dreadlocks, clan, or birth; but having expelled small and large wrongs in every way, an expeller of wrongs is someone
   called a Brahmin.

Question 8

Underminining Brahmanical
claims to primacy

Answer 8

The Buddhist “Book of Genesis” or Aggaññasutta:
– An alternative cosmo-anthropogonic myth, providing an aetiology (explanation) which contradicts
that establishing brahmanical self-understanding.
– Sets forth to illustrate “processual” formation of social classes, and their functional origin.

Question 9

The śramaṇas as a category
transcending social classes

Answer 9

only following the the dharma is important, not birth

Question 10

Modernist Buddhism and the cast-class system: the case of B.R.Ambedkar

Answer 10

Buddhism was extinct in India
western education
1930, identifies Buddhism as indian
8 Mio followers today

• presents Buddhism as a “social reform movement which redressed inequalities in caste and gender relations”

“The ideal society prescribed by the Vedas is known by the name Chaturvarna… Inequality is the official doctrine of Brahminism. The Buddha opposed it root and branch. He was the strongest opponent of caste and staunchest opponent of equality. There is no argument in favour of caste and inequality which he did not refute. There were many Brahmins who challenged Buddha on this issue. But he silenced them completely