The Buddha and Kingship

By John Fullerton

John Fullerton is a well known freelance writer and a practising Buddhist. He divides his time between Thailand and Britain.

For the Buddha, kings were rather like weather.  They were inescapable, not always pleasant and somewhat unpredictable, but they had to be grappled with.  They couldn’t be ignored.

Sidhatta Gotama (Siddartha Gautama in Sanskrit) hailed from the small republic of the Sakka (Skt. Sākya) people, but his world was changing.  The Ganges basin in north-east India was in a state of political and social upheaval.  Tribal oligarchies, not unlike that of his homeland, were being swallowed whole by new kingdoms.  Warfare was commonplace.

As he set out on his 45-year-long teaching career, the Buddha would also have found rapid urbanisation well underway.  Cities expanded on the back of trade which was based on currency (the mining of metals provided for coinage) – and on agricultural surpluses, in part engendered by new technology in the form of iron implements.  Classes of wealthy householders were emerging – traders, merchants and bankers – townsfolk who could provide material support for the Saṅgha. Social stability was understandably desirable for monastics and laity alike.

Gotama admired some tribal republics.  According to the Mahāparinnibbāna Sutta (Skt. Sūtra), he said the Vajjian republic would continue to flourish if people continued to a. ‘hold regular and frequent assemblies’ b. ‘meet in harmony, break up in harmony and carry out business in harmony’ c. ‘not authorise what has not been authorised, but proceed according to what has been authorised by ancient tradition’ d. ‘honour, respect, revere and salute the elders among them, and consider them worth listening to’ e. ‘not forcibly abduct others’ wives and daughters and compel them to live with them’ e. ‘honour, respect, revere and salute the Vajjian shrines at home and abroad, not withdrawing the proper support made and given before’ f. ‘make proper provision for the safety of Arahats, so that such Arahats may come in future to live there, and those already there may dwell in comfort.’ 

This reveals Buddhist ideas of governance: respect for collective decisions, for amity, tradition, elders, women, religion and holy men.  Notwithstanding his advice, the Buddha must have known that the republics couldn’t last and he appears to have seen the failure to uphold such principles as one reason why they would be overwhelmed by the new kingly states. 

Early Buddhism was well aware of the dangers of monarchy, but was equally conscious of what seemed worse: anarchy, dog-eat-dog lawlessness.  Fortunately, the Buddha’s genius, personality and reputation were such that he could and did teach kings the art of government if only because monarchs stood at the apex of the social lay hierarchy and commanded powers of patronage and the potential to destroy.

The Buddha saw the king’s ideal role as serving his people by ensuring order and prosperity.  In the Agañña Sutta, the Buddha regards society as a process of decline from relatively ideal conditions.  The first king is chosen by his people to halt the slide into chaos – the ‘People’s Choice’, the most handsome, personable and able – to punish wrong-doers in return for a share of the people’s rice.  Some philosophers have interpreted this as a form of the social-contract theory of kingship.

Even so, the Buddha could not very well advise the kings who sought his advice to disarm and demobilise, but he did add a rule to the Vinaya advising monastics to avoid military manoeuvres, parades and ceremonies.  Instead, he infused the state – kingship in this case – with a higher morality.

Dhamma (Skt. Dharma) became a cosmic law higher than mundane kings and emperors, perhaps not unrelated in a worldly sense with the spiritual law of conditions and causes, known as Conditioned Arising.  Hence we see the ‘two wheels’ symbol – the wheel of spiritual law (dhammacakka) and the ‘wheel of command’ (anacakka).

So the flip side of the transcendent Buddha or Bodhisattva was the wheel-turning righteous emperor or Cakkavatti (Universal Monarch) who was seen, like the Buddha, to have the 32 marks of a Great Man (Mahapurisa).  Thus the worldly was incorporated into the spiritual or, to put it another way, the Buddha provided the warlike with incentives to adopt peaceful ways and aspire to the righteous Path.

In the Thai Buddhist tradition, the king is to observe and possess four sets of Buddhist virtues.  Too many to enumerate here, we can mention the first set, the Dasa Rājadhamma (Ten Virtues of the King) as being charity, high moral character, self-sacrifice, integrity, gentleness, austerity, non-anger, non-oppression, tolerance and non deviation from the norm.  The second set includes protection of the population and animal world as well as distribution of wealth to the poor.

The ideal model of kingship was Asoka (c. 268-239 BCE), who ruled a vast Indian empire and whose reign enabled Buddhism to become a world religion. He adopted the social ethic of Buddhism as his guiding principle.  While he became a Buddhist in about 260, the full impact did not apparently hit home until after his bloody conquest of the Kalinga region the following year.

Such was his remorse that he undertook to govern and protect his people according to Dhamma. He undertook a number of large-scale charitable works.  He abolished torture and possibly the death penalty. Dhamma-officials were appointed to look after orphans and the elderly and ensure equal standards of justice as well as supplying aid to prisoners’ families.
 
A prime value in his edicts was ahiṃsā or non-injury.  He also praised truthfulness and recommended mercy, sexual purity, gentleness and contentment.

While he kept his army as a deterrent, Asoka made no further conquests and gave up hunting. His household became vegetarian.  Wildlife was protected. Animal sacrifices were banned in the capital.  Asoka urged mutual respect and tolerance among the several religions.

Buddhist kings would follow his example in the centuries that followed, with varying degrees of sincerity and success.  Because succession rules were often vague and rebellions endemic, many princes lost heads and kingdoms. For some, declaring themselves to be Bodhisattva, Cakkavatti and Dhamma-king was little more than a public relations exercise. For lengthy periods in south and southeast Asia, warfare was incessant and Buddhist king fought Buddhist king.

Yet the traditional social model in the lands of Southern Buddhism has long been triangular, with the monarch supporting and being advised by the Saṅgha, the Saṅgha recruiting from and being supported by the people, and the people acquiescing in the king’s rule provided he is not unduly wayward.  More recently, the growth of modern armed forces, a secular bureaucracy and a globalised corporate elite and consumer class has somewhat complicated matters. 

Perhaps one contemporary example of the righteous ruler is His Holiness the Dalai Lama, who might be said to be a dhammiko dhammaraja, keeping his spiritual integrity while wrestling with the ruthless, resource-greedy power politics of Chinese Communist apparatchiks.

Sources:

Chakravarti, U., 1987, The Social Dimensions of Early Buddhism, Delhi, New York, Oxford University Press.

Gokhale, B.G., 1994, ‘The Early Buddhist View of the State’, in New Light On Early Buddhism, Popular Prakashan Publishers, Bombay.

Harvey, P., 2000, An Introduction to Buddhist Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Rājavaramuni, Phra, 1990, ‘The Foundations of Buddhist Social Ethics’, in Sizemore, R.F. and Swearer, D.K., eds., Ethics, Wealth and Salvation: A Study of Buddhist Social Ethics, Colombia, SC University of Carolina Press.

Tambiah, S., 1976, World Conqueror and World Renouncer,  Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, New York.

Walshe, M., 1987, The Long Discourses of the Buddha, Wisdom Publications, Somerville, Mass.
 
Copyright: J Fullerton

Original contribution by John Fullerton

If you have any feedback about this article or would like to discuss any of the issues raised then please post a reply on our forum by clicking here  

Save GingerGuide To My MemberArea