As would be expected in any religion, early Buddhists in India were forced to contend with problematic social contradictions within their belief system (see discussion of incoherence in Chapter 2). Among the more important contradictions in early Buddhism was the emphasis on the individual attainment of nirvana versus the need to promote and maintain the community of Buddhists (Bailey and Mabbett 2003; Fogelin 2011). Many of the beliefs, practices, and rites of early Buddhism were centered on the individual attainment of enlightenment through private meditation with little regard for the welfare of the broader Buddhist community. Even the biography of the Buddha reinforced these individualizing tendencies. While he served as an exemplar and teacher of Buddhist principles, the Buddha attained nirvana individually and left the sangha behind.7 Since the Buddha’s death, his followers have faced the difficulty of forging a cohesive community from the individualistic teachings of early Buddhism. To a large degree, the disjuncture between individualism and communalism in Buddhism has persisted to the present day. Much of my analysis in subsequent chapters consists of an examination of how this long-lasting disjuncture played out in different periods, and how Indian Buddhists in different periods sought to resolve, exploit, and ameliorate this disjuncture.
This approach to the study of Indian Buddhism is strongly informed by anthropological studies of nineteenth - and twentieth-century Buddhism in Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Burma, particularly the work of Tambiah (1976, 1982, 1984) and Carrithers (1979, 1983; see also Strenski 1983) on the role of asceticism within the larger community of Buddhists monks. As stated by Tambiah (1984:2), the focus of these anthropological studies was the relationship “between town-and-village dwelling monks and forest dwelling monks; between the vocation of scholarship and books and that of meditation; and between a (more) ascetic and reclusive mode of life and a (more) active laity-oriented life, which tended in various combinations to divide, if not bifurcate, the sangha.” While forest monks often lived in proximity to other forest monks, most of their time was spent meditating in isolated caves, huts, or other similar locations. Tambiah and Carrithers examined the relationships between the vast majority of monks who lived communally within monasteries and the fewer forest monks who lived mostly solitary lives as ascetics. While forest monks often explained their desire for isolation by pointing to the corrupting influence of monastic life, equally important was the stated desire to return to a more meditative, solitary form of asceticism as exemplified in the biography of the Buddha (Carrithers 1983:ch. 3; Tambiah 1984:ch. 7). Much of Tambiah’s and Carrithers’s examinations of forest monks focused on the processes that led to the “domestication” of forest monks on the one hand, and a tendency for some village monks to abandon monasteries for life in the forest on the other—the push and pull between the solitary life of the forest and the communal life of village monasteries.
While partially inspired by the work of Tambiah and Carrithers, the focus of this study is slightly different. Where Tambiah and Carrithers examined the tension between individualizing and communal elements of Buddhist practice through the comparison of forest monks and village monks, I am examining the contradiction between individual and communal tendencies within Buddhism as a whole. Phrased another way, I am examining how both the sangha and the laity overcame the individualizing aspects of their religion while allowing for its limited expression. While not the focus of either Tambiah’s or Carrithers’s research, this focus is congruent with some of their observations. For example, Tambiah (1984:53) suggests that
While these dualities of oppositions may seem sharply defined and mutually exclusive, it is important to realize that ideally the [monk] should combine both vocations and that in actuality one vocation does not necessarily exclude the other. . . . [I]n Thailand, as elsewhere, town-dwelling monks and urban monasteries have promoted meditation, and there have been forest-monk communities that have produced well-known scholars.
Similarly, Carrithers (1983:142-143) notes that forest monks in Sri Lanka are far more faithful than village monks in their observance of the uposatha ceremony, a fortnightly gathering of monks where they communally recite 227 rules of the monastic code. Where monks living communally in monasteries need less frequent reminder of their communal identity, Carrithers’s argues, forest monks living in relative isolation do. Whether meditation in urban monasteries, or the uposatha ceremony among forest monks, the modern Buddhist communities observed by Tambiah and Carrithers were forced to balance the need for individual and communal expression of their religion. The difference between forest and village monks, therefore, is not that one is ascetic and the other communal, but rather that each group held opposing views on the proper balance between individualism and communalism. I argue that the same tension existed among the Buddhist laity, and that just as different members of the sangha had different views on the proper balance, different groups of lay Buddhists also disagreed on the proper balance between the individual and communal ritual.
In addition to, and separate from, their studies of nineteenth and twentieth century Buddhism, both Tambiah and Carrithers employ ancient Buddhist texts to demonstrate that the division between forest and village monks was a long-lasting tension in Buddhism (Carrithers 1983:ch. 5; Tambiah 1984:ch. 2). Tambiah and Carrithers differ, however, in just how ancient this division might be. Where Tambiah (1984:ch. 7) sees the duality of forest and village monks as a tension originating in India at the time of the Buddha or during the Mauryan period, Carrithers (1983:140) sees this duality emerging only in the last millennium in Sri Lanka as early ascetic sects became “domesticated” by and dependent on “sedentary, agrarian societies.” Prior to the last millennium, Carrithers argues that monks lived a more purely ascetic lifestyle, living in monasteries only during the rainy season.
By at least the first century bce, the earliest period for which Buddhist monasteries are archaeologically ubiquitous, Buddhist monks and nuns in India were living year-round in compact, well-apportioned monasteries. As discussed earlier, a few Ashokan inscriptions demonstrate that at least a few Buddhist monasteries existed in the third century bce. In contrast, with the exception of some isolated cave sites from Sri Lanka dating to the first and second centuries bce (Carrithers 1983:6; Coningham 1995, 2001), there is little archaeological evidence for early Buddhist forest monks in India. It should be noted, however, that the lack of archaeological traces of forest monks could well be the product of the ephemeral nature of their habitations (Coningham 2001). Given the prominence of solitary ascetics in the religious literature of early India, it does seem possible that ascetics were present, even if their habitations have not been archaeologically identified. The point here is that, contrary to Carrithers’s claim, at least some member of the sangha were living collectively in Indian monasteries from at least the third century bce. Further, based on Tambiah’s and Carrithers’s interpretations of early Buddhist texts, it should be expected that the early Buddhist sangha suffered from contradictions between the ascetic and communal desires of its membership.8
The tension between the individual and the group in early Buddhism can be seen in early textual descriptions of the two paths to becoming an arhat, a “worthy one” who has become enlightened (Lopez 2001; Tambiah 1984:13-14). One path is taken by pratyekabuddhas, who achieve enlightenment in solitude. The other is taken by shravakas, or “listeners,” who learn the Buddha’s teachings from others. The path of shravakas concords well with the lifestyles of the early Buddhist sangha. In early Buddhist monasteries, abbots stood at the top of a rigid hierarchy, teaching their subordinates the intricacies of Buddhist theology. The existence of pra-tyekabuddhas, however, undercut the role of abbots, monasteries, and even the value of a cohesive community of Buddhists by offering an alternative—individual—path to enlightenment.
In this light, the spatial organization of Kondivte and Bairat can be understood. In essence, these early chaityas were divided into two distinct ritual spaces—a circumambulatory path immediately adjacent to the stupa and a small hall abutting the circular chamber (see Figures 3.5). As such, early Buddhists designed their ritual spaces to allow for the practice of both individual and communal ritual—early Buddhists designed their ritual spaces in such a way as to help ameliorate the disjuncture between individualism and communalism. Following the insights of materiality, this layout was not merely the reflection of persistent disjunctures, but rather a creative material strategy that helped early Buddhists ignore this fundamental disjuncture.
The designs of Kondivte and Bairat, however, were not completely successful. The separation between the two ritual spaces was primarily at the expense of those engaged in collective rites in the halls abutting the stupa chamber. Devotees in the hall had only an obscured view of the central stupa through the door to the stupa chamber (see Figures 3.5), and this view would have been periodically interrupted by the passage of other devotees engaged in circumambulation. As will be discussed in Chapter 4, in the first and second centuries bce, Buddhists redesigned their chaityas in ways that served to more effectively conceal the disjunctures between asceticism and communalism—though, interestingly, by privileging collective rites rather than circumambulation.
World History
