Fields of Blood (13 page)

Some renouncers broke even more completely with the Vedic system and were denounced as
heretics by the
Brahmins. Two in particular made a lasting impact, and significantly, both came from the gana-
sanghas. Destined for a military career, Vardhamana
Jnatraputra (c. 599–527) was the son of a
Kshatriya chieftain of the
Jnatra clan of
Kundagrama, north of modern Patna. At the age of thirty, however, he changed course and became a renouncer. After a long, difficult apprenticeship, he achieved enlightenment and became a
jina
(“conqueror”); his followers became known as
Jains. Even though he went further than anybody else in his renunciation of violence, it was natural for him, as a former warrior, to express his insights in military imagery. His followers called him Mahavira (“Great Champion”), the title of an intrepid warrior in the
Rig
Veda.
Yet his regime was based wholly on
nonviolence, one that vanquished every impulse to harm others. For Mahavira, the only way to achieve liberation (
moksha
) was to cultivate an attitude of friendliness toward everyone and everything.
⁸¹
Here, as in the
Upanishads, we encounter the requirement found in many great world traditions that it is not enough to confine our benevolence to our own people or to those we find congenial; this partiality must be replaced by a practically expressed
empathy for everybody, without exception. If this was practiced consistently, violence of any kind—verbal, martial, or systemic—becomes impossible.

Mahavira taught his male and female disciples to develop a sympathy that had no bounds, to realize their profound kinship with all beings. Every single creature—even plants, water, fire, air, and rocks—had a
jiva,
a living “soul,” and must be treated with the respect that we wish to receive ourselves.
⁸²
Most of his followers were Kshatriyas seeking an alternative to the warfare and structural segmentation of society. As warriors, they would have routinely distanced themselves from the enemy, carefully stifling their innate reluctance to kill their own kind. Jains, like the Upanishadic sages, taught their disciples to recognize their community with all others and relinquish the preoccupation with “us” and “them” that made fighting and structural oppression impossible, because a true “conqueror” did not inflict harm of any kind.

Later, Jains would develop a complex mythology and cosmology, but in the early period nonviolence was their only precept: “All breathing, existing, living, sentient creatures should not be slain, nor treated with violence, nor abused, nor tormented, nor driven away. This is the pure, unchangeable law, which the enlightened ones who know have proclaimed.”
⁸³
Unlike warriors who trained themselves to become impervious to the agony they inflicted, Jains deliberately attuned themselves to the pain of the world. They learned to move with consummate caution lest they squash an insect or trample on a blade of grass; they did not pluck fruit from a tree but waited till it fell to the ground. Like all renouncers, they had to eat what they were given, even meat, but must never ask for any creature to be killed on their behalf.
⁸⁴
Jain meditation consisted simply of a rigorous suppression of all antagonistic thoughts and a conscious effort to fill the mind with affection for all creatures. The result was
samayika
(“equanimity”), a profound, life-changing realization that all creatures were equal. Twice a day Jains stood before their guru and repented of any distress they might, even inadvertently,
have caused: “I ask pardon of all living creatures. May all creatures pardon me. May I have friendship for all creatures and enmity toward none.”
⁸⁵

Toward the end of the fifth century, a Kshatriya from the tribal republic of Sakka in the foothills of the
Himalayas shaved his head and donned the renouncer’s yellow robe.
⁸⁶
After an arduous spiritual quest during which he studied with many of the leading gurus of the day, Siddhatta Gotama, later known as the
Buddha (“awakened one”), achieved enlightenment by a form of yoga based on the suppression of antagonistic feelings and the careful cultivation of kindly, positive emotions.
⁸⁷
Like Mahavira, his near contemporary, the Buddha’s teaching was based on
nonviolence. He achieved a state that he called
nibbana,
^b
because the greed and aggression that had limited his humanity had been extinguished like a flame.
⁸⁸
Later the Buddha devised a meditation that taught his
monks to direct feelings of friendship and affection to the ends of the earth, desiring that all creatures be free of pain, and finally freeing themselves of any personal attachment or partiality by loving all sentient beings with the “even-mindedness” of
upeksha.
Not a single creature was to be excluded from this radius of concern.
⁸⁹

It was summed up in the early prayer, attributed to the Buddha, recited daily by his monks and lay disciples.

The Buddha’s enlightenment had been based on the principle that to live morally was to live for others. Unlike the other renouncers, who retreated from human society, Buddhist monks were commanded to return to the world to help others find release from pain. “Go now,” he told his first disciples, “and travel for the welfare, and happiness of the people, out of compassion for the world, for the benefit, welfare, and happiness of gods and men.”
⁹¹
Instead of simply eschewing violence,
Buddhism demanded a positive campaign to assuage the suffering and increase the happiness of “the whole world.”

The Buddha summed up his teaching in four
“Noble Truths”: that existence was dukkha; that the cause of our pain was selfishness and greed; that nirvana released us from this suffering; and that the way to achieve this state was to follow the program of meditation, morality, and resolution that he called the “Noble Path,” which was designed to produce an alternative
aristocracy. The Buddha was a realist and did not imagine that he could single-handedly abolish the oppression inherent in the varna system, but he insisted that even a vaishya or a shudra would be ennobled if he or she behaved in a selfless, compassionate manner and “abstained from the killing of creatures.”
⁹²
By the same token, a man or woman became a “commoner” (
pathujjana
) by behaving cruelly, greedily, and violently.
⁹³

His
sangha, or order of monks and nuns, modeled a different kind of society, an alternative to the aggression of the royal court. As in the tribal republics, there was no autocratic rule, but decisions were made in common. King
Pasenedi of
Koshala was greatly impressed by the “smiling and courteous” demeanor of the monks, “alert, calm and unflustered, living on alms, their minds remaining as gentle as wild deer.” At court, he said wryly, everybody competed acrimoniously for wealth and status, whereas in the sangha he saw monks “living together as uncontentiously as milk with water, looking at one another with kind eyes.”
⁹⁴
The sangha was not perfect—it could never entirely transcend class distinctions—but it became a powerful influence in India. Instead of melting away into the forests like other renouncers, the Buddhists were highly visible. The Buddha used to travel with an entourage of hundreds of monks, their yellow robes and shaven heads demonstrating their dissent from the mainstream, walking along the
trade routes beside the merchants. And behind them, in wagons and chariots laden with provisions, rode their lay supporters, many of them Kshatriyas.

The Buddhists and
Jains made an impact on mainstream society because they were sensitive to the difficulties of social change in the newly urbanized society of northern India. They enabled individuals to declare their independence of the big agrarian kingdoms, as the tribal republics had done. Like the ambitious vaishyas and shudras, Buddhists and Jains were self-made men, reconstructing themselves at a profound psychological level to model a more empathic humanity. Both were also in tune with the new commercial ethos. Because of their absolute rejection of violence, Jains could not engage in agriculture, which involved the killing of creatures, so they turned to trade and became popular in the new merchant communities.
Buddhism did not demand complex metaphysics or elaborate, arcane rituals but was based on principles of reason, logic, and empirical experience that were congenial to the
merchant class. Moreover, Buddhists and Jains were pragmatists and realists: they did not expect everybody to become a monk but encouraged lay disciples to follow their teachings insofar as they could. Thus these spiritualties not only entered the mainstream but even began to influence the ruling class.