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Buddhist Karma and Social Control

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  03 June 2009

Richard Gombrich
Richard Gombrich
Affiliation:
Oriental Institute, Oxford
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Extract

The contents of sacred texts are not simply reproduced in the doctrines of the religions which venerate them; there must be interpretation and selective emphasis. This is most obviously true when the corpus of sacred literature is large, as in Christianity and Buddhism. Historians of these religions may therefore ask why certain doctrines and certain scriptures have been emphasized at the expense of others.

Type
Traditional Beliefs and Modernizing Change
Information
Comparative Studies in Society and History , Volume 17 , Issue 2 , April 1975 , pp. 212 - 220
Copyright
Copyright © Society for the Comparative Study of Society and History 1975

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References

1 Spiro, Melford E., Buddhism and Society, New York, 1970;Google ScholarGombrich, Richard F., Precept and Practice, Oxford, 1971.Google Scholar

2 Spiro's terms are derived from nibbāna and kamma, which are Pali, the classical language of Theravada Buddhism. The equivalent terms in Sanskrit, the principal vehicle of classical Indian culture, are nirvāna and karma; these are the forms which (without diacritics) are familiar in English. In this article I have used the forms interchangeably.

3 See my review of Spiro's book in Modern Asian Studies, 6, 4 (1972), 483–94. In my own book I had not attempted to be so systematic, but talked in the last chapter (pp. 320–3) of the contrasting ideals of self-restraint and of love. These would roughly match the cognitive structures which Spiro labels nibbanic and kammatic.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4 Journal of Asian Studies, XXXII, 3 (05 1973), 554–6.Google Scholar

5 I give examples of other explanations on pp. 16–17.1 find it odd that in the next sentence Kirsch complains when I use other explanations, as if I were only allowed one type of explanation (which he calls a ‘model’) per book.

6 Dīgha, Majjhima, Angutlara and Saymutta. Incidentally, almost all of the texts in the four Nikāya are regarded as authoritative by all classical Buddhist schools.

7 Though this statement is a simplification, I would defend its essential truth by reference to the extreme case of Moggallāna, who had actually not yet expiated the murder of his parents in a former life, and yet was able to attain nirvana in this. That the story is late does not affect my point.

8 In a sociological context the locus classicus for this argument is Dumont, L., ‘World Renunciation in Indian Religions’, Contributions to Indian Sociology, IV (1960), 33–62.Google Scholar

9 Cūla-kamma-vibhanga-sutta, M.N. III, 202–6.Google Scholar

10 Mahā-kamma-vibhanga-sutta, M.N. III, 207–15.Google Scholar

11 The words of his final paragraph merit reproduction: ‘Vu l'importance capitale du dogme de la transmigration dans le système bouddhique, on aurait pu s'attendre à trouver sur la mémoire des existences antérieures une théorie bouddhique originate et bien établie. C'est ce qui ne semble pas ressortir de notre enquête sommaire. Les Āgama-Nikāya en font une faculté commune aux religieux bouddhistes et heretiques; 1'Abhidharma l'attribue aux profanes: n'ayant en elle-même aucun caractère de sainteté, elle ne prend de valeur religieux que par les réflexions qu'elle suggère; enfin les conteurs éludent toute systématisation.’ (Demieville, P., ‘Sur la mémoire des existences antérieures’, Bulletin de l'École Francaise d'Extrême-Orient, XXVII (1927), 298.)Google Scholar

12 The co-existence of Theravada Buddhism with other systems of belief is luckily now a commonplace in the literature. Any moral authority that gods may possess is held to derive from Buddhism; e.g. in Sinhalese belief supernatural beings hold warrants (varam) which derive ultimately from the Buddha. (This is of course not to say that the Buddha invented karmic law, only that he explained it.) Gods, even demons, are all subject to the law of karma, and may reward or punish only as agents of law enforcement—though, like their human equivalents, they too may do wrong, for which they are in turn liable.