The Age of the Sages

by Mark W Muesse

  Many will recall the uproar created in 2001 by the Taliban’s demolition of two ancient, massive Buddha statues in Afghanistan. Ironically, this destruction occurred in the very vicinity where the icons of the Buddha were first produced. Although many in the world were horrified by this act, the destruction actually bore witness to the Buddha’s Dhamma in the way that it graphically portrayed the impermanence of all things.

  Institutionalization

  In addition to the creation of the stupa reliquaries, one of the first acts of the Sangha after the Buddha’s parinibbana was to gather to discuss the future of the movement. The First Buddhist Council was held shortly after the Buddha’s death. The Buddha did not name a successor as leader of the Sangha but recommended a representative form of governance, with the Dhamma itself as guide and teacher. The main item of business for the first council, therefore, was to agree on exactly what the Buddha taught as the Dhamma. Ananda, the Buddha’s personal attendant, reputedly stood before the council and recited word for word all the Buddha’s discourses, since he had memorized them all. His recollections became the basis for the Suttas in the Pali Canon. Each of the discourses begins with the words “Thus have I heard.” Another disciple, Upali, recited all the rules of monastic discipline. Others committed these words to memory, and they were kept in oral tradition until they were finally written down three or four centuries later in Sri Lanka.

  A second council was convened approximately seventy years after the first, and a third was held around 250 bce. These Sangha gatherings were intended to discuss and settle numerous doctrinal and practical disagreements. Since the Buddha did not name a successor and left governance and interpretation of the Dhamma in the hands of the Sangha, such disputes were virtually inevitable.

  In some respects, the Buddha’s teachings did not furnish an especially good foundation on which to build a religion, as it is ordinarily understood. He neither encouraged nor discouraged belief in god or the gods. The cessation of suffering and rebirth simply did not involve the divine realm. Similarly, the Buddha offered little in the way of worship or ritual practice. He certainly did not suggest that his followers worship or pray to him as a god. Ritual and worship, he believed, could not secure liberation. Although the monks and nuns lived in communities, the practice of the Noble Eightfold Path was essentially solitary. There were no congregational meetings or weekly services. Gatherings of the Sangha were to conduct business or discuss Dhamma, not to encounter the sacred.

  Over time, more conventional religious elements were incorporated into the tradition. A creed of sorts was developed and became a declaration of one’s Buddhist identity. This statement, known as the Triple Refuge, says “I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Dhamma, and I take refuge in the Sangha.” Pilgrimages to the stupas associated with the Buddha’s life helped satisfy the needs of some followers for tangible symbols for the spiritual life. Since the Buddha had little to say about belief in gods, many lay Buddhists (and some ordained monastics) simply retained their worship of the devas, which was practiced by virtually all Indians. Divine worship, however, was geared toward asking for particular favors from the gods—for healing, for protection, for success—and not for the ultimate goal of nibbana. Thus, veneration of the gods coexisted quite comfortably alongside Buddhist practices, as it still does today in Buddhist cultures. Buddhists who worship the gods do not think of themselves as compromising their Buddhism in any way. Interestingly, the Buddha himself would later become part of the Hindu pantheon as one of the ten principal manifestations of the god Vishnu. Thus, we observe the intriguing situation of many Hindus venerating the Buddha as a god and many Buddhists venerating the gods associated with Hinduism.

  Ashoka

  Under the patronage of one of India’s greatest rulers, King Ashoka, the Buddhist presence became more keenly felt in India and other parts of Asia. Ashoka, who reigned from 273 until 232 bce, a little more than a century after the Buddha’s death, was at first a ruthless monarch, intent on expanding the borders of his Mauryan Empire at any cost. But following a campaign against the state of Kalinga (modern day Orissa), he toured a battlefield in which over 100,000 soldiers and civilians died. He was stunned by the carnage and in anguish asked himself, “What have I done?” Shortly thereafter, he fully embraced the Buddha’s Dhamma, to which he had been exposed by one of his wives who was a lay supporter of the Sangha. Ashoka himself had become a nominal Buddhist a year prior to the war with Kalinga, but the significance of the Dhamma seems not to have had an impact on him until afterward.

  The stories say he then renounced war and pursued peace. He outlawed animal sacrifices in the capital and took pilgrimages. He built hospitals and schools to improve the well-being of his subjects. He had the original stupas opened to retrieve the relics of the Buddha and then redivided them to establish 84,000 new stupas, according to legend. Most importantly, he sent missionaries all throughout India and to Southeast Asia, the Greek kingdoms in Afghanistan, and Central Asia to spread the Buddha’s Dhamma. His own son Mahinda and daughter Sanghamitta joined the monastic order and took Buddhism to Sri Lanka. Ashoka also did much to cultivate a widespread interest in Buddhist philosophy. It was he who called the third council in 250 bce to deal with doctrinal issues that were troubling the community.

  With Ashoka’s influence, Buddhism eventually became a predominant presence in India, until it finally died out between the twelfth and fourteenth centuries ce. Today, the number of Buddhists in the land of its birth is very small, and ironically, missionaries from other Asian countries are sometimes sent to India to try to reinvigorate the religion. But due in large measure to Ashoka’s sponsorship, what started as an obscure Hindu sect was soon elevated to the status of an international religion. Today, over half of the world’s population lives in an area where Buddhism was or is a principal cultural force.

  Theravada and Mahayana

  The early centuries of Buddhism were marked by a number of doctrinal disputes and disagreements concerning practice and monastic polity. These debates often led to actual divisions within the community. At one time, there were at least eighteen different schools that regarded the Pali Canon as authoritative. Of these, only the Theravada school remains, making it the oldest extant Buddhist tradition. This heritage is reflected in the name Theravada, which means “the way of the elders.” Theravada is also known as Southern Buddhism, because it is found mainly in Sri Lanka, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, and Thailand. Of the major varieties of Buddhism today, Theravada probably represents the form closest to the way Buddhism was practiced at the time of the Buddha.

  Around the first century ce, near the time Christianity started, another Buddhist movement known as the Mahayana began to take shape in northwestern India. The Mahayana added a substantially different dimension to the earlier forms of Buddhism: new views about the Buddha and his role in making salvation available to humanity. New mythologies about the Buddha’s life appeared that gave him a more divine, godlike status. Mahayana developed the idea of the Bodhisattva, an enlightened being who remained in the samsaric realm to help others attain awakening. With this new cosmology and view of the Buddha, the Mahayana began to take on the qualities of a savior religion. This form of Buddhism was exported to China and other parts of East Asia in the early centuries of the current era; hence, the Mahayana is sometimes called Eastern Buddhism. The Mahayana gradually became the most popular variety of Buddhism and has since remained so. Of course, it too fragmented over time as new schools developed from within it.

  Out of the Mahayana also emerged another major form of Buddhism, Vajrayana, which was practiced for centuries in Tibet and Mongolia. Vajrayana is the Buddhism of the Dalai Lama. Both the Mahayana and Vajrayana make for fascinating study, but because they developed outside the time period we are considering in this book, we will have to let these few comments suffice.

  With these remarks about the evolution of Buddhism beyond the Axial Age, we leave our study of this tradition for the time bein
g. In the next chapter, we take up the last of the Indian traditions from the Axial Age: Jainism.

  * * *

  Setting in Motion the Wheel of Dhamma in Bhikkhu Bodhi, trans. The Connected Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of theSamyutta Nikaya, (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2000), 1846.↵

  Vinaya Pitaka, Mahavagga, First Khandhaka, 11.1., trans. T. W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg (Oxford: Clarendon, 1881). Available at http://www.sacred-texts.com/bud/sbe13/sbe1312.htm.↵

  The Great Passing in Maurice Walshe, trans. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of theDigha Nikaya (Boston: Wisdom, 1987, 1995), 265.↵

  The Great Passing in Maurice Walshe, trans. The Long Discourses of the Buddha: A Translation of theDīgha Nikāya (Boston: Wisdom, 1987, 1995), 270.↵

  15

  Jainism

  With the transition from Buddhism to Jainism, we move from one of the world’s largest religions to one of the smallest. A recent estimate puts the number of Buddhists in the world today at around 535 million[1] and the number of Jains at just over 4 million, almost all of them in India.[2] To put this in other terms, Buddhists make up about 8 percent of the world’s population, and Jains compose less than one-half of 1 percent of India’s population. Although there is a vast disparity in the number of practitioners of each, the two traditions share remarkably similar histories, beliefs, and practices. Both accept the concepts of rebirth and karma and seek release from samsara. And both reject the authority of the Vedas and Upanishads, making them heterodox schools of Hindu philosophy. As we explore the Axial Age roots of Jainism, these common features will become evident, and so will the many differences.

  In spite of its small size, Jainism has had a tremendous influence on Indian history and religions, an impact disproportionate to the actual number of Jains past and present. The most significant contribution of Jainism has been its practice of ahimsa, not harming living beings. No other religion has devoted more attention to the theory, practice, and promotion of nonviolence than Jainism. Some scholars have suggested that the Buddha may have adopted this practice from the Jains when he made it the first of his Five Precepts. Likewise, some have suggested that cow protection and vegetarianism, now prominent features of Hinduism, may have originated with the Jains. The historical data are not clear enough to settle these issues conclusively, but the Jain influence on Mohandas Gandhi is beyond doubt. Gandhi, who grew up in an area with a significant Jain population, acknowledged in his writings that the Jain doctrines of ahimsa and satya, or truth telling, were instrumental in formulating his program of nonviolent resistance.[3]

  “In spite of its small size, Jainism has had a tremendous influence on Indian history and religions, an impact disproportionate to the actual number of Jains past and present. The most significant contribution of Jainism has been its practice of ahimsa, not harming living beings.”

  The Tirthankaras

  Although modern history locates the origins of Jainism in the same cultural environment that gave rise to classical Hinduism and Buddhism, devout Jains do not. According to the faithful, Jainism is an eternal religion, propounding truths that have no beginning in time. At certain moments in the universal life cycle, these truths must be rediscovered and reintroduced to humanity because they have become forgotten and lost. When an Axial Age sage named Vardhamana Mahavira began to teach the doctrines of Jainism, he was only transmitting a religion that had been taught many times before by others. Each of these previous teachers, says Jain tradition, was a Tirthankara, a word that means a “bridge builder,” one who makes it possible to traverse a river or stream.

  Like the Buddhists, the Jains frequently speak of gaining liberation from samsara as crossing to the “further shore.” The Tirthankaras were exceptional individuals who showed the way to salvation through their words and example. By their own efforts, they blazed a trail to perfect freedom and represented the highest possible attainment for the soul.

  The Tirthankaras all taught the same substantial truths, but each presented his revelations in language and concepts appropriate to the people of his times. In the latest turn of the universal cycle, there have been twenty-four Tirthankaras. The twenty-fourth and most recent was Vardhamana Mahavira. Jains would not consider him the founder of Jainism, just its reformer or reviver. The Jains predict there will be twenty-four additional Tirthankaras in this cycle. The next one is expected in approximately 81,500 years.

  Vardhamana Mahavira

  Modern scholarship must begin its study of Jainism in the Axial Age, because there is no evidence to support the historical existence of the first twenty-two Tirthankaras. The evidence for the twenty-third, an ascetic named Parshva, who was believed to have lived in the ninth century bce, is thin. But with Mahavira, we are on more solid historical ground.

  What we know about the historical Mahavira is sketchy, and there are numerous variants of his life story. Tradition says he was born in 599 bce, although some scholars suggest a date at least fifty years later. Both Buddhist and Jain texts suggest that the Buddha and Mahavira were contemporaries living in the same region of northeastern India. The texts indicate that they knew of each other, although they never met. If the Buddha actually lived around 490–410, as most scholars now think, then either Mahavira’s traditional dates would be inaccurate, or the stories that the sages knew of each other are fictions.

  The Jain tradition says Mahavira was born in Kundagram, near Patna, a city on the Ganges in the present Indian state of Bihar. There is no reason to doubt that claim. Some of the narratives describing his birth do, however, bear the mark of myth. According to these accounts, Vardhamana was born to a King Siddhartha and Queen Trishala, rulers of the kingdom of Vaishali and followers of Parshva, the twenty-third Tirthankara. Before his birth, his mother had a series of dreams about the child she was carrying. The court sages said the dreams indicated that the child would become either a great emperor or a Tirthankara. In the legends about the Buddha, we recall, there is an almost identical prophecy. But unlike the Buddha’s father, King Siddhartha did not attempt to prevent his son from becoming a spiritual master by restricting his freedom or plying him with earthly delights. Another variant of the birth story says Vardhamana was actually conceived by a Brahmin couple, and his embryo was supernaturally implanted in Queen Trishala’s womb. This episode was probably added to the narrative to ease the rising tensions between the priestly and warrior castes, since many Brahmins were feeling resentment that some of the warrior caste were encroaching on their traditional territory, the realm of spirituality. Not much is said about Mahavira’s youth except that, according to certain Jain traditions, he married a young woman called Yashodhara—curiously, the same name as Siddhattha Gotama’s wife—and together they had a daughter. But another Jain sect denies this marriage ever took place.

  At the age of thirty, Mahavira became a shramana, renouncing his kingdom and wealth. One account says he waited until the death of his parents to go forth as a shramana so as not to cause them grief. While that interpretation may be true, it is also possible that grief over his parents’ death actually precipitated his decision, just as the Buddha’s experience of the Four Sights catalyzed his renunciation. Often a personal tragedy or crisis sets an individual on a spiritual path.

  Mahavira inaugurated his renunciation by pulling out his hair by the roots. That was a foretaste of things to come. For the next twelve years, he practiced intense asceticism, including fasting for long periods, mortification of the flesh, meditation, and silence. His goal was to discipline himself to overcome all desires and attachments. As a symbol of his objective, Mahavira discarded his clothing and spent the remainder of his days in the nude. Clothing, like anything else, could be an attachment. He scrupulously avoided harming other living beings, including animals and plants. It was his dedication to these austere practices that earned him the title Mahavira, meaning Great Hero, an epithet given to him by his admirers. At the end of this period, at the age of forty-two, he attained per
fect enlightenment, a state of complete omniscience, and was recognized as a Tirthankara and a jina, or spiritual conqueror.

  For the next thirty years, he traveled throughout the Ganges region, teaching others his principles and practices for attaining freedom from samsara, for which he used both the terms moksha and nirvana. Like the Buddha, he attracted men, women, and children from all social strata. His followers were called Jainas or Jains because they were disciples of the jina. Some legends say Mahavira garnered over 400,000 disciples. He organized his followers into a fourfold order: monks (sadhu), nuns (sadhvi), laymen (shravak), and laywomen (shravika). To attain liberation, one essentially had to become a monastic because of the great discipline required to achieve it. Laypersons generally expected to strive for moksha in a future lifetime when circumstances were more favorable to its pursuit.

  Traditional reckoning says Mahavira attained his final liberation at the age of seventy-two on the last day of the year in 527 bce, an event Jains celebrate as the festival of Diwali.[4] His chief disciple, Indrabhuti, realized enlightenment a few hours after the jina’s passing and later recollected his words, which subsequently became the basis for the Agam Sutras, one of the most important Jain scriptures.

  The Jain Worldview

  Jains, like Buddhists and Hindus, appropriated many of the basic assumptions and beliefs circulating in the Ganges basin in the early Indian Axial Age. But in almost every case, Mahavira reinterpreted these conceptions to fit his particular view of the world. We see these novel understandings in Mahavira’s views on time, the world, the soul and karma, and the path to liberation.