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The Buddhist Social Revolution

Buddhism was a social revolution. The sharpest dimension of the break that the Buddha made with Brahamanism was in his understanding of social institutions. In the Buddist view, since there was no creator, all social institutions were arrangements which men made. Private property, the family, occupational categories and kingship originated in human social arrangements. Both Kingship and Caste were considered divinely ordained in Brahmanism. Buddhism opened up immense possibilities for recording social arrangements. The impulse and legitimation for reordering social arrangements could also come from the Buddhist emphasis on change. For example, if everything was permanently in a state of change, varna divisions and despotic kingship could also change. It was in conceptualising the new social arrangements that the bases of Buddhist social philosophy may be discerned.

In response to the contradictions that the bases of Buddhist social philosophy may be discerned. In response to the contradictions of society in his age Buddhism also recognised the direction of historical forces. For example, while the breakdown of the earlier traditions of clan-based societies could not be reversed, they provided models for the Buddhist sungha. In the Buddist sungha all were equal regardless of their origins; there was no individual property and all decisions were taken through consensus or voting.

However, this egalitarian order applied only to the bhikkhus, i.e. to the samana who renounced both family and property to pursue salvation goals. In the world outside the sangha, Buddhism did not envisage radical rearrangements. Buddhism introduced norms which by emphasising charity, self control, and moderation, moderated the excesses of an exploitative economic order. Buddhist ethics requireda reciprocal 'giving'; masters should treat those who worked for them well, in return for which their servants would word hard for their masters. These norms would however require no re-ordering of the existing economic order in which some had too much, others too little. Similarly kingship was to be exercised according to dhamma moderating the despotic goverance of existing rulers

Buddhism was a revolt against caste, for men from all castes were admitted to the monastic order, and in the discourses of Buddha himself and others the distinction of caste is pronounced to be entirely worthless. Buddhism was against the Brahmanic social order. It was against the caste based social inequality. As it emerged as a response against the Brahmanic cult in the ancient India, in contemporary India Buddhism has been used as the instrument of eradication of ascribed social inequality.

Buddhism was a revolt against the Brahmanic sacrificial system and denied the authority of the Vedas as calculated to point out the path to salvation. And this is at the root of the hostility between itself and Brahmanism. Buddhism was propagated by a number of devoted persons. But the efforts of Asoka contributed a good deal to its acceptance by the large mass of the people. Though of course in his edicts he does not inculcate upon his people faith in Buddha and Samgha, still the Dharma or righteousness that he preaches is in the spirit of Buddhism. Asoka prohibited the killing of animals for religions sacrifices, and was very particular about it. In one edict he does seem to allow the flesh of certain animals to be used,but he carefully enumerates those tiiat should not be killed at all, and the conditions under which others should not be killed. Large feasts or banquets, where hundreds of thousands of animals were killed, he prohibited. In another edict he proclaims that by his efforts the destruction of animals, which was enormous before, has almost ceased by his religious orders or instructions. The old Vedic sacrificial religion, i.e. the Karmakandit, thus received an effectual blow not only at the hands of Buddhists generally, but of Asoka particularly; so that it became obsolete; though attempts were made later on to revive it.