Devdutt Pattanaik - Why is Ram misogynist, but not the Buddha?
Hinduism is patriarchal. No doubt about it. So are
Christianity and Islam, Sikhism and Shinto, Jainism and Judaism. But Buddhism?
It is not the first religion that comes to mind when we talk about misogyny.
The assumption is that Buddhism is rational, modern,
agnostic and liberal in matters of gender and sexuality. Book after book has
conditioned us to see the celibate and chaste Buddha as a kind of androgynous,
asexual, gentle sage with a beatific smile. Yet, some of the earliest and most
systematic documentation of rejection of female sexuality in Indian literature
is from Buddhist scriptures, especially the rules of monastic discipline (Vinaya
pitaka), traditionally attributed to the Buddha himself.
Rules of monastic discipline: Consider this:
* There are more rules for nuns (bhikkunis) than
monks (bhikkus), 331 as against 227, because while everyone has to
control their desires, women have the additional burden of not “arousing the
desires of men”.
* Monks are advised to sleep indoors, not outdoors, after an
incident where women had sex with a monk while he, apparently, was sleeping
under a tree. Monks who do not wake up, or do not yield to temptation despite
being accosted by women for sexual pleasure, are seen as innocent and not
expelled from the monastic order. Monks who voluntarily submit to female charms
are declared defeated (parajita).
* In the tale of Sudinna, a young monk breaks his vows of
celibacy after his old parents beg him to give his wife, whom he had abandoned,
a child so that his family lineage may continue. When this is revealed, the
Buddha admonishes him thus: “It is better for you to have put your manhood in
the mouth of a venomous snake or a pit of burning charcoal than a woman.”
* In one conversation, the Buddha states, “Of all the scents
that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman. Of all the tastes
that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman. Of all the voices
that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman. Of all the caresses
that can enslave, none is more lethal than that of a woman.”
• Buddhist monks, unlike other monks of that period, are not
allowed to wander naked for fear they would attract women with their charms,
believed to be enhanced because of their chastity and celibacy.
• Monks are advised to walk straight, without moving their
arms and bodies too much, looking at the ground and not above, lest they get
enchanted by “the glance of a woman”. Monks are also advised not to walk with
single women, or even sit in the company of men, for it might lead to gossip.
• In a conversation with Kassappa, Bakulla says that in 80
years he has not only not had sex, he has not even entertained thoughts of
women, or seen them, or spoken to them.
• Once a woman laughed and showed her charms to Mahatissa,
but he remained unmoved. When asked by her husband if he found his wife
unattractive, Mahatissa said he saw no woman, only a heap of bones.
* In the story of Sundarasammudha, who leaves his wife to
become a monk, the wife approaches the husband and tells him, in what is an
allusion to the ashrama system of Hinduism, that they should
enjoy the pleasures of marital life till they are old and only then join the
Buddhist order together and attain nirvana (liberation through
cessation of desires). The monk replies that he would never submit to such
seductions which are the snares of death.
* The texts repeatedly describe celibate monks as
embodiments of dhamma (the path of enlightenment) while the
lustful insatiable women are described as embodiments of samsara (the
cycle of death and rebirths).
* Sangamaji left his wife and son to become a monk. One day,
his wife and son come to him and beg him to come back but he does not respond,
and shows no sign of husbandly or fatherly instincts and so is praised by Buddha
of achieving true detachment and enlightenment. A true monk, for whom “female
sexuality is like the flapping wings of a gnat before a mountain” is a vira (hero).
* Buddha makes his half-brother Nanda join the monastic
order but Nanda is engaged to marry the most beautiful woman in the land and
pines for her. So Buddha shows him celestial nymphs who live in the heaven of
the 33 gods (Swarga of Hindu Puranas). Buddha asks Nanda if his
fiancée is as beautiful as these nymphs, and Nanda says she is like a deformed
monkey compared to these nymphs. Buddha says that if he continues to walk the
path of dhamma he would be reborn in this heaven and be able
to enjoy these nymphs. Spurred by this thought, Nanda actively and diligently
engages in monastic practices. By the time he attains enlightenment, all
desires for the nymphs and the fiancée are gone.
* Different types of queers (pandakas) are listed who
should not be ordained as monks. These include hermaphrodites, transsexuals,
eunuchs, cross-dressers, and effeminate gay men. This is done following stories
of monks being seduced, or courted, by pandakas, and also because keepers
of a nearby elephant stable mocks a monastery because one of its members is a pandaka, who
constantly courts them sexually.
* Female hermaphrodites, women who dress like men, or those
of deviant sexuality or simply those who do not look like women and are
“man-like” women cannot be ordained as nuns.
* There are rules that refer to bestiality. Monks are warned
against too much affection for cows and female monkeys.
The code’s influence:
Initially, none of these strictures were codified. There was no Vinaya
Pitaka. But as many people joined the monastery (vihara), they
started behaving in certain ways that were deemed unworthy of monks and seekers
of Buddha-hood. People also started making fun of the Buddhist way. So to
protect the reputation of the dhamma and the sangha,
Buddha began putting down these rules.
These codes were compiled orally and narrated by Upali (a
barber before he became one of Buddha’s 10 chief disciples) in the first
Buddhist council, a year after Buddha’s death. This happened 2600 years ago. A
thousand years later, these rules were systemised and codified by one
Buddhaghosha who lived in the monastery at Anuradhapura in Sri Lanka.
By the time Islam arrived, Buddhism had already waned in
most of India. But the Buddhist idea equating women’s sexuality with entrapment
and pollution informed Hindu monastic orders (mathas), especially those
instituted by Adi Shankara. Shankara was often called a Buddhist with Hindu
packaging, by his critics. In his monastic order, he went a step further: there
were no nuns.
If we believe the theory that “Jesus lived in India”, this
code of monks could even be said to have influenced the anti-women stance
outside India too – in Christianity as well, for while the Buddha abandoned his
wife, Yashodhara, Jesus never married at all. Significantly Buddhaghosa lived
around the same time as St Augustine of Hippo came forth with his anti-sex and
anti-women trope in the Catholic Church.
The turning point: It is interesting that in all
writings of patriarchy and misogyny related to India, scholars quote theRamayana and
the Manu Smriti, yet historically these were composed after the Vinaya
Pitaka. Buddha lived in pre-Mauryan times while the Ramayana, with its
concern for kingship, was written in post-Mauryan times. Arguments of oral
traditions and astrology-based dating that place Ram to pre-Buddhist times
appeal only to nationalists, not historians. Manu Smriti and otherdharmashastras were
written in the Gupta era when Brahmins played a key role in legitimising
kingship in much of peninsular India. The pre-Buddhist Vedic rituals speak of
female sexuality in positive terms as they are concerned primarily with
fertility and wealth-generation. The pre-Buddhist Upanishads do not bother much
with gender relations and are more interested in metaphysics. Much of Buddhist
literature was put down in writing long before Sanskrit texts (Ashokan edicts
in Prakrit date back to 2300 years; the earliest Sanskrit royal inscriptions
have been dated to only 1900 years ago). This makes Buddhist writings the
watershed of Indian literature, after which womanhood came to be seen as
polluting, obstacles to the path of wisdom.
We could, of course, argue that that most educated Buddhists
were originally Brahmins and so transplanted Hindu patriarchy into Buddhism,
that the Buddha had no such intention. We can insist that Vedas and only the
Vedas, are the source of misogyny. This follows the pattern of “good” Buddhism
and “bad” Hinduism structure we find in most colonial and post-colonial
academic papers.
The complete silence on the subject of misogyny so firmly
entrenched in the Buddhist scriptures, and traced to the Buddha, is quite
remarkable. Research on this topic is well known but restricted to academic
circles. There is ‘Buddhism after Patriarchy’ by Rita Gross and ‘Bull
of a Man’ by John Powers, for example. But there is a strong desire in
these books to explain away the patriarchy, rather than put the spotlight on
them. It is almost as if the scholars are irritated, even embarrassed, that the
facts interfere with contemporary perceptions of the Buddha.
Abandoning sex, which effectively means abandoning women,
for a “higher” purpose – be it enlightenment or spirituality or service to the
nation – has since become a popular model, embraced by religious sects, as well
political organisations such as the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh. It has been
glamourised and valorised as the ultimate indicator of masculinity and purity.
We can trace, at least one major tributary of this idea, to the Vinaya
Pitaka of the Buddha, who abandoned his wife, without her consent.
