Hīnayāna reprise.

Abandoned Bicycle now defective
(a hīnayāna). Jayarava

I've mentioned my view that the pejorative term hīnayāna has intimations of caste prejudice to a few people and several have expressed doubts over my interpretation. In this essay I want to reprise my earlier, in fact my first ever, rave 'Don't mention the H word' with a closer eye on the philology of the world hīna and particularly how it is used in compounds. That previous essay was a bit reactionary and the argument not very sophisticated. The argument here is more rigorous and searching. I will follow this with a brief look at how the word is used in the context of Saddharmapuṇḍarika or White Lotus Sūtra.

Hīna is a past-participle from the verbal root of the 3rd class: √hā - which forms stems by reduplication. "hahā" is disallowed, so the reduplicated 'ha' becomes 'ja'. The 3rd person singular present is jahati or jahāti (in both Pāli and Sanskrit) - the rules for reduplication apparently leaving room for ambiguity. The basic meaning is 'to leave, desert, abandon, renounce, forsake'. The past-participle then means 'abandoned, deserted, forsaken.' In practice it also means 'to fall short of, be deficient, or defective'.

Roots in 'h' are often abbreviated from gha and PED suggests a comparison with an Indo-European root *ghē from which we get the Greek words khēros (void), khēra (widow), khora (open space), and khorizo (separate). Compare this with the word kha in Sanskrit which means a space, or aperture; and it seems likely that words 'hole' and 'hollow' from this same root. It is from kha in the sense of 'the hole in the wheel through which the axle goes', that we get the two important terms sukha and duḥkha: the metaphor is a contrast between smoothly (su 'good, well') running cart' and one which gives a lumpy uncomfortable (dus) ride.

Monier-Williams gives more than two dozen compounds using this word. About half of them relate to social grade, or a social role; while the other half relate to something which is defective or absent. In the first category we have hīnakula and °kuṣṭa (low status family), °ja/jati/yoni (low birth), and °varga/varṇa which specifically refer to the śudra caste.

The second category we find °karman/kriya/kratu (someone who neglects the sacrifice), °guṇa/carita/vṛtta (of inferior virtue, base conduct) both of these clusters reflect the Brahminical prejudice against non-Brahmins who did not participate in their sacrificial religion. Another term for a non-believer was hīnapratijña (faithless). A drama with an anti-hero is hīnanāyaka ('whose leader is corrupt'). Finally those who associate with inferiors might be described as °sakhya (friends of the low people) or °seva (an attendant on low people).

The third category refers to something which is missing or defective: hīnakosa (empty treasury), °cakṣu/darsana-sāmarthya (blind), °bala (feeble), °buddhi (stupid), °rūpa (ugly), °roman (bald), hīnaṇga (crippled), hīnāṃsu (dark [an insult in the Brahmin lexicon]); °dagdha (insufficiently burned), °pakṣa (unprotected), °mūtya (a low price), °vāda (defective statement, contradictory evidence), °vyañjana (indistinct consonants), °svara (discordant or silent), hīnārtha (fallen short of his goals, [opposite of siddhartha]). Used abstractly we find: °tva (defectiveness), hīnātirikta (defective), hīnādhika (too few, too much, i.e. the wrong amount), °krama (in diminishing order), °tara (worse, worst).

On this basis of this survey I must temper my statement about hīnayāna and caste. However since there are several related terms which clearly are caste related, we can say that a connotation of caste prejudice cannot be ruled out. Clearly none of the other compounds with hīna as a first member have a positive connotation, and most are related to ways in which people or things fail to live up to (especially Brahmanical) ideals.

The compound mahāyāna is clearly a karmadhāraya compound meaning 'big or great vehicle'; so we could expect hīnayāna to be intended as the same type of compound. From this point of view it would mean 'defective vehicle'. However hīnayana could also be read as a tatpuruṣa - 'vehicle of the defective', or 'vehicle of the abandoned'. Read as a bahuvrīhi we could take is referring to someone who has 'abandoned the way'. Clearly English translators have fudged this term by translating it as "lesser" vehicle, but to be fair it is likely that they were following the influential translator Kumārajīva, who rendered hīnayāna into Chinese as 小乘 'hsiao-sheng, little vehicle'. (See Nattier p.172, n.4). Kumārajīva's translation of the Lotus Sūtra (for instance) is the preferred translation, and except for Kern's translation from the Sanskrit, all of the English translations are from Kumārajīva's Chinese translation (despite there being later, arguably better, Chinese translations).

The Saddharmapuṇḍarika Sūtra (SP) is a locus classicus for the use of 'hīnayāna' as a pejorative. In chapter two after the Buddha announces that he will give a new teaching, a new yāna, a group of 5000 men and women, monks and lay leave before the sermon is delivered. After which the Buddha says to Śāriputra (taking my examples from the verse section):

śuddhā ca niṣpalāvā ca susthitā pariṣanmama|
phalguvyapagatā sarvā sārā ceyaṁ pratiṣṭhitā||41|| 

Pure and free of chaff, my assembly is well established
The worthless have retreated and all the strong are steadfast

Hīnayāna does not seem to apply to the people themselves, though they are 'chaff' and 'worthless'. Curiously the text seems to use the term hīnayāna quite vaguely. Later in Chapter 2 the Buddha says:

ekaṁ hi kāryaṁ dvitiyaṁ na vidyate
na hīnayānena nayanti buddhāḥ ||55|| 

There is only one method, not a second,
The Buddhas do not lead by a defective way.

I think the definite article would be out of place here - it is 'a' not 'the' defective way. If we were to use the definite article it would imply that "the hīnayāna" was not something taught by the Buddha, and this would contradict everything we know about the history of Buddhism. Two verses on, the Buddha continues:

yadi hīnayānasmi pratiṣṭhapeya-
mekaṁ pi sattvaṁ na mamate sādhu||57|| 

It would not be good if even one being
Were to become established in a defective vehicle.

Again my sense here is of 'a defective vehicle', not 'the defective vehicle'. And actually it's not that clear what is being criticised here. It is curious and not at all what I expected to find, but this essay is already quite long, so I will have to explore it more at a later date. I will mention that SP uses the term hīnābhirata which Kern translates as 'low dispositions'. Abhirata means pleased or satisfied, as well as practising. There's every chance that hīnābhirata means 'dissatisfied' or 'lacking contentment' here. There is one other mention of a 'defective way' in chapter 6, but it doesn't add much to the picture. It almost seems as though the association of the people who leave the assembly and the 'defective way' is accidental. I don't see a direct connection between them in the key chapter. I'm reminded of the accidental identification of Lucifer ('the light bearer', an epithet of Nebuchadnezzar) with the Christian Devil based on a misreading of Isaiah 14:12 by Origen.

The argument over a suitable replacement term continues with some (me) using "Early Buddhism"; some opting for "Pāli Buddhism" (since the best known texts are in Pāli); and some "Mainstream Buddhism". All of these are problematic for a variety of reasons. My current favourite comes from Wikipedia and is "pre-sectarian". I'm going to adopt this and suggest other people do as well - it avoids the temporal problems (unlike "early"), it is neutral (unlike Pāli and Hīnayāna), it is a fair description of the subject (unlike "mainstream").

~~oOo~~

Bibliography

Vaidya, P. L. Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtram. The Mithila Institute of Post-Graduate Studies and Research in Sanskrit Learning, 1960. Online: Digital Sanskrit Buddhist Canon. 

Kern, H. Saddharma-pundarika or The Lotus of the True Law. 1884. Sacred Books of the East, Vol XXI. Online: Internet Sacred Text Archive. 

Nattier, Jan. A few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path According to the Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā). University of Hawai'i Press, 2003.

Extra Notes 

10 Oct 2010: In the Alagaddūpama Sutta, hīnaṃ 'rejected' is contrasted with paṇītaṃ 'exalted'.

3 Aug 2014. Dhammapada, Chapter 13, vs 167

hīnaṃ dhammaṃ na seveyya pamādena na saṃvase
micchādiṭṭhiṃ na seveyya na sīya lokavaddhano 

Don't associate with a defective teaching,
Don't dwell heedlessly,
Don't embrace wrong views,
Don't indulge the world.

hīnaṃ dhammaṃ - a defective teaching. 

24 Jan 2015. In Pāḷi there is a phrase hīnāya āvattati meaning "to go back to 'the low' [way of life]" (Vin I.17, MN I.460, SN II.231, IV.191) or in the past-tense hīnāyāvatta (MN I.460, SN II.50). The phrase is used to refer to someone who has abandoned being a bhikkhu and gone back to being a householder.

5 Jul 2015. See also Anālayo (2014) The Hīnayāna Fallacy. JOCBS. 6: 9-31.

Philology of Dependent Arising

‘Dependent Arising’, ‘Dependent Origination’, ‘Interdependent Arising’, ‘Conditioned Co-production’ – these are all synonyms (almost always capitalised) for the sine qua non of Buddhist doctrines and technical jargon. In Sanskrit the word is pratītyasamutpāda, and in Pāli paṭiccasamuppāda. We also have the related past-participle pratītyasamutpanna (paṭiccasamuppannna) ‘dependently arisen’. The word is a usually treated as a compound which is clearly reflected in the English translations. In this short essay I want to unpick and unpack these words; in technical jargon we’ll do a morphological and semantic analysis. I’ll work in Sanskrit and add Pāli equivalents in parentheses since the morphology is more obvious in Sanskrit, though my main interest is how the word is used in Pāli.


Pratītya

Pratītya (paṭicca) is a gerund or absolutive, a verbal form indicating an action occurring before the action of the main verb. [1] The form of the gerund for verbs with prefixes is different from verbs without prefixes, and probably originated in Indo-European as an instrumental singular of a verbal noun in -i, which form instrumentals by substituting -i with -yā. [2] The verb in this case is pratyeti (pacceti) which we can analyse as prati + √i. The root √i 'to go' is related to the Latin eo, [3] and the cognate is only rarely found in English words like ‘iterate’ (meaning ‘to go again’). The form pratītya is regular and arises out of some sandhi changes along the way. √i is a second class verb in Sanskrit (first class in Pāli) that undergoes guṇa (strengthening) and forms a stem by adding the vowel ‘a’. The guṇa grade of i is e. Sandhi rules say that e + a > e, [4] and we’re left with a stem e- The 3rd person plural is eti. When we add the prefix prati- there is another sandhi change i + e > ye: so the final stem is pratye-; 3rd person singular pratyeti. When this devolves to Pāli we get some phonetic changes in the conjunct consonants: pra > pa; tye > cce: this gives us pacceti.

The root √i ‘to go’ is the same in Pāli and Sanskrit. The suffix prati- (paṭi-) gives a sense of towards, near; or opposition. Prati-√i, then, should mean something like ‘go towards, go near, go back’. The affect of combining a prefix and a root is not always predictable from the parts but this is what we get more or less: patyeti means ‘to come on to or back to, to fall back on’, as well as ‘to go towards, go to meet’.

To form the gerund in the case of a verb with a prefix, in both Pāli and Sanskrit, one adds a suffix -ya to the weakest grade of the root (simply ‘i’ in the case of √i), or in this case because the stem vowel is short: -tya. [5] So we get prati + i + tya. Sandhi applies here so i + i > ī giving pratītya. In Pāli pra > pa, tya > cca, and we find that tī > ṭi (with retroflexion of the consonant, and shortening of the vowel). [6] The meaning of the gerund should be something like ‘having come to, having fallen back on’ but in application it means more like ‘grounded on, on account of’.

One very common form of use for paṭicca in Pāli Buddhist texts is in the twelve-fold formula of paṭiccasamuppāda which is sometimes written like this:

avijjāpaccaya paṭicca saṅkhārā...
grounded on unknowing as a condition, there are the processes...

Samutpāda

Samutpāda (samuppāda) is a verbal noun from a root with two prefixes: saṃ + ud + pāda. The root is √pad which primarily means ‘to go, to walk’ (but also ‘to fall’). The prefix ud- ‘up, upwards’ becomes ut- with the unvoiced ‘p’ of √pad to give the present stem utpada- ‘to arise, originate, come forth, be produced’. From this we get the past-participle, utpanna (uppanna) ‘arisen, originated’. The causative form of the verb has the stem utpādaya (with the addition of ‘-ya-’ and the lengthening of the root vowel) meaning ‘to produce, beget, generate’. There’s not a great deal of difference between here the indicative and the causative - the difference between ‘to arise’, and ‘to produce’. From utpādaya- we get the verbal noun utpāda (uppāda) ‘coming forth, birth, production, arising’. And in Pāli the tpā conjunct devolves to ppā. Perhaps, given that utpāda seems to derive from the causative, we should favour translations which retain that flavour – ‘arising’ is something that just happens, whereas if something is ‘produced’ we get the sense of a definite process causing the arising.

The suffix sam- gives the sense of ‘completed’ or ‘together’ (it is cognate with the English suffix ‘com-’). The word samutpāda (samuppāda) means ‘appearing with, arising together’. It is only infrequently used as a stand-alone word in Pāli. [7]


Pratītya-samutpāda

The two parts (pratītya and samutpāda) are usually understood as forming a compound, and should therefore be written as one word pratītyasamutpāda, though we often find it written with a hyphen for readability: pratītya-samutpāda. The last thing is to discuss what type of compound they form, and the relationship between the two parts. In fact it is unusual to find a compound with gerund as the first member. This type of compound where one part retains the syntactical form it would have in a non-compounded sentence is called a ‘syntactical compound’. [8] Philologists suggest that this type of compound was originally a gerund and verb form which has become lexicalised. [9] We do find this kind of construction with the verb utpadyate (uppajjati) in the Pāli phrase: paccayaṃ paṭicca uppajjati - (‘arising in dependence on a condition’). [10]

In the case of pratītya-samutpāda the compound is formed from the gerund and the verb as a past-participle or verbal noun. Because the words retain their syntactical relationship, i.e. ‘having depended [on a condition] it is produced’, we do not need to analyse them in terms of the nominal compound paradigms. If we did do such an analysis we could take the gerund in its archaic the sense as an instrumental, and treat the compound as an instrumental tatpuruṣa meaning ‘produced through depending on’.


Conclusions

We’ve now looked at each of the separate elements – (prati+√i+tya) + (saṃ+ud+√pad) - and how they go together (morphology); and we’ve looked at how the individual parts contribute to the meaning (semantics). However it is not enough to know the etymology in order to understand a word. We have to look at how it is used in context. Even then we must accept that we have only an imperfect understanding since in the case of Buddhist texts we are far removed in time and culture from the authors or composers. Not being a native speaker of a language means we never really have the same facility as someone who is. When we hear a foreigner speaking our mother tongue we almost always hear words being used incorrectly, idioms being misunderstood, sentences oddly constructed. We need to keep this in mind when reading a Sanskrit or Pāli text, even when we think we understand the words. Back in 1966 the Dutch philologist Jan Gonda wrote a 165 page essay on the uses of the single word ‘loka’ in Vedic literature in which he suggests that the most common translation – ‘world’ – is actually the least likely to apply in any given situation.

By far the most common use of our term is with reference to the twelvefold nidāna chain. The links in the chain are called ‘dependently arisen elements’; in Pāli ‘paṭicca-samuppanne dhamme’. [11] And the whole system of one thing arising with the previous one as a condition (paccaya) is known as ‘dependent arising’ – paṭiccasamuppāda.

We can see how the English Translations get at the meaning, but only as long as we already know what is being said. The phrase ‘dependent arising’ is probably now the most popular translation of pratītya-samutpāda but it does not communicate very much to the uninitiated. Even if we choose a more descriptive translation such as Conze’s ‘conditioned co-production’ this isn’t much help. In any case the form of the syntactical compound tells us that pratītya-samutpāda is a short-hand way of referring to a longer description: ‘the process by which something is produced because the necessary conditions for its production are in place’. Even then it leaves many questions: what type of ‘something’ we are referring to? Does the formula constitute a general theory of causation, or only apply to the production of mental states? To this extent Buddhism is esoteric and much of our jargon is opaque to outsiders.


Bibliography

• Coulson, Michael. 2003. Sanskrit. 2^nd Ed. Teach Yourself Books.
• Gonda, J. 1966. Loka : World and heaven in the Veda. Amsterdam, Noord-Hollandsche U.M.
• Hamp. Eric P.1986. ‘On the Morphology of Indic Gerunds.’ Indo-Iranian Journal 29 (2), p.103-107
• Macdonell. A.A. 1926. A Sanskrit Grammar for Students. 3rd Ed. D.K. Printworld (2008)
• Norman, K.R. (trans.) 2001. The Group of Discourses (Sutta-Nipāta). 2nd. Ed. Pali Text Society
• Norman, K. R. 1991. ‘Syntatical Compounds in Middle Indo-Aryan’ in Middle Indo-Aryan and Jaina Studies, Leiden, p.3-9. Also in Collected Papers, 1990-2001, Vol.4, p.218-25.
• Whitney, William Dwight. 1885. The Roots, Verb Forms and Primary Derivatives of the Sanskrit Language. Motilal Banarsidass. (2006 printing)
Plus a range of Pāli, Sanskrit, and English dictionaries and other reference works both printed and online

---

Notes

[1] The gerund is used extensively in Buddhist texts. We might read for instance that someone approaches the Buddha, and having approached the Buddha, they salute him; and having saluted him, they sit off to one side; and having sat off to one side they respectfully asked a question. The Gerundsindicated here in italics – in English they are usually rendered as a perfect participle (having approached), or as a present participle (approaching).

[2] Authorities are divided on the origins of the gerund in –tvā, though seem to agree on it being an instrumental singular of a verbal noun. See Coulson Sanskrit, p.67, Macdonell 163 (p.137-8) derive it from a verbal noun in -tu; and for a dissenting view Hamp On the Morphology of Indic Gerunds who argues that –tvā must derive from a verbal noun in –tva, especially as nouns in –tu usually require guṇa and we don’t see this in gerunds.

[3] Fans of Monty Python's Life of Brian will recall that Brian misuses the verb eo in his slogan 'romanes eunt domus' and is forced to conjugate the verb while having his ear twisted by the centurion. He is looking for the third person plural imperative ite - 'romani ite domum'.

[4] If we have for instance ete aśvāḥ (these horses) we would write it ete śvāḥ or we can use an apostrophe to indicate the missing letter ete 'śvāḥ; in Devanāgarī we might use the avagrāha एतेऽश्वाः

[5] The addition of -t- for roots with short vowels is regular: cf Macdonell A Sanskrit Grammar for Students. 182.a (pg.160).

[6] Sanskrit prati- can become either pati- or paṭi- and it's not clear in each case why. Maybe due to the influence of different dialects?

[7] E.g. Vin i.96, S v.374, A iii.405, A v.201.

[8] K.R. Norman has adopted this term coined by G.V. Davane in 1956. They are also called ‘unregelmässige’ (irregular) by J. Wackkernagel, and ‘anomalous’ by Whitney – see Norman 'Syntactical Compounds', (in collected papers) p.218.

[9] See note 72 in Norman The Group of Discourses, p.175; and Norman 'Syntactical Compounds'. I'm grateful to Dhīvan Thomas Jones for pointing out Norman's note in the Sutta Nipāta.

[10] M i.259. This appears to be the only occurrence of this phrase in the Pali Canon. The shorter phrase, paṭicca uppajjati, occurs a number of times throughout the nikāyas. I cannot find the obvious precursor: paṭicca samuppajjati.The Verb samuppajja- appears to occur only once in the Nikāyas at SN 36:12 (PTS S iv.219) in verses which accompany prose using uppajja-.

[11] See especially The Discourse on Conditions Paccayasuttaṃ (SN 12:20 PTS S ii.25-27)

My thanks to Dr Vincenzo Vergiani for pointing out several errors in a draft of this essay, all remaining errors are mine.


image: MarenYumi. Flickr, Creative Commons licence.

Philogical odds and ends II

Many words have interesting stories associated with them. This is a second set of terms which have caught my eye as having some interest, but which did not rate a whole post on their own.

In this entry: cakravartin, cintāmaṇi, yoniso manasikara, pāramitā, etymology.


Cakravartin

Sometimes translated as "Universal Monarch". Cakra is used for anything which goes around: a chariot wheel, or a potters wheel, but also more abstract concepts like the wheel of time, the way the universe cycles through periods. Varta is from √vṛt 'to turn', but the present form vartate can simply mean 'to be'. Related words in English are 'versus', and 'weird' (from wyrd 'that which comes'). The -in suffix is a possessive so vartin means 'one who turns'. A cakravartin, then, is 'one who turns the wheel' The image here is of the wheel of the monarch's war chariot - typically with two eight spoked wheels - rolling over the territory of his enemies (or indeed over his enemies). This is one of many royal terms that were taken over by śramaṇa groups presumably in order to enhance their prestige - just as military or business leaders nowadays have a "mission" statement, when originally it was the Jesuits who coined this term (from the Latin mittere "to send"). Another related example is the term jina (conquerer). Jina was an epithet for the leaders of the Jains. The term Jain is in fact an Anglicisation of jaina from the collective form of jina. Jina was also taken up by Buddhists. The very term dharma also has royal overtones. These associations were pointed out by Patrick Olivelle in several articles. (See Dharma - Early History)

Cintāmaṇi

This word is usually translated as 'wish fulfilling gem' but literally means gem (maṇi) of thought (cintā). Maṇi is usually translated as 'gem' but can apply to all kinds of precious objects; it also has anatomical uses (the head of the penis; the clitoris). Cintā is from the verbal root √cint 'to think' (and probably related to √cit 'to perceive'; whence citta 'the mind'). I'm still unsure of what the significance or connections are, though its use is not restricted to Buddhist texts. The word cintāmaṇi is also found in Indian alchemical texts, for instance, where it may represent something like the philosopher's stone. There is a related term found in some tantric sādhanas which is cintācakra which likewise is translated as the 'wish fulfilling wheel, but literally means 'wheel of thought'.

Yoniso Manasikara

This phrase is typically translated as "wise attention" but a glance at it suggests that this is more of an interpretation than a translation. Manas is of course 'mind'. Kara deriving from the verb √kṛ 'to make, to do'. Manasikara is a rare 'syntactical compound' where the the first element is in an inflected form. Manasi is a locative - the location of the verb action. So manasikara means 'doing in the mind', i.e. thinking or imagining. Yoniso comes from yoni - meaning 'womb' or 'vagina', but figuratively 'origin'. The -so suffix is another relatively rare form, the 'distributive' adverbial ending making yoniso mean 'according to the origin'.

Richard Gombrich (What the Buddha Thought) suggests that the original intent here is something like directing the mind towards origins, i.e. paying attention to the conditions for the arising of something, especially consciousness. We could translate it as 'thinking about origins'. Of course it is wise to do this kind of reflecting since it can result in understanding (jñāṇa) the nature (dharma) of experience as becoming (yathābhūta).

Thanks to Dayamati (Prof Richard Hayes) for pointing out the Manasikara is a syntactical compound - see comments.

For another take on this word see: (yoniso) manasi karotha. on the Theravadin blog.

Pāramitā

Pāramitā is a key Buddhist term. We probably know well enough what it means. However the derivation is complicated (though similar for Pāli and Sanskrit). The the verbal root is √pṛ which has two basic senses: 1. to bring over, to bring out (and therefore to deliver, rescue etc); and 2. to surpass, excel, the utmost. From this root we get the adjective para (also spelt pāra) meaning 'beyond, remote, other etc'. The superlative form of this is parama 'furthest, remotest etc'. The feminine abstract noun from parama is pāramī 'perfect, complete' - it's not clear in my sources why para- becomes pāra- at this point, though my sources seem certain about the route of derivation, and pārama is not in the dictionary. Then pāramita is the abstract noun derived from pāramī (with the suffix -ta), and the feminine gender form is pāramitā and means 'a state of perfection' or 'completeness' - hence we say that prajñāpāramitā means 'perfection of wisdom' meaning a state in which wisdom is perfect or complete. In Pāli pāramī and pāramitā are synonyms. A folk etymology exists which derives pāramitā from pāraṃ 'beyond' + itā 'gone' giving 'gone beyond' (in the feminine gender also) with -ṃ + i- > mi. Conze uses this etymology in his book Buddhist Wisdom Books (p.78) perhaps because it is the standard Tibetan etymology.

Etymology

Yes, even the word etymology has an etymology. It comes from Greek etymon 'true sense' and logos 'something said, topic of discourse, reasoning' so means the 'true sense of what is being said'. Of course the meaning of words, what they refer to, can change drastically over time: 'terrific' was not a good thing originally because it's original sense was 'terrifying'. And the idea of there being an absolutely 'true' meaning of a word is inconsistent with how words are actually used (in every language). But often the etymology combined with contextual information can help us to unravel what an unfamiliar word means.

When ancient Indians were presented with unfamiliar words - as is quite likely to happen when studying the Vedas for instance - they did not have dictionaries to consult and so if their knowledge of words and grammar failed them, they resorted to comparing the unfamiliar word with roots that sounded alike - being aware that the phenomenon of 'clustering' makes words with the same initial phoneme likely to be related in meaning. This procedure was formalised in India ca. 4th century BCE by Yaska in his work Nirukta. Plato was also aware of this phenomena (see his Cratylus dialogue) and in contemporary times the study of phonosemantics investigates it. A further interesting little fact is that the Japanese word for mantra - shingon 真言- means true (shin) words (gon).

See also

• Philological Odds and Ends I: tathāgata, sūtra, śramaṇa, loka, gahapati/gṛhapati.
• Philological Odds and Ends III: bodhisattva, anagārikā, samyak/mithyā (Pāli sammā/micchā)
  
• Philological Odds and Ends IV: vrata, mitra, kavi

Buddhism and God(s)

It is axiomatic for Buddhists that (so-called) Buddhism is an atheistic religion, though many academics will point out that the actions and attitudes of some Buddhists are practically indistinguishable from theism. Buddhism is an English term coined in the 19th century for people who follow the Buddha. The original followers called themselves savaka (the hearers) sakkaputta (Children of the Śakyan - the Buddha being a Śakyan by birth). The modern Indian term would be Bauddha, a collective noun along the lines of Śaiva (a follower of Śiva) and Jaina (a follower of the Jina).

The Buddhist relationship with gods is in fact quite complex. Throughout the Pāli canon gods of various sorts appear and at times are major players. Where would Buddhists be for instance is the Vedic creator god Brahmā (in the form of Brahmāsahampati) had not begged the Buddha to pass on what he learned under the Bodhi Tree? Indra is another Vedic god who plays important roles in many suttas and jātaka stories - though usually under his alias Sakka (Sanskrit Śakra).[1]

Early Buddhism was also cognisant of local deities. Hardly a page of the canon goes by without mention of yakkhas (Sankrit yakṣa) or nāgas for instance. Yakṣas are local chthonic deities who were worshipped in the villages by the ordinary people - such people were sometimes referred to by the Buddha as superstitious (maṅgalika). Then there are the Four Great Kings (Cattāro Mahārājāno) who also appear regularly. Some of them share names with the legendary figures, there is a king Dhṛtarāṣṭra in the Mahābhārata for instance.

All of these gods are shown as paying obeisance to the Buddha, and even his disciples. One of my favourite episodes from the Pāli canon is when Sāriputta goes home to see his orthodox Brahmin mother Sārī (Sāriputta means son of Sārī). She is scathing of him, his lifestyle and his friends and heaps abuse on them. (Nyanaponiika and Hecker, p.34) Later when he is very ill he visits her again and during the night he is visited by the Four Kings, Sakka and Mahābrahmā in turn, all of them wishing to wait on Sāriputta. Sāri is stunned to think that her son is being waited on by the gods she worships. Now she is receptive, Sāriputta gives her a Dhamma lesson and she attains to stream-entry (a state almost always reached by through hearing a dhamma lesson in the Canon [2]).

Sakka goes on to play a prominent role in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (the 8000 Line Perfection of Wisdom Discourse) where he is also portrayed as a disciple of the Buddha. The Four Kings similarly retain their role and even become important figures in their own right - especially Vaiśravaṇa, king of the north. The Golden Light Sutra (Suvarṇabhāṣottama Sūtra) features a number of other deities who offer dhāraṇī for the protection of the Buddha's followers. Sarasvati an important Vedic goddess appears, as does Lakṣmi who may be related to the goddess of luck Sirī that appears in some Jātaka stories, and who is not mentioned in the Vedas. [3]

The Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra introduces a new theme - the conversion of deities. Previously the gods just naturally seemed to pay obeisance to the Buddha, but in this text (from ca. 4th century CE) the god Śiva is converted to Buddhism by Avalokiteśvara. As far as I know there is no definite mention of Śiva in the Pāli texts. Studholme's tentative dating is supported by the appearance of Śiva on the scene since it coincides with the earlier dates suggested for the dominance of the Indian pantheon by Śiva. It is perhaps no coincidence that around this time Avalokiteśvara begins to assimilate Śiva's iconography and his name changes to be more like Śiva as well: from Avalokitasvara to Avalokiteśvara: ie from Avalokita + svara (Regarder of cries); to Avalokita + īśvara (Lord who looks down). Īśvara is an important epithet of Śiva. I have noted before how the former name (Kwan Yin in Chinese) tends to be retained in China because it was quite firmly established in Kumarajīva's translation of the White Lotus Sūtra (Sadharmapuṇḍarikasūtra) in the 4th cent.

However this conversion seems not to have stuck because in the late 7th century the Tantric text Sarvatathāgata-tattvasaṅgraha features a violent confrontation between Vajrapāṇi and Śiva - who here is called Maheśvara (mahā + īśvara; Great Lord). Śiva in this case refuses to submit, and in the end Vajrapāṇi slays him with a mantra, then revives him only to place his foot on Śiva's throat until he converts to Buddhism. Tantric art often shows Vajrapāṇi trampling on Śiva. Tantric Buddhism absorbed many Vedic and Hindu deities into it's pantheon and in particular they reinvigorated the worship of Agni through the various fire rituals (Homa).

So it seems clear that at all stages of it's development Buddhism acknowledged the existence of gods, or at least appears to have acknowledged the belief in gods. Ancient Indian Buddhists did not try to disprove the existence of gods as do today's atheists. However at every turn they are shown as inferior to the Buddha, and to Buddhists. Buddhists also mock the gods as inferior - the Kevaddha Sutta - DN 11 where Brahma is pretending to be an omnipotent god but cannot answer the Buddha's question and begs the Buddha not to show him up in front of the other gods.

If we followed the pattern we would simply acknowledge that Jehovah/Allah is a god, but point out the inconsistencies in the stories about him, and show why he is inferior to the Buddha - which should not be hard: the creator of samsara is clearly a terrible bungler. Design? Perhaps. Intelligent design? Pull the other one! The politics of the time might make this a little more dangerous for us than it was in the past with so many people willing to kill people for the crime of mockery. But mockery is developed to a high art in the UK and no one - not the Queen, the Prime Minister, the Archbishop of Canterbury nor even your best friend, and especially not one's self - is exempt. No one here can afford to take themselves too seriously! Indeed strident atheists are seen as just as reprehensible as strident religious fundamentalists.

Notes

1. The Dictionary of Pāli Names is a very useful source for references to gods. See for instance: Sakka.
2. Note that Peter Masefield, in his book Divine Revelation in Pali Buddhism, argues that this attainment could only take place in the presence of a Buddha. This is yet another example that the assertion is erroneous. See also my review. It is something to reflect on however, that stream-entry is almost always reached through listening to and reflecting on the dhamma, not through meditation.
3. On Sirī see Rhys Davids, T.W. 1903. Buddhist India. p.216ff.

Bibliography

• Nyanaponika and Hecker, Hellmuth. 1997. Great Disciples of the Buddha. Wisdom Publications.
• Studholme, Alexander. 2002. The Origins of oṃ maṇipadme hūṃ: A Study of the Kāraṇḍavyūha Sūtra. State University of New York Press.

Update 31 Jan 2014

A new study of religion in the USA by Pew Research reports (p.2):

• 65% of American Buddhists believe in a god of some kind, another 10% are agnostic. 
• 20% believe in a personal god.

This suggests that we need to revisit the idea that Buddhists do not believe in god. Clearly many Buddhists do believe in god. The problem for Modernist Buddhism is how to square that with our Scientific Rationalism. That Buddhism is a-theist is not a trivial proposition for most Modernist Buddhists in the developed world. 

Martyrs Maketh the Religion

I was not long a Buddhist when I first heard these words:

'Though only my skin, sinews and bones remain, and my blood and flesh dry up and wither away, yet will I never stir from this seat until I have attained full enlightenment." [1]

Stirring stuff; or perhaps it sounds like dangerous extremism? Many Buddhists admire this sentiment. But why? In May 2009 the New Scientist published an article titled: Suffering for your beliefs makes other believe too. [2] The article, by Bob Holmes, summarises the findings of a paper published by Joseph Henrich in which he looked at the impact of the sacrifices that religious leaders make, and how these sacrifices - including martyrdom - inspire their followers and create new converts. The more extreme the sacrifice the better, with actual martyrdom being a very powerful motivator. As Holmes says, with apparent irony: '...devotees who take vows of poverty or chastity are clearly putting their money where their mouth is', and in Henrich's words: 'Individuals sticking to such vows (or appearing to) increase their potency as transmitters of the faith.' (p.257) If on the other hand, Holmes says, they are unwilling to make sacrifices, then they make very little impact: 'observers - even young children - quickly pick up on this and withhold their own commitment'. And why is this important? Because the groups that coalesce around such leaders often offer advantages in terms of 'cooperation, solidarity and group success'.

I want to look at this in the light of stories about the Buddha's asceticism, the disappearance of Buddhism from India, and the possible fate of Buddhism in the decadent west.

It is axiomatic in all forms of Buddhism that self-torture is pointless and that causing harm to a living being (including one's self) is in contradiction of the fundamental values of Buddhism. [3] In my article on suicide in Early Buddhist texts (Western Buddhist Review, no.4) I noted the doctrinal problems caused by the suicide of Channa - he is not reborn after having cut his own throat. To not be reborn means he is an arahant; but an arahant could never harm himself. The commentaries invent the idea that Channa became an arahant in the moments between severing his carotid artery and his death, but it isn't very convincing.

One of the most important aspects of the biography/hagiography of the Buddha is that he abandoned his severe austerities and announced that they were not conducive to his goal of eliminating suffering. Even in contemporary India there are people who specialise in austerities: they inflict pain, often quite severe pain, on themselves in various ways. They do this publicly in order to attract the patronage of pious people, and they do find patronage and even followers. But the Buddha rejected all this. He tried it, he took it to the extreme short of actual death, and he found that it did not liberate him. Having given up self-torture he lived a simple, basic and chaste life. He did not seek out pain for the sake of purification, but did teach that physical pain had to be endured mindfully if it could not be avoided. So why, we might wonder, is this phase of his life when he conducted austerities celebrated? Why is it depicted in art? Why is it still marvelled at by Buddhists? My accompanying image this week is a Gandhāran style emaciated Buddha. Images such as this are still produced today and still purchased by pious Buddhists. But given that it represents the Buddha-to-be in error, what is the attraction? Perhaps Joseph Henrich has a point and our faith is enhanced by the knowledge of his suffering - even though it was all for nought?

As Buddhism progressed from being a tiny minority religion, mainly confined to a group of itinerant wanderers in Magadha, to being a large organised affair with universities boasting thousands of students and monasteries accumulating untold wealth, I wonder if Buddhism ceased to inspire the kind of faith that it had done. It is interesting and salutary to consider that Jainism was around before Buddhism, and it survived all the upheavals of Indian history, and is still a presence India to this day. What did they do differently? Perhaps it was that they maintained a public display of self sacrifice in the form of groups of naked ascetics who even today still indulge in austerities, who still seek out the supposed purification that pain brings. Self-torture was, after all, most likely originally a Jain practice which other groups adopted around the time of the Buddha or perhaps a little before.

What about contemporary Buddhism? We would need to look elsewhere to explain, for example, the popularity of Pureland style Buddhism such as Nichiren or Soka Gakkai which do not pursue strategies of austerity, the opposite if anything. However, if Henrich is correct, one can see why austere (and sometimes painful) Zen might have prospered. Similarly, from the point of view being explored here, we can see the appeal of Tibetan refugees who have given up everything, often endured great hardship and narrowly avoided death, while many that remained in Tibet were actually martyred. The Dalai Lama remains cheerful in the face of the worst provocation imaginable - it is not his celibacy which stands out, but his stoically persistent goodwill in the face of the destruction of his country, his religion and his people. Many Theravādin monks also gain credibility through their austerity - and especially in the 'forest' traditions for devotion to meditation.

Perhaps there is a danger in the affluent West that Buddhism becomes a comfortable middle-class preserve. I sometimes detect a hint of 'affluenza' in myself and my peers - the technophilic types who in addition to a computer have a iPod, cellphone, digital camera, nice clothes, newish car, comfortable house, pension plan etc. What Zorba the Greek called "the full catastrophe". Many of us read the lives of historical characters like Milarepa and find them inspiring to a point - not enough to make us give up everything and dedicate ourselves to meditation. Renunciation beyond a certain point is seen by most Western Buddhists as impractical - we often err far towards comfort when assessing the middle way! Even monks live in relative comfort. The old term for a renunciant was paribbajjaka, which means (more or less) 'vagrant'; but to be homeless in the modern West is not an honourable thing. We look on the homeless as victims; often as hapless drug addicts. Not the kind of company the average Buddhist seeks out or wants to emulate.

Perhaps we need to think about what might be inspiring to others about our own lives as currently lived? What have we sacrificed for our practice? I draw a lot of inspiration from my brothers and sisters in the Indian Sangha. They often work full-time for poor wages, live in sub-standard conditions, but still find time to be strongly engaged in Dhamma work: leading classes, giving talks, or contributing in some other way. Indian Dharmacārins are often willing to put their own needs to one side for the benefit of the many (bahujan hitay). They in turn are inspired by Dr Ambedkar who constantly strived for the benefit of his people, and in the end gave up everything to lead them out of the oppression they experienced as outcasts from Hindu society.

Clearly there is more than one way to inspire conversion and commitment. By embodying the positive values we espouse we can also be inspiring. But there must be a few of us at least who are willing to give up everything in order to practice and teach the Dharma - to give up family, career, status, possessions etc, to go the whole hog and totally commit themselves to the three jewels without holding anything back. We have to see what that's like, to have exemplars to inspire. Dr Henrich sees the religious leader as inspiring beliefs which are often counterintuitive. Seen from the point of view of ordinary social discourse the Buddhist ideal is clearly counterintuitive, but it is far from irrational. One can generally see that the more deeply a person practices Buddhism, the happier they are.

~~oOo~~

Notes

1. This is probably from Appativana Sutta (AN 2.5 PTS: A i 50) - thanks to Dharmacārin Viśvapāṇi for help locating the source. I'm not sure who is responsible for this translation, though it is quoted in Piyadassi's The Buddha : His Life and Teachings.
2. This is the title of the print article. The link is to the online version which for some reason has a different title: 'Religions owe their success to suffering martyrs'.
3. An exception to this rule is the bizarre practice of burning oneself, often at ordination, which is popular in East Asian Buddhism. I can only say that this seems to go against the stream of Buddhism generally, and the early Buddhist teachings specifically. It is interesting to note however that non-harming as an ethical principle emerged out of the same community which saw self-torture as the epitome of spiritual practice, and death by starvation as it's apotheosis: the Jains.

Bibliography

• Holmes, Bon. 'Suffering for your beliefs makes others believe too.' New Scientist. Vol. 202, no.2710. 30 May 2009. Partial article online under the title Religions owe their success to suffering martyrs.
• Henrich, Joseph (2009). 'The evolution of costly displays, cooperation, and religion: Credibility enhancing displays and their implications for cultural evolution.' Evolution and Human Behaviour, 30, 244-260. doi:10.1016/j.evolhumbehav.2009.03.005 [pdf]

The Economics of Abundance

Economics is the study of to the production, distribution and consumption of goods and services. It is also a practical discipline in which the means of production, distribution and consumption are manipulated by agents in the economy to their benefit. Economists and their ideas dominate our society and have done for at least 100 years. The most fundamental assumption of economics - I recall from having studied it many years ago - is that resources are scarce. Economics seeks to show how dynamics like 'supply and demand' affect price and availability of scarce resources, and from them goods and services, and how markets can be manipulated to the benefit of some individuals or groups in the economy.

But is this fundamental assumption accurate? Are resources scarce? A few months ago I wrote that one of the benefits of 10,000 years of civilisation, as well as one of the draw-backs, is a generalised surplus of food. [1] Months before that I commented on attitudes to obesity in the Western World. [2] How can anyone suggest that resources are scarce in a country where obesity is supposed to be the number one health problem? In fact we have a vast surplus of food and most people, including me, I have to admit, eat more than they need to. Indeed we have so much excess food in the UK that some authorities reckon that as much as 1/3 of food produced is wasted. [3] A rather contradictory picture emerges.

Resources are generally only scarce in the developed world because some people have far more than their fair share, and because we waste so very much of what we do have. Again in my blog 'Why Do We Suffer?' I mentioned that we tend to feel no sense of allegiance to strangers, no need to share our prosperity with them, and most of the people around us are strangers. There is not a great deal we can do about this because we have a limited capacity for human relationships - research suggests that we can keep track of about 150 personal relationships (one of the Dunbar Numbers). Some of us live in cities of millions, and the odds of meeting someone we know by chance can be very small indeed. Somehow we manage this. It's no surprise that the new technologies which have been most successful are the ones that help link people to their friends - internet and cell phones; or that drown out the pressing masses such as TV and media.

On the up side several of my friends work for charities and they report that on the whole people are generous with their money if asked for a contribution. I count myself fortunate to have grown up in, and to now live in, countries with welfare systems for the needy. To some extent we all contribute to the welfare of the many through taxes and other compulsory measures, but also through voluntary work.

But economics is set up to promote competition for scarce resources. The idea that unregulated markets will determine a fair price received what should have a death blow in 2009, as the extent of greedy speculation has been exposed, and the consequences are coming home to roost. But the problems were not new and financial markets had been producing scandals for at least a decade before the credit crunch - think of Enron back in 2001 for instance. The credit crunch shouldn't have been a surprise to us and the reasons that it was are relatively simple - greed at many levels, and an unwillingness to hear negative feedback. As far as I can see there is no sign that anything has fundamentally changed, and at least in the UK the main measures to pay for the excesses of the rich seem to be aimed at the the middle and the poor: bankers will still get multi-million pound bonuses, and the former Prime Minister, Tony Blair, has set up an elaborate company structure to avoid paying tax on the millions he earns as an individual these days. It's not just that the rich are getting richer, but more fundamentally the greedy are getting greedier!

What would the world be like if instead of competing for scarce resources we focussed on meeting basic needs first? If there is such a huge food surplus in the west then ought we not do something about redistributing it? Is competition the most important driver of progress? I recently came across an interview with Professor Lynn Margulis on BBC Radio. Margulis collaborated with James Lovelock in providing a scientific foundation for what is called the Gaia Hypothesis. In the BBC interview she debunked the idea that competition is the driving force of evolution. On the contrary Margulis argued that competition has "nothing to do with evolution". Evolution is driven by symbiosis and cooperation in her view, and the idolisation of competition is "rooted in Victorian patriarchal values". That eminent Victorian, Charles Darwin, was fascinated by the idea of competition weeding out the weaker members of the species for instance, and writes about it repeatedly in The Origin of Species, but seldom mentions cooperation. And yet where would the human race be if we did not cooperate? Economics is surely rooted in the same world view: survival of the fittest, and competition for resources weeding out the weakest competitors, with just a whiff of the idea that being a weaker competitor makes one somehow morally unworthy.

Just because an idea is ubiquitous and widely held to be true by pundits, does not always make it true. Does this, then, mean that I advocate communism? No, I don't advocate any kind of political system - attempts to implement communism have all run into the same problems that capitalist governments have struck. The problems are related to the fundamental problems of greed and hatred. It is not so much that the system is at fault, but the values which underpin it. I note that Marx was also a Victorian. The problem is this view that resources are scarce and that competition is the best way to ensure fair distribution of them. Both premises are demonstrably false: I live in a country with massive surpluses of basic commodities; and competition has consistently encouraged the greedy to be more greedy to the detriment of everyone. The same is true, I think, in most of the developed world. Ironically the other great trend of Victorian times was philanthropy and I associate it particularly, because of my former profession, with free public libraries. Now there is a model for building an enlightened society!

1. Director of the British Museum, Neil MacGregor, makes much the same point about the abundance of food post the last ice-age because of improvements in agriculture in one of series of vignettes from the A History of the World in 100 Objects "Bird-shaped Pestle". See http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00nrtd2
   
2. see my essay: Who's in Charge?; Dayamati has recently written on obesity in the USA: The Empire Strikes Fat.
3. On food wastage in the UK see: 'Food wastage on a staggering scale' BBC Website. 2008; 'Campaign launched to reduce UK's £8bn food waste mountain'. The Guardian, 2007.
   

image: supply and demand curve from www.debunkingeconomics.com.

Sobornost & and the meaning of Sangha

Some years ago Sangharakshita remarked that he could not find a word in any European language to describe the kind of sangha or spiritual community he envisioned "unless the Russian sobornost comes near it to some extent". [1] The term sobornost (cоборность) was used by the Russian linguist and poet Alexis Stepanovich Khomiakov [2] to describe the togetherness brought about by the presence of the Holy Spirit in the Orthodox church. Its etymological root is the verb sbrat, 'to gather together'. The suffix -ost is similar in meaning to the English suffix -ness. In fact sobornost is used in the Slavonic version of the Nicene Creed for 'catholic' in the sense of 'universal'. However Khomiakov took it to mean much more than this: "[it] denotes a perfect organic fellowship of redeemed people united by faith and love". [3] He contrasted sobornost with the authoritarian unity of the Roman Church which denied the individual, and the fragmented individualism of the Protestant Church.

Sangharakshita also referred to spiritual community in terms of a 'third order of consciousness'. The defining characteristic of the group is the submergence of the individual will in the group. When an individual threatens to disrupt the continuity of the group it will act to neutralise them: usually either by elimination or assimilation - sometimes it will both eat them up, and shit them out. The spiritual practitioner must leave behind the group and become a true individual - they must know their own mind, understand their values and attitudes and be prepared to personally live with the consequences of their actions. On the other hand individualism can be a dead end if it is self-referential. Individualists cannot agree on what is of value and so fail to offer each other support. The third order of consciousness begins to emerge when the individual realises that others share their values and ideals and they begin to live in virtuous harmony on the basis of those shared values. This may include working together to achieve goals, or like Anuruddha and his companions they may just live together in harmony blending like milk and water. [4] Individual will is not lost or submerged, but there is a coincidence of wills because of an engagement with the highest ideals and values of each. Like Khomiakov we seek not an enforced unity, nor complete independence - but a mutually responsive interdependence.

Our abstract values find concrete expression in the various sets of precepts which Buddhists attempt to follow. In the Triratna Buddhist Order we take a set of ten precepts traditionally known as the 'ten helpful actions' (dasakusalakammā), these recur throughout the Pāli Canon. [5] As you may know we use both the Pāli version in which we undertake to avoid unhelpful (akusala) actions, and an English version of Sangharakshita's devising in which we undertake to cultivate the helpful (kusala) counterparts. Of these precepts, both negative and positive, three are directed at the body, four are for speech, and three concern the mind. One way of looking at the precepts is to think of them as ideal behaviour - they represent a set of behaviours that could be expected of a Buddha. And in undertaking to follow the precepts we are seeking to align ourselves with the virtuous behaviour of a Buddha. This has two effects. On one hand it helps to prepare the mind for meditation, and indeed some suttas tell us that freedom from remorse (the benefit and reward of acting virtuously) is the beginning of the path to liberation from greed, hatred and delusion.[6] On the other hand the practice of precepts is not just preparatory but can be seen to be the path itself. If we continually try to behave like the Buddha, we are transformed by this practice. This is the idea behind the pāramitās or perfections. If we could perfect our behaviour - in body, speech, and mind - then we would in effect be a Buddha. So the precepts are not just normative, they are transformative (more than meets the eye).

Coming back to sobornost and the sangha we can say that, in Buddhist terms, sobornost is experienced when a collective of true individuals are aligned with their values by operating through the ethical precepts. Through harmonising in this way the community itself becomes greater than a simple sum of it's members alone. Yes, we must all become individuals, but if we are individualists then we we only sing our own tune and cannot harmonise. Equally we must be free to associate or not else the harmony is forced and therefore brittle and unstable.

An analogy that occurs to me is the laser. Laser, as you may know. is an acronym for 'light amplification by the stimulated emission of light'. Some substrate is stimulated - it might be a rod of ruby, or a container of gas, or a lump of semiconductor; and it might be stimulated by an electrical discharge, or an intense flash of light, or even by physical stress. Then rather than emitting photons across a spectrum of frequencies (roughly a range of colours) and in every direction of space - the substrate emits photons (particles or 'packets' of light) all of the same frequency or colour, all in the same direction. What's more the oscillations of each photon, the electro-magnetic fields, line up and reinforce each other. When they all move together in this way the photons, all the same frequency, all in the same direction, and all in step, then the energy they carry is concentrated into a much smaller area. The intensity of laser light can be so much as to melt steel, but at lower intensities laser 'beams' can be focussed to microscopic spots for use in CD and DVD players. Think also of the resonance effects we see in bridges. Many people walking instep can cause what seem like very strong structures made of steel to resonate and vibrate to the point of causing damage and even destruction. Soldiers always break step when crossing bridges for this reason.

Being together on the basis of our highest ideals and cherished virtues we are lifted above what we might achieve on our own - virtue is also subject to resonance effects! In Sobornost the individual does not assert themselves but does what they can to manifest the ideals of the Sangha. We are all lifted up together. It is the most beautiful and fulfilling form of human relationship.


Notes.

1. 'The Bodhisattva Principle' in Sangharakshita The Priceless Jewel. Windhorse Publications, 1993. p.155. Originally an address to the Wrekin Trust's 6th Annual Mystics and Scientists Conference, 'Reality, Consciousness and Order', 1983.
2. The print edition of the Encyclopædia Britannica (remember print?) has a useful summary of the life and work of Alexis Stepanovich Khomiakov (1804-1860).
   
3. Britannica vol.6 p.840
4. This story is in the Upakkilesa Sutta, Majjhima Nikāya 128 (PTS M iii.152).
5. See for instance: DN 5, MN 114, AN 10.178-197. These ten precepts are also found in Mahāyāna texts and are used in the Shingon School.
   
6. See especially: Kimatthiyasuttaṃ, Aṅguttara Nikāya 10.1 'The Benefits of Virtue'

image: members of the Triratna Buddhist Order gathered in front of the Bodhi Tree in Bodhgaya, 2009.

Triratna Buddhist Order

On the 6th of January I received an email from the founder of our Order, Sangharakshita, [1] explaining that he was changing the name of the Order from the Western Buddhist Order to the Triratna Buddhist Order.

There were a number of factors behind this momentous decision. It was increasingly anachronistic to call us 'Western' when about a quarter of the order live in India, and we have groups and centres in Eastern Europe and other places which might not think of themselves as 'Western': Turkey for instance! When we started off in 1968 'Western' was quite appropriate, but now we are a global order. In India we had even more problems because the Order there was called Trailokya Bauddha Mahāsaṅgha (the Great Buddhist Order of the Triple-World). Having two different names for the Order was always problematic as we only have one ordination, and was a bit confusing at times - I noticed this at the Order Convention in India for instance. Also the word trailokya was not understood outside Buddhist circles in India - I doubt whether many westerners knew what it meant either. It seemed that we really needed a single name for the whole Order and that it was one that would be widely comprehensible.

The Order itself has been aware of these problems for many years - Viśvapāṇi wrote about it in 1995 for instance: Finding a Name for the FWBO (interestingly he suggested Triratna Buddhist Order way back then!) However because we aim to operate by consensus, and this was a difficult issue to find a consensus on, the discussion bogged down. We did almost change the name of the Order to 'Buddhayāna' about ten years ago until it was pointed out that there was already a Buddhist group with this name. Towards the end of 2009 some members of the Order in India asked Sangharakshita to step in and make a decision for us as the founder of the Order because they felt the situation in India was urgent. And that is what he did. Now that he has made the change, my sense is that most people are happy to put this issue behind us and look to the future.

So now there is just one name for the Order, though it will, of course, be translated into various languages - for instance in Hindi it will be Triratna Bauddha Mahāsaṅgha. Triratna is usually translated as 'three jewels' (more on this shortly). It solves the problem with trailokya in India as it is the same in Hindi, and is also reasonably well know in the Buddhist world. Also because Triratna is Sanskrit, that part will be the same all over the world - it will be the part of the name that is not translated and therefore universal.

I can immediately see the appeal of the name. As an Order we emphasise going for refuge to the three jewels above any particular beliefs or practices. The three jewels are, of course, the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. These represent the ideal of enlightenment, the foundations on which enlightenment is attained, and the guides and companions on the path. [2] On our kesa, or symbolic robe, [3] we have an emblem of three jewels on a lotus, wreathed in flames which symbolise transformation (see accompanying image).

Triratna (Pāli tiratana) is a type of compound known as dvigu (literally 'two-cow') where the stem form of the number is affixed to the item being counted. This avoids having to work out the appropriate inflection for the number, though the inflection of the compound must reflect the number (Sanskrit retains a dual number as well as singular and plural). So 'tri-' just means three - both the Sanskrit and English words are some of the least changed from their Indo-European roots. [4] Ratna probably stems from a verbal root √rā 'to give'. A ratna was originally a 'precious gift'. In some Pāli texts there are lists of seven ratana: suvaṇṇa, rajata, muttā, maṇi, veḷuriya, vajira, and pavāla - that is: gold, silver, pearls, crystal, lapis lazuli, diamond, and coral. Other precious substances such as ruby, beryl, and cat's eye were also known, and maṇi can be used as a general term for a gem-stone. It's clear from this list that 'jewels' is only a part of what ratna refers to. The three jewels, then, can be thought of as 'the three precious gifts', which appeals to me very much!

We formalise our relationship to these precious gifts by reciting the ancient Pāli formula:

buddhaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi
dhammaṃ saraṇaṇ gacchāmi
saṅghaṃ saraṇaṃ gacchāmi

I go to the Buddha who is a refuge
I go to the Dhamma which is a refuge
I go to the Sangha which is refuge

Note that the verb is √gam (stem gaccha), and the conjugation is 1st person singular present indicative - 'I go' or 'I am going' (not 'I take'). Going for refuge is an individual act of will, it can't be done for you, and the refuges can't be 'given' to you, except perhaps by a Buddha. The standard translation is 'I go to the Buddha for refuge', but because both buddha and saraṇa are in the same case (accusative) it would be usual to read one as an attribute of the other as I have done here. Saṅgha is also in the singular - our refuge is the ārya-saṅgha as a whole, not any individual member of it.

With the name Triratna Buddhist Order we are saying three things. First, that we are an order, i.e. an ordained collective who share spiritual ideals and disciplines. [5] Second, that we are Buddhists - we go for refuge to the three jewels. We broadly share our values and methods with other Buddhists, and see our selves as belonging to that broad and sometimes contradictory range of traditions stemming from the Buddha. Third, that we identify more with the three precious gifts themselves than with any sectarian expression of Buddhism - i.e. with any particular lineage, philosophy, practice, or national and/or cultural expression of Buddhism. The three precious gifts themselves are the most important things to us.

Personally I hope that we do not slip into our old habit of using initials for our name. The name reminds us of who we are and what we are about, and using an acronym hides that. Also because the name is translated the initials are different in different countries. In his 1995 article Viśvapāṇi (somewhat prophetically) suggested we refer to ourselves as 'Triratna Buddhists', and I hope that this might catch on. Another thing about acronyms is that they suggest haste - we are in a hurry to say the name and move on, so we abbreviate it, thereby rendering it meaningless like some mere marketing slogan, rather than an expression of our highest ideals and values. It would be more consistent with our vision to linger over names, and revel in long descriptive names. This is one of the advantages to having awkward sounding Sanskrit names for Order Members - one has to slow down, to linger over them, to explain, to practice patience and contentment. Attention to pronunciation also encourages mindfulness. So let us be the Triratna Buddhist Order, not the TBO, please!

As far as I am aware nothing except the name of the Order has changed. The ordination itself remains the same, and no one need be re-ordained. We call our ordination a (or 'the') Dharmacārī/Dharmacāriṇī Ordination. [6] Dharmacārin is an adjective - 'he who walks the path'. Perhaps we will come to think of ourselves as Triratna Dharmacārins. In Sanskrit I think this would be a single compound triratnadharmacārin 'a walker of the path of the three precious gifts'. Though it is grammatically masculine, gender is not predicated on natural gender in Pāli and Sanskrit - saṅgha, for instance, is also grammatically masculine.

Lastly, but not leastly, I must mention that the Order has an auxiliary movement historically called the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order, or sometimes simply 'The Friends' or 'The Movement'. Sangharakshita originally expressed a wish that we change the name of The Friends to '...of the Triratna Buddhist Order'. Then as a result of a suggestion from some Centre Chairs he opted for Triratna Buddhist Community. Each centre of The Friends is legally and organisationally autonomous so they needed to decide for themselves how to respond to this. The suggestion has been taken up and the Friends of the Western Buddhist Order will officially become the Triratna Buddhist Community on Buddha Day, 28 May 2010. Personally I could see a time when our centre names also reflect the change - the Cambridge Triratna Buddhist Centre for instance.

I written a blog post about the relationship between the Triratna Order and Community, how each functions and some of the main institutions of each: Triratna Buddhist Order and Community.

(This post has been edited several times, most recently on 7 July 2010)

Notes

1. The Anglicised Sanskrit spelling of Sangharakshita's name is firmly established (though he got it in Pāli). A more accurate spelling would be Saṅgharakṣita i.e सङ्घरक्षित, though Saṃgharakṣita would also be acceptable. The name means 'protected by the saṅgha' (rakṣita being a past-participle from √rakṣ 'to protect').
   
2. We do not go for refuge to the Bhikkhu Saṅgha and I would argue that to do so is a mistake. It's clear in Pāli texts that the Saṅgha Refuge is the Ariya-saṅgha, i.e. those people who have already attained the fruits of stream entry whether or not they are ordained - the focus is on practice rather than lifestyle!
3. kesa (Japanese) 'a robe'. Our kesa is modelled on those worn in Zen schools and is a strip of cloth worn over the neck. The word comes (via Chinese chia-sha) from kaṣāya 'red/orange/yellow' which referred to the robes Buddhist bhikṣus wore - the colour came not from expensive saffron, but from dirt, and was to make the white cloth not worth stealing! The Sanskrit word for robe is cīvara. Order members wear a white kesa, unless they have taken the brahmacarya precept when they wear a gold kesa.
4. There is a tendency for English speakers to pronounce 'tri' as 'chri'. The 't' is a true dental, pronounced with the tip of the tongue on the tip of the teeth; the 'r' is tapped (the motion is very like pronouncing 'l' but the tongue makes contact after the vocalisation has started). Opinions vary on the quality of the vowel. my suggestion is to pronounce it like 'tree' (but again not chree) - but not as long. The next syllable 'ra' is stressed so don't emphasise the 'tri'.
   
5. I've written at some length about the word 'order' and why the Triratna Buddhist Order is an order, and the ceremony by which we join it is an ordination. See my essay - Ordination : A Contested Term.
6. Dharmacārin is the stem form, though in the Order we still regularly use the nominative singular- Dharmacārī and Dharmacāriṇī. The stem is in fact masculine or neuter in gender rather than genderless as I have previously suggested.

Other Resources

• Changing Our Name to Triratna Buddhist Community. (mp3) Watch a video of the talk. Padmavajra's Talk at the Triratna International Retreat on May 31st 2010.
• Triratna Buddhist Order and Community. The nomenclature structure of the community, and of the order, and some of the main institutions that make up both.
  

Nāmapada. A guide to Sanskrit and Pali names used in the Triratna Buddhist Order. Definitions and etymologies for almost 500 words and affixes. Background on the Sanskrit and Pali languages and relevant points of grammar and morphology.

main image: the Triratna emblem from a Triratnadharmacārin's kesa.