The Buddhist attitude towards the origin and evaluation of society

Lectured by Prof.G.D.SumanapalaThe Buddha appeared in India in the 6th B.C. at the time of Buddha there had been various types of religions and philosophical traditions mainly belonging to brahmanic and Sramana culture. The Brahmajala emphasized 62 philosophies and views and gives the views of six famous teachers in the Samannaphala sutta of Dighanilaya. At that time there was main religion is Hinduism and another religion was Jainism, both were older than Buddhism. All religion attempts to explain the origin of things and how it happens. The most popular teaching of the time of the Buddha was Hinduism. This religion believed in a Supreme creator God. According to it everything is a creation of the supreme creator god. In Pali this is called Issara-nimmanavada. Then there were those who believed in a creation by the ‘self’ (atta). Some others believed that everything happens because of some other external power like luck, fate etc. there were others who believed in creation by the ‘self’. These two are referred to as Paramkatam (external creation) and Sayam katam internal creation) then there were still other who said that everything happen due to no cause or condition (ahetu-appaccaya). They maintained that everything happened by chance.

The Buddha presented a new theory, which has been described as a continuous natural process. This Buddhist view is clearly presented in Agganna sutta of the Dighanikaya. In this Sutta it shows how the evolution of human beings took place. According to modern thought the evolution of human being is a process of going upward but in the Agganna Sutta it is mentioned that the human being is in a degrading process, the evolution of human being is in two processes. The Buddha does not speak about the first beginnings of the origin of Samsara for he says first beginnings of are not known (anamataggo yan samsaro pubbakoti na pannayati). He says that there is a continuous process of contraction (Samvatta) and expansion or evolution (vivatta). The world gets destroyed with contraction and then again re-evolves with vivatta.

The Agganna Sutta explains how the world after involution gets destroyed the whole thing become covered with a sort of dark mass of gas, and everything is in a state of boiling mass of water. This cools down, and the earth forms. The crust of the earth is fragrant and this attracts beings (satta) from other world called abhassara. They were self heinous beings that could fly. They come down and began to taste the tasty earth (rasapathavi). This eating of the crust of the earth with greed brings about physical changed. They lose their brightness ability to fly etc.

It is at this period that the sun moon day and night etc, come into being. When the earth crust is over the beings begin to eat different kinds of plants that grew on their own on the earth. The climate, food habits and the psychological factors brought about many more changes is these beings. These being usually collected their food daily. But some became lazy and they began to collect for a number of days at days at once. This is the beginning of hoarding of food.

Very soon due tom over exploitation of the products of the earth these plants stopped growing. Then the beings had to grow their own food. This shows the beginning of settled agricultural life. When they began to grow their own food they became concerned about their growth land and cultivation became important. So they put up fences and divided the land. This is the beginning of private property. Some greedy people began to steal others property and this led to numerous other bad and corrupt practices such lying, using harsh speech, violence etc. this led of conflicts in the society.

When there was no peace in society the people got together and discussed about this and decided to appoint a suitable person from among themselves to catch the wrong doers. Punish them and protect their fields. As this person was appointed by common consent that is with the agreement of the public he was first known as Mahasammata (great elect) properly. This person as he was protecting the paddy fields (khetta) was called Khattiya. As he was making the people happy performing his duty righteous, he came to be called Raja, this according to Buddhism is the origin of the Brahmana class.

The society continued in these women. In spite of there being a ruler yet there were corruption in the society. Some being unhappy abandoned society and went into forests some os them meditated and they came to be called Jhayaka- meditator other who did not meditate but engaged in performing rites and rituals came to be called Ajjhayakas-non-meditator. This is given on the origin of the Brahmana class.

There was other who did not very much worry about the corruption in the society. They led settled married lives doing their fobs such as agriculture cattle greed, trends etc. They came to be called the Vessa in Sanskrit is Vais’ya. There were other yet other who were engaged or lowly professions such as hunting and they came to be called the Suddas.

This explanation complication rejects the Divine creation theory, and the division of beings into different species. Instead this presents a theory of continues graduals evolution taking place due to varied cause and condition this also shows that human beings are of one kind, the mankind.

Therefore the Buddha does not explain the evolution of the world or society in metaphysical way but according to the theory of Dependent origination.