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LAY MORALITY FROM A DOCTRINAL POINT OF VIEW

I conclude this chapter with a statement of what can be gleaned from
some of the doctrinal texts as regards the recommended conduct for the
layman. Let me emphasize that the results of this inquiry cannot be
expected to tell us in any complete sense what norms direct the behaviour
of contemporary Thai villagers or how villagers relate these norms to
classical Buddhist values.

It is clear that, as taught by the teachings of the Buddha, salvation is
best attainable by those of the homeless bhikkhu state, and that there is
a gap between the way of the monk and the life of the laity, who can
practise only a lower form of righteousness. The ethic of non-action and
pure contemplation is the ideal way of the monk: `whoever would do
good deeds, should not become a monk'.

The ethic of conduct promulgated by early Buddhism for the ordinary
householder was not elaborate. I have already discussed the five precepts.
Other avoidances and exhortations appear in the texts. Certain trades
were expressly forbidden the upasaka (lay disciple), namely the butcher's
trade, caravan trade, and trade in weapons, poison, alcohol and slaves.
The Sigalovada Suttanta, which Buddhagosa rendered as `The Vinaya
of the Houseman', is supposed to be Buddha's explicit statement on the
whole domestic and social duty of the Buddhist layman. In this homily,
Buddha gives Sigala many admonitions on how to avoid six channels of
dissipating wealth and how to protect the six quarters: parents as the
east, teachers as the south, wife and children as the west, friends and
companions as the north, servants and work people as the nadir, religious
teachers and brahmans as the zenith. Buddha once told another layman
that out of his income he should spend one part for his daily needs,
invest two parts in his business, and save the fourth part for an emergency.

In the Noble Eightfold Path, or the Middle Path, proposed by the
Buddha as leading to the cessation of dukkha (suffering), three categories
comprise ethical conduct (sila)—namely, right speech, right action, and
right livelihood—all of which as far as the layman is concerned are defined
by the avoidances and admonitions stated earlier. To these we may add
exhortations to listen to sermons and temporary asceticism (observance
of eight or ten precepts). But one obligation of the pious layman was
singled out for emphasis and has come to loom large in religious conduct
as defining the concept of dana (generosity)—that is the duty of materially
supporting the homeless holy seekers. The insistence by the Buddha that
the salvation seeker be a homeless wanderer, carrying about him the
minimum material needs, made it incumbent on the laity to fill the begging

bowls with food. Dana came to constitute one of the highest merits
available to the lay disciple. The giving of dana stems naturally from the
story of Buddha himself and his disciples who were invited to meals by
the converted layman. (`And Sonadanda the Brahmin satisfied the Blessed
One, and the brethren, with his own hand, with sweet food, both hard
and soft, until they refused any more'—Sonadanda Sutta (Rhys Davids,
Vol. II, 1899, Ch. 4).) In the homily that Buddha preached to Sigala,
often taken to be his most comprehensive discourse on the duties of a
layman, he is reported to have said: `In five ways should the clansman
minister to recluses and Brahmins as the zenith: by affection in act and
speech and mind; by keeping open house to them, by supplying their
temporal needs.' In due course support of the religion included building
vihares and dagobas, and making gifts of land and other material goods
to the Sangha. Such acts took form as the visible expressions of piety,
inculcated by the monks themselves in their preachings.

The Pali Canon as such has little to say on the beneficial effects of the
practice of dana for the layman. We have to turn to the later non-Canonical
literature to find such discourse. The Questions of King Milinda, which is
an early document (Rhys Davids 1963, Part II), began to formulate
a doctrine which was later elaborated on in writings for the edification
of the laity. For instance, the Forty-Ninth Dilemma poses the question
of gifts to the Buddha. On the one hand, the Buddha refused to `chaunt
for wage' (`Gifts chaunted for in sacred hymns/Are gifts I must not
take...'), but on the other hand, when preaching the truth, he was in the
habit of beginning with the so-called `preliminary discourse', in which
giving took first place and goodness only the second. To this contradiction
Nagasena answered that it was the custom of all the Tathagatas to begin
with a discourse on alms-giving in order to make the hearts of hearers
inclined to the sermon, and then afterwards to urge them to righteousness.
`The supporters of the faith, O king, the lordly givers, have their hearts
thus softened, made tender affected. Thereby do they cross over to the
further shore of the ocean of transmigration by the aid of the boat of
their gifts, by the support of the cause-way of their gifts.'

The Forty-First Dilemma poses the question of why houses should
be built for the homeless ones and why this act should be recommended
as meritorious. Besides pointing out the advantage of dwelling places to
monks, Nagasena pronounced that those who make such donations `shall
be delivered from rebirth, old age and death'.

I have elsewhere (Tambiah 1963) referred to Sinhalese literature extolling
the benefits of good deeds to the Sangha. I shall here mention one example
because it aptly describes the orientations and aspirations of Thai villagers,

especially those hopes associated with Maitreya, the coming Buddha. The
example is taken from the Pujavaliya (The History of Offerings), which was
written in the thirteenth century. It gives an account of all the offerings
which the Master received as a bodhisattva. A most explicit exhortation
to an ethic of deeds is contained in the dialogue between Buddha and his
chief disciple, Sariputta, given in the Anagathavansa Desana. Sariputta
beseeches the Buddha to tell him when the next Buddha, Maitreya,
will be born and what his nature will be. The Buddha sets out in detail
who will and who will not see the holy one: among those who are to be
rewarded with chakravarti pleasures and sight of Maitreya are those who
build monasteries, vihares, preaching halls, resting places, plant bo trees,
and minister to the needs of the priesthood by donating food, clothes,
fans and incense. `In short if one flower, one lamp or one spoonful of
rice is given on behalf of the three ratnas (triple gem) and if appropriate
pratana (wish) is made, that person, O! Sariputta, will see Maitri Buddha
and escape from samsara (cycle of rebirths).'

In Thailand, as in Ceylon, the possibility of attaining these earthly
ideals is expressed in the lay donor's uttered wish which accompanies
the gift, and the monks' `statement of merit' (pinvakya in Sinhalese)
recited after acceptance. A Sinhalese pinvakya is worth quoting here, for
it interjects between now and the final birth many lives of earthly and
heavenly splendour, to be climaxed at the very end, in the distant future,
by final extinction and the appearance of the saviour Maitreya.

A question posed by those who take as their point of departure the
classical doctrine is whether the Buddha's admonitions to the layman
constituted a systematic positive code of conduct for everyday life. Max
Weber, for instance, came to the conclusion that the lay morality propounded
by Buddhism `bore the character of an extremely colourless
"bourgeois" ethic'. This conclusion was presumably derived from early
Buddhism's alleged lack of direct concern with the social order, and the

paucity of its precepts and their formulation in terms of rather vague
exhortations to avoidance of certain excesses. Hence the content that
poured into them can be varied and fluid, depending on the social environment
in which Buddhism takes root.

This method of argument can be pursued as well from the standpoint of
comparative religion. Thus it can be said that medieval Christianity
formulated a methodical lay morality for an organic society (which took
a stratified social order for granted) in terms of a status relativism which
enabled different persons in the social order to follow different prescribed
paths to salvation, and integrated these ethical endeavours with the
imperatives of the social order. Mature Hinduism wrought a similar
design: paralleling the caste system, which in itself was a religious design,
was the idea of different paths to salvation—the way of ritual, the way of
bhakti (adoration), the way of yoga (mental discipline), etc. It is said that
Buddhism contains no such complex conception of status relativism linked
with the social order, and instead holds a different kind of prospect: each
person, whatever his present station in life, can through a succession of
future lives rise up and enter the path of salvation. In the end salvation is
possible for all, and is not tied to the moral consequences of one single
finite life as in the Christian conception. Hinduism by comparison, while
firmly grounded in the theory of ethical causation (karma) and cycle of
rebirths (samsara), translated present existence into an ethic of caste-bound
morality through the concept of dharma (morality). In Buddhism the
only firm structuring is the distinction between the monk's superior
mode of life and the layman's inferior path; the elaborations concern the
former while the latter is an ill-mapped thoroughfare.

A continuation of this mode of analysis—the deriving of deductive
inferences from doctrinal tenets—can lead to further propositions. Thus
Max Weber has argued that although early Buddhism did evolve some
kind of secondary morality for the laity `it in no way satisfied the specifically
religious need for emotional experience of the superworldly and for
emotional aid in external and internal distress. Such unsatisfied emotional
needs were and are always decisive for the psychological character of all
soteriologies of intellectuals.' Hocart, in a different context, argued that
Buddhism, being essentially philosophical and rationalistic, provided no
consolation for or relief from the mundane distresses and crises of life;
and that under such conditions cults, dealing with the powers of darkness,
and a corresponding priesthood, dealing with death and decay, must
develop. `If one section (excellent castes) may not concern itself with
the inauspicious ritual of death for fear of contaminating the auspicious
ritual of life, then some other section must handle death and decay, for

these are inexorable facts which must be dealt with' (Hocart 1950, p. 19).
This deductive logic escalates further to postulate that since the lower
ethic fashioned for the laity was not integrated with a salvation goal, lay
religion would not later on take the course of innerworldly puritanical
asceticism but that of a ritualistic `idolatrous' religion.[5] In the light of
these considerations regarding the nature of pristine Buddhism on the
one hand, and the religious needs of the masses on the other, it has been
argued that the cult of magic and of saviours will develop.

The foregoing paragraphs indicate well the limiting and restrictive
nature—and sometimes the excessive character—of deductions from a
certain kind of premise. It is not so much that such deductions are wrong
but that they tell us very little about the structure and texture of a people's
religious system. From the fact that doctrinal Buddhism did not contain
an elaborate ethical code for the layman it is erroneous to postulate that
this is a permanent feature of any contemporary people without first
investigating their pattern of life in terms of their own formulations.
Secondly, to argue that because pristine Buddhism was of a certain sort,
certain other religious cults would grow up to fill in the vacuum of its
deficiencies is not only to work with a dubious historical hypothesis but
indeed to misunderstand the complex nature of religious systems in
general. Between the pseudo-historical argument that magical animism
develops among the masses (who are `idolatrous' anyway!) in order to
complement the one-sidedness of Buddhism, and the structural logic which
postulates that any religious system as a totality is necessarily arranged
in terms of oppositions, complementarities, dialectical tensions and
hierarchical positions, I prefer the latter, because it is less prejudicial
to the discovery and understanding of the ethnographic facts. It is not
the above-mentioned Weberian deductions on which I shall rely when
later on I unfurl the rich embroidery of Thai religion.