Ten Thousand Miles Without a Cloud

by Sun Shuyun

  Why then did Buddhism disappear in the country of its birth?

  Asoka said it was killed by the Brahmins, who stole lots of ideas and practices from Buddhism – the Sangha, the puja, the saffron robe, the Buddhist compassion for all creatures. ‘If they even made the Buddha an incarnation of Vishnu, what could they not do? One minute animal sacrifice was the pillar of their belief and the next they were all vegetarians.’

  The real reason was more complicated, as I was to discover. But even at its height, Buddhism never completely dominated Indian life, nor was caste eliminated, although the social stratification was less rigid. Xuanzang noticed the caste system wherever he went and his account of the social segregation is still apposite today. ‘Butchers, fishermen, dancers, executioners and scavengers, and so on, have their abodes outside the city. And they are seldom seen among men. In coming and going they are bound to keep on the left side of the road till they reach their houses, which are surrounded by low walls … They are despised, scorned and universally reprobated.’

  If Buddhism had never eradicated caste even when it was at its height, how could it be the answer to Bihar’s caste war today? I could not see that the Brahmins would surrender their privileges. That was why they had senas to defend what they regarded as their birthright. I told Asoka about my conversation with Rajiv back at the hotel.

  Asoka assured me that killings of the dalits happened almost daily in Bihar, and Gaya District was one of the worst places in the state. Of all the senas in Bihar, the Savarna Liberation Army was the most atrocious, and their leader, Ramadhar Singh, is reputed to have said: ‘In history my name will be written on the funeral pyres of labourers.’ The SLA had masterminded many attacks on villages, killed hundreds of dalits, raped their women, and burned their huts and crops. Their most heinous act was a ‘mass rape’ campaign in Gaya and the neighbouring district in 1992. In the space of five months, week after week, village after village, a group of their core members raped more than 200 dalit women, aged from six to seventy. They said they wanted to teach them a ‘lesson’: if they dared to take on the landlords, their women would be humiliated. They calculated that the stigma attached to rape victims was such that the families would be too frightened to challenge them, for the time being at least. They were wrong. The dalits fought back. ‘Hardly a year ago, in Gaya, hundreds of dalits stormed a village in the middle of the night,’ Asoka said. ‘They grabbed thirty-five upper-caste landlords from their beds, marched them into the fields, and slit their throats with a sickle, one by one. The spiral of killing is still going on.’

  But it was not just the senas. I heard that the Naxalites, Maoist guerrillas originally from the hills of West Bengal, were also very active in Bihar. They believe armed struggle is the only solution to India’s entrenched problems of poverty and inequality. They model themselves on the Chinese Communist Party of old: they arm themselves, go to the most impoverished villages, organize strikes by landless labourers in support of demands for land or better pay; and failing that, they single out the most brutal and oppressive landlords, seize their fields and give them to the dalits, and then publicly humiliate the ‘enemies of the people’ before executing them. Police and police informers, government officials and sena activists are also their targets. Their goal is to bring revolution to India’s nearly two hundred million dalits, overthrow the government and build a new People’s Republic of India.

  ‘But they are not getting anywhere,’ Asoka said. ‘They grab land but they cannot hold on to it. They must live in fear, fear of revenge. For every Brahmin killed, ten dalits have paid with their lives. And where will it end? We know from the Buddha that hatred only begets hatred and evil begets evil. That cannot be the way.’ He shook his head vehemently.

  As a Chinese brought up in the language of class struggle, I find the Indian caste system stupefying. Talking to Asoka about it, I suddenly realized why I found my glimpses of life in Bihar so familiar. It was like the propaganda films of the old China I watched over and over again in my childhood and teens. I can see them clearly: dilapidated straw huts on barren land, howling winds whipping up enormous clouds of dust, farmers in threadbare coats, and their malnourished children clinging to their mothers’ apron strings. They were meant to show us what life in China had been like before the Communist revolution. It was a life of destitution, famine and despair. And this was what I was seeing and what I had read about Bihar, fifty years after India’s independence and the promise of a new start. I was grateful I was born under the red banner of Communist China.

  I thought the Chinese landlords were bad enough. We all learned at school about Zhou Bapi, or Zhou Skin-you-alive, a man of legendary meanness. His labourers had to work from the first cock’s crow till dark, so he got up two hours ahead of the cocks and crowed himself in the chicken-run to get them going. All the time, he lived a luxurious life, wearing silk and satin, and eating fish and game. Every semester, my school invited aged peasants to talk about how they used to be exploited by wicked landlords like Zhou Skin-you-alive. We all wept, and shouted with them at the end: ‘Never forget the pains of class exploitation! Never forget the tears of class hatred! Long live Chairman Mao! Long live the Communist Party!’ Afterwards each of us was given a taste of the old life, a piece of bread made of rice husk and maizeflour, the staple food of the poor. I remembered saying to myself: ‘I’d rather die than eat that stuff.’ I took a piece home to ask Grandmother whether they really used to eat it. ‘Yes,’ she said, ‘many months of the year.’

  I had something to conceal at these meetings. There was a landlord at home, my paternal grandfather. Although he had died long ago, his photo was hanging on our wall. With his long gaunt face, I thought he even looked like Zhou. I asked my father if he had been just as cruel. Father defended him; he said Grandfather had only four acres and did not live a luxurious life. He was kind to his two labourers and he ran a traditional pharmacy in the village and gave people medicines when they could not pay. ‘Don’t talk about him at school,’ he warned me. I would have been in trouble if I repeated what Father said – not that I believed him, so complete was my indoctrination. I saw the harsh treatment for old landlords and their families: humiliation at endless struggle meetings during each political campaign, social stigma, even exile or ‘re-education’ in labour camps. They could never overcome the taint of their class backgrounds. My father and our family escaped a similar fate because he had turned his back on my grandfather by joining the People’s Liberation Army at the young age of sixteen and risked his life to liberate the country; innumerable confessions to the Party denouncing his father, even in the front line of the Korean War, also helped. Yet, for all his loyal service, my father was not trusted, never receiving the promotion he deserved. His only consolation was that it could have been a lot worse. Despite all this, however, everything I had learned in school told me: if the landlords suffered, it was their fault; the peasants had had much more of a raw deal.

  But on top of their physical and material deprivation, the dalits were treated as if they had no right to exist, to breathe the same air as other people. If I were a dalit I would be very tempted to become a revolutionary. What would I have to lose but an existence so humiliating it can hardly be called life?

  I was aware my sentiments were very un-Buddhist, especially since the revolution in China almost pushed the people back into the abyss from which they had been saved, all in the name of the Communist ideal of absolute equality. The peasants, like the rest of the country, were so equal that nobody wanted to work: however hard they laboured, they were paid the same. The whole nation lived on rations for more than thirty years – I still remember how I craved lard; for a long time we were allowed only two ounces of oil a month. And then we suffered one of the worst famines in history, when over thirty million people died of starvation in the early 1960s, most of them in villages. But would the Chinese peasants have preferred no revolution, knowing the pain it would bring? I doubt it.

  The ideal of
equality is very far from being realized in India, but it has spread widely, wherever Buddhism has taken root. In China, equality began with Buddhism; the very word for it did not exist in our language until the sutras were translated into Chinese. We all have the potential to become the Buddha; we are all equal. It was for this very reason that the emperors, the Sons of Heaven, found Buddhism subversive, but most Chinese took to it naturally. With temples in almost every village, Buddhist ideas and practices were deeply entrenched in people’s lives. They gave them comfort and respect, if not in this life, at least in the next. But many found the world such a painful place that they could not wait to change it. Chinese history is filled with peasant rebellions under Buddhist banners, in particular in the name of the Maitreya Buddha. Ambitious rebel leaders claimed they were the incarnations of Maitreya, who had descended to bring equality, security and certainty to a turbulent, unjust and corrupt society. One could imagine the attraction of such a claim for peasants who were so ruthlessly exploited. Mao’s revolution was a continuation of this peasant tradition, but in the name of Communism, with equality as its hallmark.

  Revolution does not seem to be the Indian way; at least, not in the Chinese style anyway. The Communist Party of India has never had a real chance of running the country, despite Mao’s high hopes. On receiving their congratulations in 1949, he sent this reply: ‘I firmly believe that relying on the brave Communist Party of India and the unity and struggle of all Indian patriots, India will certainly not remain long under the yoke of imperialism and its collaborators. Like free China, a free India will one day emerge in the Socialist and People’s Democratic family.’ It has not happened, and perhaps never will, at least not in the sense of alleviating the oppressions of the caste system and the vast inequalities it promotes. The Naxalites have been ruthlessly put down, but the root cause of their rebellion – inequality and poverty – has yet to be tackled. The Buddha’s message was revolutionary 2,500 years ago, and still is today.

  My guide Asoka had met strong opposition to his conversion to Buddhism: he was almost disowned by his own family and his caste. But he felt he had found his real calling. He even changed his name because King Asoka did more than anyone in history to spread Buddhism. Now he did not try to convert anyone: that was against Indian law, and ‘the Brahmins don’t like us to take their servants away’. He only hoped that people would leave Bodh Gaya with something to remember – a statue, a stupa, a story, or a special person they had met. ‘It is like planting seeds; one day they will grow into big trees.’

  I told Asoka it was the same with the Indian monks who went to spread the Buddha’s teachings in China, or with the Chinese monks who came to India in search of the Dharma. Each of them took one seed or cutting at a time, which had later grown into a forest, so deeply rooted in Chinese soil that nothing could destroy it.

  Asoka smiled. He was full of admiration for those monks. ‘Master Xuanzang, in particular,’ he said emphatically. ‘He is such an inspiration for me. He had will, wisdom and compassion. Every guidebook they are reading has a section on him.’ He pointed to the pilgrims in the compound. ‘And what he achieved! I wish he could come back and help us now.’

  The sun was setting in a dusty pink sky, casting a warm glow on the whole compound and suffusing it with a pervasive calm. The leaves of the banyan trees, almost black behind the spire of the Mahabodhi Temple, rustled in the faintest of evening breezes. Tiny oil lamps and candles appeared in the niches of the stupas, flickering like stars. It was time for Asoka to say his evening prayer. He asked me to join him: he found Bodh Gaya in the evening even more inspiring than during the day. ‘Xuanzang stayed here for seven days and I am sure he must have prayed by day and by night,’ he added, as if I needed further encouragement. He went to get some candles. We walked by all the sacred spots again and at each one he lit a candle for me and another for himself; then he prayed and I meditated for a few minutes. Buddha lived and died as a man, a very human figure, but he left behind a powerful message. You could improve yourself. You could rely on your inner resources. You could find your own way. Finally it came home to me: like candles in the night, Buddhism shone light into the darkness of life. Even those without faith, like myself, could not help but be inspired. At last I felt a rare moment of peace in Bihar: for all its poverty and violence, it is the home of the Buddha.

  NINE

  Nirvana

  AFTER HIS ENLIGHTENMENT, the first place the Buddha set out for was Benares. He learned that the five ascetics who had practised austerity with him near the banks of the Nairanjana River now lived in a forest outside the ancient city. They had left him with contempt when he abandoned extreme asceticism. He thought they must still be searching, and he wanted to tell them what he had realized under the Bodhi Tree. They were to become his first disciples.

  From these five followers the propagation of Buddhism began. Two hundred years later it reached the far corners of King Asoka’s empire, which stretched as far as today’s Afghanistan. In another two hundred years it came to China, and eventually pervaded all the countries of Asia, changing them for ever. The countless monasteries, the giant statues, the numerous masters and the fervent piety of kings and commoners that Xuanzang encountered on his journey showed him that Buddhism had struck a chord valuable to all people, and it started here in Benares. For this, the city was given a special place in Buddhism and Buddhist scriptures; so many of the Jatakas of the Buddha’s previous lives begin with ‘Once upon a time in Benares …’.

  With his mind full of such inspiring thoughts, Xuanzang reached the city in 632. He was very impressed by it, but also a little taken aback by what he saw. ‘The people are gentle and humane, and esteem highly those who are devoted to a studious life. The majority of them believe in the heretical doctrine (of Hinduism), and few follow the Dharma,’ he writes sadly. ‘In the capital there are twenty Brahmin temples and they are built in elaborate tiers, embellished with a wealth of sculptural decoration, and the parts made of wood are painted in a variety of dazzling colours. They all stand among giant trees surrounded by pools of clear water.’

  Xuanzang would have no doubt learned quickly the reason for such a profuse outpouring of devotion by the ‘heretics’ here. Benares was the most sacred city in India. Lord Shiva, the Destroyer of the Universe, was said to have found this spot on the bank of the Ganges so beautiful that he chose it from all places on earth to be his abode: he called it Anandavana, or the Garden of Bliss. The Ganges was a river of Heaven that Shiva channelled down to the earth through his matted hair, and people believed it to have the power to purify all sins. This trinity of Shiva, the Ganga and the Garden of Bliss convinced the Hindus that dying in Benares was liberation from samsara. Benares became a great centre of religion and learning long ago, filled with philosophers, learned men of law, medicine, astrology and music, Hindu sages and holy men, and it boasts of no fewer than twenty thousand Brahmin priests today.

  In this stronghold of belief, the Buddha decided to spread his message – if he could gain support and followers here, he surely would do so in the rest of the country. A Jataka story tells how the Buddha converted the people of Benares. As a young prince, he was appalled by the Brahminic rituals of animal sacrifice. This could not be good either for men or gods, he told himself. True religion sanctifies life, not killing; true faith offers peace of mind, not cruelty. He came up with a plan to stop the practice. Each year he made offerings of incense, flowers, sweets and water to an ancient banyan tree. When at last he ascended the throne, he called his ministers and all the prominent men of Benares to the palace, and told them he had made a promise to the banyan tree that if he became king, he would offer a special sacrifice. Everyone agreed and said, ‘We must prepare this sacrifice at once. What animals do you wish to kill?’ The king replied, ‘I promised the great god of the banyan tree that I would sacrifice anyone who destroys life, takes what is not given, misbehaves sexually, speaks falsely, or loses his mind from alcohol. Let my promise be known thr
oughout the kingdom.’ And so the people of Benares renounced the practice of animal sacrifice and became renowned for observing the five Buddhist precepts.

  The real story of the Buddha’s preaching in Benares was equally challenging. At first, the locals might have regarded him as one of the innumerable holy men wandering in the city, promising yet another way to end life’s suffering. But after five years, he won the heart of the king and ordinary people alike. Brahmadatta, King of Benares, figures prominently in the early sutras, and is perhaps not an entirely mythical character. Yasa, the son of a rich Benares merchant, had everything he desired but was not happy. He came to talk to the Buddha one day and made up his mind on the spot to leave home and join the Sangha. He was the Buddha’s sixth disciple. His parents, fifty of his friends and many of the mercantile class in Benares, and later throughout India, became the Buddha’s ardent supporters. The most beautiful courtesan in Benares, who was reputed to earn every day as much as half the city’s daily taxes, liked the Buddha’s preaching and wanted to be a Buddhist too. When her admirers heard the news, they came out and blocked the road; the Buddha had to send a nun to ordain her in her own house.

  And now, more than a thousand years after Xuanzang’s visit, Benares still retains the sanctity and vitality he describes. The labyrinth of narrow lanes and buildings piled on top of each other reminded me of Xuanzang’s simile, they were like ‘the scales on a fish’. There are now more temples devoted to Lord Shiva, more people living in the city and more pilgrims. Xuanzang also described the numerous ascetics in the city. ‘Some cut their hair off, others tie their hair in a knot, and go naked, with their bodies covered with ashes. By the practice of austerities they seek to escape from birth and death’. The naked ascetics with matted hair and ash-smeared bodies are still there, oblivious to the faithful who pour through the temples in their thousands.