Tracing ‘inequality’: An examination of the ārāmikas and the concept of kamma in Buddhist sources

Though there is no doubt that Buddhism as a social philosophy is more humane and sympathetic to oppressed groups than orthodox Brahmanical tradition, yet the ideal society envisaged by the Buddha, where the righteous ruler would abolish destitution and ensure means of subsistence to all sections of his people, remained elusive. ¹ Provision of equal treatment is the basic facet of social justice. How this facet was addressed by the Buddha or in the early texts is a moot question. In the Indian context, the question of social philosophy of Buddhism, the position of dāsa-karmakara (slave-servant) and the Sociology of Stratification from Buddhist sources have been deftly dealt with by Uma Chakravarti in her seminal essays. ² Gregory Schopen’s pioneering studies on the monastic situation, ³ like looking at the Buddha as owner of properties, issues relating to ownership of servants in monasteries, etc., has opened up new avenues of research. Nevertheless, there is still some scope left to trace new data, discuss afresh the already known ones and investigate the Buddha’s and Buddhist attitude and practices towards fairness of treatment and inequality. Keeping this in mind, this essay proposes to examine the presence of a category of servants or slaves called ārāmikas in monasteries, as also the Buddha’s idea of kamma or karma for a better life.

Thanks to the seminal work of Dev Raj Chanana, ⁴ we are well aware of the kind of slavery that was prevalent during what Chanana calls the ‘Buddhist Epoch’. One must not also forget U.N. Ghoshal’s study of ‘Ancient Indian Slavery’, ⁵ where he also addresses the question of slavery in the period of early Buddhist literature.

In Buddhist literature of all kinds, stock descriptions of wealth, even that gifted to the Buddha, regularly list male and female slaves. To cite an example, we have the case of the distribution of the estate of a householder from Śravasti who left a written will donating all his possessions to the Jetavana monastery. The property was to be divided by the Buddha and he kept the male and female slaves along with some other possessions for the community of monks from the four directions. ⁶ The term generally used for slave in early India was dāsa. The Dīghanikāya Ammhakathā ⁷ mentions four types of dāsa: (a) in-born (antojāta), (b) purchased (dhanakkita), (c) taken by force or brought from another country (karamarānita) and (d) voluntary (samamdāsavyam upagatā). The Vinaya enumerates the first three. Obviously, the text is talking about the prevalent categories in society. The jātakas abound in depiction of slaves in the houses of rulers, seṭṭhis (merchants) and gahapatis (householders). Prices of slaves are also mentioned. ⁸ It is evident that in principle the Buddha did not subscribe to the institution of dāsa. The Buddha had initially outlawed the practice of accepting dāsa or dāsi by monks in the Lakkhanasutta of Dīghanikāya, though later on attendants and servants were given entry to the monastery. However, there is no evidence to show that the Buddha denounced the institution of dāsa per se or regarded it as a social evil. The Buddha dealt with the problem of slavery in two ways. First, by rejecting the idea of superiority or inferiority based on one’s birth and, secondly, by arguing that the decisive factor behind superiority or inferiority is one’s moral behaviour and not birth.

Uma Chakravarti argues that

the only possibility of an effective escape from the inegalitarian and hierarchical structure of society envisaged by the Buddha was in the institution of saṅgha. The saṅgha was devised as a parallel society where one could construct, with immediate effect, a new structure of relations. ⁹

The saṅgha was theoretically thrown open to all regardless of the social origin of the entrants. But there was a caveat—runaway slaves could not be ordained unless they received manumission. In other words, slaves needed to be free from their shackles first in order to enter the saṅgha. ¹⁰ Now why was it so? Will it be wrong to think that the Buddha did not want to annoy the upper elements like rulers, seṭṭhis, gahapatis and the like for whom the slaves worked? Gahapatis enjoy a special category in the Buddhist texts: they are an inherent part of the kula (family) scheme and they were owners and controllers of the primary means of production in the form of land. They were thus the major employers of labour and so there was always a possibility that a run-away slave could come from the house of a gahapati. From N.K. Wagle’s seminal work on society during the time of the Buddha, ¹¹ we know of a separate social group called seṭṭhi-gahapati and the high position of seṭṭhis and gahapatis in the eyes of early Buddhism. These gahapatis and seṭṭhis were patrons of the Buddha and it is understood that by allowing the slaves to enter into the saṅgha the Buddha did not want either to distance the gahapati, seṭṭhi and king from the saṅgha or to interfere in the established set of socio-economic obligations. To maintain a balance, it is said that he advised people to have a correct attitude towards the serving population. However, contradiction prevails when, on the one hand, the desire for properly treating the serving people is brought out, it being said that a silavati woman behaves correctly towards her slaves, and, on the other, in the descriptions of the six quarters, he places the dāsas in the lower quarter, the hetthimā disā (according to the commentary it is the feet, where the base palitthana is). ¹² He asked members of the servile class to be obedient to their masters for their salvation lay in complete obedience. Herein comes the doctrine of kamma and the division of kamma and sippa into low (hina) and high (ukkatta) in the Vinaya texts. ¹³ This doctrine of Buddhism maintains that one’s own actions dictate the fruits that one will enjoy in the future for better or for worse. Thus, in the area of social and economic divisions, the distinctions between rich and poor, and between high and low families, were implicitly accepted although not explicitly endorsed. Meritorious actions and alms giving would ensure rebirth in the families of khattiyas (Kshatriyas), Bāhmaṇas and gahapatis. It can be argued that this whole idea of rebirth in high families through meritorious deeds, instead of bridging the gulf between the high-born and low-born, merely raises the aspiration of low-born to be born in a family of some status. The donative records of the early historical period are replete with instances of donations of stūpa and kupa (well) or donations to monks and monastic institutions. Through the principle of kamma, Buddhism accepted an ideological justification for the existence of social hierarchy. All sects of Buddhism encouraged such donations which in return secured merit for the donor.

In early Mahāyāna Buddhism another way to accumulate merit and, finally, nirvāna, was to make Buddha images in clay ¹⁴ or erect stūpas. Here too we notice that privilege was given to a person born of a uchcha kula (high family). It is said in the Pratityasamudpāda Sūtra,

If a devoted son or daughter of good family were to make on an un-established place a stūpa the size of an āmalaka fruit—with a yaṣṭii the size of a needle and an umbrella the size of a bakula flower—and were to put in it the verse of the Dharma relic of Pratityasamutpāda, he or she would generate brahmic merit (Brahmapuṇyam prasavet). ¹⁵

The Bodhigarbhlaṅkāra recommends the practice to ‘monks, nuns, lay men and lay women’ and again ‘sons or daughters of good family’. ¹⁶ The idea behind the insertion of dhāraṇis is explained in an inscription which states that the construction of a single caitya (stūpa) with a deposit of a dhāraṇi inside it confers on the donor the merit of the erection of one lakh of Tathagata caityas. The repeated mention of good family by Buddha raises a question. How do we qualify good family? We know that the term kula has been generally used to denote the family. ¹⁷ There are a number of ways in which the kula figures as a unit in the system of stratification in Buddhist society. It has been shown by Wagle that there were four kulas, khattiya, brāhmaṇa, vessa and sūdra. ¹⁸ Those who are born in high kulas (uchcha kula) are identified as the khattiya, brāhmaṇa and the gahapati. This then indicates that making of tablets was a prerogative only of the people belonging to high kula if we take the expression kula putta used in the inscription as signifying the son of a noble family (it has been translated as noble).

Coming back to the notion of slavery, we find that apart from the ubiquitous term ‘dāsa’ for slave, the Vinaya texts like Mahāvagga and Kulavagga mention a category of servants/slaves called ārāmikas in the context of monasteries. Gregory Schopen from a study of the two Vinayas, the Mahāviharin and the Mulasarvastivādin, also shows the presence of a category of property, viz. slaves, also known as ārāmikas, owned by monasteries. ¹⁹ The term ārāmika literally comes from ārāma taken in the sense of a pleasure garden or a monastery where the ārāmika works. How the ārāmikas became a part of the monastery is explained in a tradition from Mahāvagga. ²⁰ The story relates to one venerable monk Pilindavachcha and is set in the landscape of Rājagriha. It is said that on watching Pilindavachcha turning a cave into dwelling place all by himself, the Magadhan ruler Bimbisāra offered him the help of an ārāmika. The monk then went to the Buddha to seek his permission for a monastery attendant, and the Blessed One said, ‘I allow, monks, a monastery attendant’. The story goes that Bimbisāra forgot his promise and later on when he remembered 500 days had passed by and finally to keep his promise to the venerable monk he gave Pilindavachcha 500 ārāmikas. Interestingly, an entire new village was created for the settlement of these ārāmikas known as ārāmikagāma. It was also called Pilinda-gāma. It is said that Pilindavachcha depended upon the families living in that village. Later on ārāmikas formed a part of gifts made to the monastery along with medicines, mats, utensils, etc. Through this story the ārāmikas make an entry into the Buddhist monasteries with the consent of the Blessed One. That the ārāmikas became a part of the monastery as attendants is also evident from Chullavagga ²¹ where they are referred to in the context of Bhikkhus about to leave the vihāra. That there was an increase in the number of ārāmikas is evident from the fact that to supervise the works of ārāmikas we have reference to ārāmikas pessaka (superintendent of the ārāmikas). ²² Elaborating the rules regarding the use of ārāmikas, Buddhaghosha foresees the situation when due to lack of work in the monasteries they could go and work elsewhere. ²³

Sri Lankan inscriptions refer to donations of ārāmikas to monasteries by the royalty in large numbers. ²⁴ A hundred helpers and three villages were granted by Aggabodhi’s fourth queen Jeṭṭhā to a nunnery built by her. Gunawardhana writes, ‘in Sri Lanka ārāmikas were at times granted in large numbers— Aggabodhi I granted a hundred ārāmikas to the Kandavihara … Kassapa IV granted aramikagamas to the hermitages he built.’ ²⁵ Thus, granting of ārāmikas by royalty was a common phenomenon in Sri Lanka.

Schopen points out that there is not a single instance from Indian inscriptions to the gift of ārāmikas in any of the numerous Indian royal donations of land and villages to Buddhist monastic communities, nor does the term ārāmikagāma occur anywhere in the literary sources, the story of Pilindavachchha having a Sri Lankan origin. ²⁶ While this may be true, it needs to be mentioned that we have one inscription from Bharhut which mentions a person called Veduka who was an ārāmika. Inscription no. B72 (756) ²⁷ has been read as: 1. Susupāla Koḍāyo 2. Veḍuko a-3. rāmako (ārāmaka or ārāmika), or Susupāla, the Koḍāyo, the park-keeper/monastery servant Veḍuka). These two persons are onlookers of a scene narrated in the sculpture. Interestingly, perhaps the same Veḍuka is mentioned in the next inscription no. B 73 (707) which says ‘Veḍuko katha dohati Naḍode pavate’ (Veḍuka milks/rinses the tattered garment on Mount Naḍoda). ²⁸ Here a description of the sculpture would be in order. A man is seen squatting on the ground. With both hands he holds the two ends of a cloth-like object which is suspended from a tree. He is evidently ‘rinsing’ them in a small basin held between his knees. The sculptor has even represented the stream of liquid gushing out. Katha has been identified with Kānthā, the clothing of religious mendicant. This representation clearly points to the status of Veduka, an ārāmika (servant) perhaps in a monastery. Thus this inscription from Bharhut shows that ārāmikas were present as early as second century BC in India. But it is important to remember that personal possession of an ārāmikas by a monk is forbidden by the Buddha. ²⁹

While talking to his monks, the Buddha often speaks about the inferiority of non-Buddhist ascetics. ³⁰ Their doctrines are either false or insignificant, their practices useless or even harmful. During his conversation with the non-Buddhist ascetic Kassapa as described in the Kassapa Sihanāda Sutta, we find that when Kassapa remarks that it is very hard to become a true ascetic, the Buddha without contradicting Kassapa makes it very clear that anybody, whether from a high status or a low status, could perform ascetic practices. He remarks ‘It would be quite posible for a house holder or for the son of a house holder or for any one down to the slave girl who carries the water jar to perform these practices’ (sakka ca pan’etam abhavissa katum gahapatina vā gahapatiputtena vā antamaso kumbhadāsiya pi). ³¹ Overcoming greed and delusion is the hallmark of a true ascetic. Here the Buddha uses polemics to disparage and belittle the hardships of other ascetics which in a way is an attempt to establish the superiority of his own mode of conduct. Moreover, here the polarity of social status between the gahapati and the kumbhadāsi also comes alive through the words of the Buddha himself when the kumbhadāsi is placed at the anta. It would not be out of place here to mention that according to Buddhaghosha a kumbhadāsi is pretty; she dances and sings well and in later texts like the Apadana, kumbhadāsi and ganika are juxtaposed. Thus gradually kumbhadāsi began to be used in a pejorative sense. ³²

The Vinayas are very clear about the fact that ārāmikas are persons who engage in physical labour for personal needs of the monks. A donation of five hundred ārāmikas surely represents a conventional number but it affirms large scale use of non-monastic labour in the monastery. The texts were redacted around first or second century AD while the Bharhut inscription attests the presence of ārāmikas in second century BC. Slavery lies at the extreme end of inequality, and one may ask whether the ārāmikas were treated not very differently from slaves. In our present state of knowledge, they appear more as monastic servants than slaves. We have references to numerous dāsas/dāsis, in the outside world, mentioned on the basis of their origin, the manner of their acquisition, etc. However, with respect to the monastery, though the monks were allowed to take helpers, the term dāsa is never used for their attendants. By using a more decent and pleasant term ārāmika in case of the saṅgha was there an attempt to mask the vulgarity of exploitation that is associated with the term dāsa? We need to probe more in this regard. Monasteries continued to employ servants and the Chinese traveller I-tsing tells us of hired servants, male and female, working on lands of Buddhist monasteries in India. ³³

Note

That the ārāmikas could be seen outside the Buddhist monastery or a garden is evident from a recent study by Ingo Strauch, Foreign Sailors in Socotra, Bremen 2012: 106, 146), of a rich corpus of Indic inscriptions found in the Hoq island of Socotra in the western Indian Ocean. Within this varied corpus two inscriptions bear reference to ārāmikas. In inscription no. 7:4, we have Ārā[mi]ko, ‘gardener’ and inscription no. 11:30 we have ‘āramiko Skado,’ the ‘gardener’ Skada (Sanskrit Skanda). Ārāmika has been translated as a gardener which is of course one of the meanings of the term. Alternatively, if we take the term in the sense of a monastic servant, then following Buddhaghosha’s predictions it is possible to imagine that these ārāmikas were the ones who set out to the sea in search of a better future due to lack of work in the monastery where they served. Significant is the presence of a voyaging ‘sramana’ too in the Hoq island inscriptions along with many others with Buddhist leanings. So it would not be completely out of place for an ārāmika as a monastery servant accompanying one of the Śramanas and reaching Socotra. I am indebted to Professor Ranabir Chakravarti for drawing my attention to these references.