In Dialogue with Classical Indian Traditions

Encounter, Transformation and Interpretation

Brian Black, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad, Brian Black, Chakravarthi Ram-Prasad

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2019
• eBook ISBN: 9781351011112
• Topic: Theologie & Religion
• Subtopic: Asiatische Literaturkritik

Dialogue is a recurring and significant component of Indian religious and philosophical literature. Whether it be as a narrative account of a conversation between characters within a text, as an implied response or provocation towards an interlocutor outside the text, or as a hermeneutical lens through which commentators and modern audiences can engage with an ancient text, dialogue features prominently in many of the most foundational sources from classical India. Despite its ubiquity, there are very few studies that explore this important facet of Indian texts. This book redresses this imbalance by undertaking a close textual analysis of a range of religious and philosophical literature to highlight the many uses and functions of dialogue in the sources themselves and in subsequent interpretations.

Using the themes of encounter, transformation and interpretation – all of which emerged from face-to-face discussions between the contributors of this volume – each chapter explores dialogue in its own context, thereby demonstrating the variety and pervasiveness of dialogue in different genres of the textual tradition.

This is a rich and detailed study that offers a fresh and timely perspective on many of the most well-known and influential sources from classical India. As such, it will be of great use to scholars of religious studies, Asian studies, comparative literature and literary theory.

Part 1

Encounter

1 Sources of Indian secularism?

Dialogues on politics and religion in Hindu and Buddhist traditions

Brian Black

Introduction

In recent debates Amartya Sen, Ashis Nandy and Rajeev Bhargava have engaged with ancient sources in their arguments either advocating or criticising Indian secularism today. In this Chapter I would like to stage a dialogue between the writings of these three political theorists and two sources from ancient India, both of which are themselves dialogues. The first dialogue is between Yājñavalkya and King Janaka, from the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad; while the other one is between the Buddha and King Ajātasattu, from the Dīgha Nikāya. By looking at these two dialogues together, I will demonstrate that Hindu and Buddhist sources use the same literary paradigm to explore the relationship between religion and politics in distinct, yet overlapping ways. I will do this by focusing on two interrelated themes addressed by both dialogues: (1) the relationship between political and religious authority, and (2) the plurality of religious groups. In addition to gaining insights into the specific textual connections between the Upaniṣads and Nikāyas, I will argue that these two sources make important contributions to a more general discussion about politics and religion in ancient India (see also Chapters 9 and 12). Moreover, by reading these dialogues within the context of the arguments of Sen, Nandy and Bhargava, I hope to indicate ways in which an engagement with classical Indian sources might enhance debates about secularism today. As we will see, Sen, Nandy and Bhargava have each engaged with ancient sources when discussing strategies for addressing religious diversity. As I will suggest, their conceptualisations of these strategies – argumentation (Sen), tolerance (Nandy) and principled co-existence (Bhargava) – have a number of resonances with the dialogues from the Upaniṣads and Nikāyas.

The dialogues

Although neither Sen, Nandy nor Bhargava engage with our two dialogues, all three reflect on the relevance of Aśoka’s inscriptions to modern debates about secularism in India.¹ One of the ways that our dialogues are most directly relevant to modern debates then, is that they address some of the same issues that are addressed in Aśoka’s inscriptions. Here I am thinking of discussions about renunciation and the ethics of self-control, as well as confronting a religiously diverse landscape. In Aśoka’s inscriptions, as well as in our sources, the ideal king is characterised as one who both engages with religious teachers and attempts to embody their teachings. Geoffrey Samuel has described this as the ‘wisdom king’ model of kingship (2008: 69–76). According to Samuel,

it is very likely that there was a widespread stereotype of the wisdom king or proto-dharmarāja model of kingship in India in the period from 500 Bce onwards … A variety of stories describe these kings as having tendencies towards the śramaṇa or renunciate lifestyle, or as actually becoming śramaṇas or renunciates. It also seems likely that this model of kingship was seen at the time to contrast markedly with the warrior king or cakravartin model of kingship associated with the Brahmanical reforms in the Kuru-Pañcāla Region.

(2008: 73)

Another reason why I have chosen these two dialogues is because they are very similar to each other. Indeed, I am inclined to think of them as two versions of the same literary structure,² which might, along with other features of the dialogues, further our appreciation of the textual relationship between Brahmanical and Buddhist traditions.³ Our first dialogue, which appears in the fourth book of the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, is a prolonged conversation between the brahmin Yājñavalkya and the king Janaka. Embedded within this conversation are verbal exchanges reported by Janaka between himself and six other brahmins. After Yājñavalkya counters the views of each of these other brahmins, he offers his own teaching to Janaka, much of which is about the ethics of a renouncer. Our second dialogue, which is between the Buddha and Ajātasattu, and which appears in the Sāmaññaphala Sutta of the Dīgha Nikāya, has a similar structure (see Chapter 10 for a very different approach to this same sutta). It is also a prolonged conversation between a religious teacher and a king, containing embedded verbal exchanges reported by the king between himself and six members of rival religious groups. Unlike Yājñavalkya, the Buddha does not explicitly counter the views of the six other teachers, but rather the king voices his own dissatisfaction with each of their discourses. After Ajātasattu recounts all six views, the Buddha begins his teaching, much of which is about the ethics of a renouncer.

Because they share the same literary model, but are from different traditions, these two dialogues give us an excellent opportunity to examine how Brahmins and Buddhists explored some of the same issues, but in different ways. As I will demonstrate, both dialogues have resonances with modern debates, but neither dialogue is either more or less secular than the other. On this point, I would disagree with Romila Thapar who characterises the Buddhist model as more ‘conducive’ to secularism than the Brahmanical model (2010: 79).⁴ Moreover, I would argue that conceptual resources from premodern India that are most likely to support and extend modern notions of argumentation (Sen), toleration (Nandy) or principled co-existence (Bhargava) would be those that were developed through dialogues and contestations between and among religious communities, rather than doctrines or practices specific to one tradition.

A final reason, then, for focusing on these two dialogues is because they both explore themes that speak directly to the debates among Sen, Nandy and Bhargava. Both Sen and Nandy point to Aśoka as an example of pre-modern traditions of toleration, but whereas Sen characterises the Mauryan king as a proto-secularist, Nandy sees the ancient monarch as offering an indigenous alternative to secularism. In a discussion on the ‘interdependent role of institutions and behavioural patterns in achieving justice’, Sen describes Aśoka as having an ‘optimistic belief’ in the capacity for people to behave morally by cultivating their thoughts, speech and actions towards others (2010 [2009]: 76). Sen then compares John Rawls’ assumption about reasonable behaviours with ‘Ashoka’s vision of a society led by right behaviour (or dharma)’ (2010 [2009]: 80). Here Sen invokes Aśoka to demonstrate that ideas of justice are not limited to Western traditions. In contrast, Nandy emphasises that Aśoka developed toleration from within a religious perspective, rather than from a non-religious position: Aśoka ‘based his tolerance on Buddhism, not on secularism’ (1998: 337). Bhargava has commented on the myth-making tendencies of supporters of secularism when looking to examples from India’s past, particularly to invocations of Aśoka as part of the ‘mythology of secular nationalism’ (2014a: 173). Nonetheless, Bhargava has recently conducted his own critical engagement with Aśoka’s inscriptions, arguing that they open up conceptual spaces that can contribute to modern secularism (2014a: 174) and demonstrate a ‘public morality’ (2014a: 197) that goes beyond the European concept of toleration. As we read our two dialogues with recent debates in mind, I would like to focus on two inter-related themes that Sen, Nandy and Bhargava all touch upon in one way or another: separation and plurality.

Separation

In relation to the first theme, separation, I will discuss how each dialogue explores the relationship between the religious teacher and political leader. As I will suggest, both the Upaniṣads and Nikāyas use dialogue to explore the relationship between religion and politics in ways that are different from, but comparable to, Indian definitions of secularism. Moreover, I will argue that in both the Brahmanical and Buddhist traditions the concept of dharma plays a crucial role in terms of articulating the separation of religious and political power, yet in different ways.

In the Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad, the relationship between the brahmin and the king is generally depicted as complementary and inter-dependent (Black 2007: 105–114), which is reflected by the friendly banter between Janaka and Yājñavalkya throughout their encounter. As the dialogue unfolds, the relative hierarchy between them shifts, with Yājñavalkya initially approaching the king, but with Janaka getting down from his throne to approach Yājñavalkya after the brahmin’s teaching. At the end of the dialogue Janaka offers both himself and the people of Videha to be Yājñavalkya’s slaves. Yājñavalkya responds by declaring that Janaka is now fearless (abhaya) and has reached the world of brahman (4.4.23–5). Here we see a certain balance between the brahmin and king that is characteristic of other dialogues in the Upaniṣads. This balance is illustrated through their changing spatial relationship, with both of them entering the other’s domain: Yājñavalkya gaining mastery over the king and his people; Janaka mastering the brahmin’s teaching.

In the Sāmaññaphala Sutta the religious teacher is not a brahmin, but the Buddha, who is speaking with King Ajātasattu of Magadha – who we learn, at the end of this sutta, has usurped the throne by killing his father. In contrast to our previous dialogue, there is no friendly banter between the Buddha and Ajātasattu. Moreover, there is no shift in the relative status between the two characters, as the Buddha is characterised as the superior of the two throughout their encounter. Also, unlike Yājñavalkya, who initially approaches the king, the Buddha remains at his residence in the mango-grove at Rājagaha, with the king arriving in his presence, together with a large entourage. At the end of their exchange the king announces himself as a lay supporter, with the Buddha assuring him progress along the noble path. However, after the king has departed, he confides in his monks that the king cannot attain the spotless eye of dhamma because of the crime of killing his father. Here the relationship between the Buddha and the king is presented as a hierarchy with the Buddha clearly depicted as the superior of the two.

A number of scholars have commented upon this sutta’s exploration of the notion of separation between political and religious authority. Ian Harris has seen this dialogue as underlining ‘the status difference between secular authority and the person who renounces the household life and becomes a bhikkhu’ (1999: 3).⁵ We should note, however, that other dialogues in the Nikāyas are not as critical of the king as this one is of Ajātasattu. King Sankha in the Cakkavatisīhanāda Sutta, for example, achieves the ‘unequal goal of the holy life’ (26.26, tr. Walshe), but only after he shaves off his hair and beard to become a renouncer. Similarly, in the Makhādeva Sutta of the Majjhima Nikāya, King Makhādeva is the first of a lineage of kings who renounces the throne at the sight of their first grey hairs. The last in the line of kings who follow this practice is King Nimi, who, as Naomi Appleton discusses, shares a number of characteristics with King Janaka in Buddhist and Jain literature (2017: 137–169). In other words, whereas the Sāmaññaphala Sutta separates the king from the Buddha in characterising Ajātasattu as having committed a violent act too reprehensible to reach enlightenment, other dialogues present kings who can achieve enlightenment, but only after renouncing their position as king (for the relationship between dialogues with kings and teachings about renunciation, see also Chapters 2, 6, 9 and 12).

Looking at our dialogues within the context of the Upaniṣads and Nikāyas more generally, we can see that Brahmanical and Buddhist sources use the same literary paradigm to conceptualise the relationship between religion and politics in different, yet overlapping ways. Whereas the Brahmanical model tends to emphasise complementarity between the king and the religious leader, the Buddhist model is more likely to emphasise their distinct roles. We might further understand the differences among the Brahmanical and Buddhist political models by linking these dialogues with the different ways the Upaniṣads and Nikāyas define dharma/dhamma.

The word dharma, which first appears in the Ṛgveda, has a wide semantic range in the Vedas, but one of its primary usages relates to royal authority (see Brereton 2004; Olivelle 2004). In the Upaniṣads dharma only appears ten times (Hiltebeitel 2011: 91) and remains very much ‘a peripheral concept’ (Olivelle 2004: 82). Nevertheless, one emerging understa...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Series Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• List of contributors
• Acknowledgements
• Introduction
• PART 1: Encounter
• PART 2: Transformation
• PART 3: Interpretation
• Afterword
• Bibliography
• Index