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The Buddha

The achievement of Buddha-hood was not unique to the historical
Gotama. According to Buddhist tradition there have been several Buddhas
in the past, and some twenty-four have appeared in the preceding cycles
of time. In the present aeon or kala, Gotama was the fourth to appear.
He was preceded by Kakusandha, Konagamana and Kassapa.

In the Mahapadana Suttanta (Rhys Davids, Vol. III, Part II, 1910,
Ch. 14) Gotama Buddha is said to have related the histories of the last
seven Buddhas, starting with Vipassi and taking in the four Buddhas of
this aeon including himself. In this account the following features are of

particular interest because they are reflected in one way or another in
the religious life of Thai villagers:

the Buddha manifests the remarkable faculty of remembering past
births, which is attributed to his clear discernment of truth through
personal effort and is also a revelation from the gods;

a Buddha, before he makes his appearance in human form, exists as
a bodhisattva in the heaven of delight and at the proper time descends into
his mother's womb mindful and self-possessed;

in the biography of Vipassi—which was later transferred to the Buddha
himself—it is stated that he was born of royal status, endowed with the thirty-two
marks of the Great Man, and that there were two careers open to him:

Thus it is stated that a world conqueror and a world renouncer are two
sides of the same coin;

the biographies also state, in terms of a time scale, the progressive
shortening of human life and by implication also its degradation. Thus
while the length of life at the epoch in which Vipassi was born was
8,000 years, in this aeon the length of life diminishes successively from
4,000 years at the time of Kakusandha to 100 at the time of Gotama.

This fateful decline, however, is counteracted by the idea that a Buddha
appears from aeon to aeon under similar circumstances to preach a similar
faith, which hopeful message is represented most importantly for contemporary
villagers in the beliefs centring around Maitreya, the next
Buddha to come.

The most important Buddha is, of course, the historical Gotama who
embodies the idea of all Buddhas. And the orientations to this Buddha
in popular Buddhism are complex and paradoxical.

One puzzle is the relation between the Buddha and the gods in the
Buddhist pantheon. The Pitaka (Pali Canon) characterize the Buddha
as omniscient and pure but do not suggest that he is a god; however, they
do represent him as instructing the devas and receiving their homage.
Two transformations took place in institutionalized Buddhism which
can be expressed in terms of the pantheon.

A parallel change took place in respect to the gods. The Canonical
doctrine of the Dhamma had very little to do with the devas, in the sense
that the truths of religion did not depend on them although their existence
was granted; for example, when the Buddha preached in Magadha the
local deities were not considered the personifications of cosmic forces
or the revealers of truth. (In the Kevaddha Sutta, for instance, the Buddha
belittles Brahma and the gods as being ignorant of the answers to certain
basic metaphysical problems; the Digha Nikaya also contains the ironical
account of the origin of gods as being a progressive descent from superior
worlds, while the gods (especially Brahma) have illusions of being the
creators.) The critical change incorporated in the cosmological scheme is
the conversion of deities into protectors of the faith, who take their
place in the karmic scheme. In the Jatakas, for instance, Indra (who, in
the Hindu Vedas, is a demon slayer) is depicted as the heavenly counterpart
of a pious Buddhist king, protector of the religion whose throne grows
hot when a good man is in trouble. From being autonomous powers
gods had now become mediators.

Another puzzle—which is probably of more direct concern to us—is
the dual orientation to the Buddha. On the one hand, the Buddha, a
human being, is dead and has reached nirvana. This being so he cannot
directly affect human beings or influence their future status, because
salvation is a personal quest. On the other hand, the Buddha has been
credited with supernatural powers—when alive he had extraordinary
markings and qualities, and after his death his relics, mahadhatu (which
significantly include jewels, ornaments and the holy texts) have spiritual
power; so do consecrated images. Thus these objects are conceived as
`magical power stations' and have been associated with rain-making
ceremonies in Ceylon (Geiger 1960) and Thailand (Wales 1931).

The following facts drawn from the literature on Buddhist traditions
might help in the solution of this problem. A passage written by Hardy
(1860) vividly describes the worshipper's relation to the Buddha; the
description is as valid today as it was for the last century; it could apply
equally well to Ceylon, Burma, or Thailand.

The problem of the inconsistency of worshipping an extinct being and
of soliciting the aid of an external agent in a religion which doctrinally
maintains that salvation is the product of a personal quest and striving
is a classical one. It was one of the dilemmas dealt with in The Questions
of King Milinda, written at the beginning of the Christian era.

The question posed by King Milinda to Nagasena was that if the
Buddha accepts gifts he cannot have passed entirely away, he must be
still in union with the world. On the other hand, if he has escaped from
all existence and is unattached to the world, then honours could not be
offered to him.

Nagasena's answer, if sophistic, is yet fascinating, for it invokes some
incisive analogues. The Blessed One is set entirely free and therefore
accepts no gift. Nevertheless, acts done to him, notwithstanding his having
passed away and not accepting them, are of value and bear fruit. If gods
or men put up a building to contain the jewel treasure of the Buddha's
relics, the devotee attains to one or another of the three glorious states by
virtue of the supreme good which resides in the jewel treasure of the
Buddha's wisdom.

A great and glorious fire that has died out would not accept any supply
of dried grass or sticks; but men by their own effort can produce fire.
A great and mighty wind, were it to die away, cannot be produced again;
but men, oppressed by heat or tormented by fever, can produce wind
by means of fans and punkahs. The broad earth does not acquiesce in all
kinds of seeds being planted all over it; yet it acts as a site for these seeds
and as a means of their development.

The message conveyed by this argument is that the Buddha's attainment
is symbolized by the relics, that when men pay homage and give gifts
to the Buddha, goodness is caused to arise within them, that in fact the
symbols of the Buddha act as a field of merit and men by their own
ethical efforts can plough, plant and produce fruits in it.

What is lacking in Nagasena's argument is any statement of the spiritual
power emanating per se from the sacred objects which commemorate the
Buddha. According to popular tradition, the Buddha told his disciple
Ananda that the objects that may be properly worshipped are relics of
his body, things erected in commemoration of him (e.g. images), and
articles he possessed, such as the alms bowl, girdle, bathing robe, etc.
The sacred bo tree under which he attained understanding has come to
be an object of reverence. So have the sacred books which contain the
doctrines that the Buddha taught.

All these objects are called cetiya on account of the satisfaction they
produce in the mind.

The religious monument that has attracted special comment by writers
(e.g. Leach 1958, 1962; yalman 1964) is the dagoba (dhatu garba = relic
womb), which brings together and transcends the polarities of death and
life, impurity and purity, dissolution and fertile creation.

Similarly, it could be argued that certain religious objects and persons
bring together and synthesize the notions of spiritual and political
sovereignty. These notions are eminently symbolized in the person of the
king as chakravartin (universal ruler) and as bodhisattva (Buddha-to-be).
The relation of the sacred tooth relic in Ceylon and the Emerald Buddha
image in Thailand to the institution of kingship (and statehood) under
the umbrella of Buddhism is well known. Perhaps less well understood
is the symbolism of Buddha's footprint on the top of the mountain (e.g.
Adam's Peak in Ceylon, Phrabat in Thailand, and Mt Popa in Burma).
Just as the cult of the spirit of the mountain was traditionally associated
with political unification and centralization under a king, so does the
footprint on the mountain top declare that the people and the territory
in question are the inheritance of the Buddha. These associations lead
us back to the sacred mountain of Meru at the centre of the universe,
often artificially reproduced in the centre of the royal cities of South-east
Asian kingdoms.

So we return to the puzzle: What is the ordinary Buddhist's orientation
to the Buddha and his material embodiments and symbols? It is unconvincing
to say that what has been described are aspects of `magical
Buddhism' which are `meaning-raising devices' (Ames 1964). This interpretation
is that of a theologian and not of an anthropologist. More
convincing are interpretations which see the resolution of the polarities
of pure-impure, death-fertility in the relics of the Buddha. This is for
me a starting point for unravelling the problem of conversion and transfer.
If by one criterion the pure entities are remote and inaccessible, and if by
another, relics and texts (and jewels and gold) are invested with power, it
is the final bringing together of power plus purity, the inaccessible and
the accessible, as constituting a primary problem in religious technology,
that has to be explained.